Shocking events at the fence

We used to have an extensive system of barbwire electric fence around the back field, from where Bergman's is now all the way to Meadow. There was a cross fence about halfway back where the little barn was; and rings around new tree plantings to protect them from grazing cows. This was 2 or 3 wires all the way and was powerful enough to, uh, generate a lot of painful memories.

There are still remnants and artifacts of this infrastructure - insulators here and there, one in the big apple tree, and a transformer ground rod in the shed. One of my jobs was to police the fence perimeter with a scythe and shears to keep weeds, grass and brush off the wires, lest they short out the juice. Sometimes it happened despite my best efforts, so we'd have a search and correct mission with lots of testing to see "is it on now?" queries.

Pa was extremely tolerant of electric shock. He thought nothing of working with live house wires or changing spark plugs in a running engine - with blue lightning bolts of electricity jumping around his fingers! As far as he was concerned the best way to see if the fence was on was to grab it. And he "encouraged" me to do the same. Usually, this required only a brief touch with the back of the hand, but for awhile we had a "pulse" system so we'd have to hold on long enough to test each mode (we got rid of that pretty quick because pigs were still getting out and Pa was convinced they had learned to time the pulses; I wasn't sure about that, but it was still ok with me). So "testing" was one, controlled, way to suffer shocks.

We kids were always wary of the fence, though, and two circumstances got me probably twenty times or more over my kid career. The first was opening and closing gates. We had insulated handles, but when everything was wet I never knew if I was in for a surprise anyway so I know exactly how a lab rat feels. The second was "crossing under" (or over). Best example of this was one morning returning from fishing in May Creek. On wet ground, with soaked pants and an old style steel telescoping fishing pole trying to crawl under the low wire in the back field I caught my shirt on a barb. At some point the pole made contact and I was in for it good. Probably didn't last more than a few seconds before I squirmed out but at the time it seemed I wasn't EVER going to make it.

Electrical contact wasn't the only way the fence was my nemesis. I ran into it once while trying to make a quick slide under and barbwired my face. The permannent scar across my right cheek just under the eye, faded now a bit, is a reminder of that youthful folly. I really didn't like that fence very much.