The Electric fence and The Lawn Mower

[dennishoddy]

I had a beagle dog that was an escape artist from the 6' pen fence. That dog could get into the corner and climb that fence like a monkey.
So I put a wire around the top of the fence. That worked.
One day I hear a blood curdling scream in the back yard and go out to see 4 kids holding hands in a line with my son holding the hot wire and the kid on the end bouncing around like a leaf in the wind.
I hollered and my son let go. The kid on the end was bawling like a baby and thought I'm gonna be sued big time.
It won't shock anybody in the line, only the last person.
About a week later, I hear an ungodly scream coming from the back yard and I rush out to see the kid that had been on the end previously was holding the wire and another kid who's hand he was holding was flopping around.
Found out that was initiation to the neighborhood for newby's.
Took the fence down and put a top on the dog pen.

 

[Snattlerake]

Ahh shoot! You could've been a legend. They created a kind of ritual like a right of passage. Snowflakes today couldn't take what I went through.


I remember our FFA initiation. One of the pranks was a fence charger arc jumping an inch gap between two nails on a board wired to the baling wires going under a wet bale of straw. The rules, you had to grab the bale, pick it up and hold it for 3 seconds. The trick was they were not connected to the bale. Wearing a gunnysack dress with a green hand and a green foot was a right of passage and it was done for about 15 years or more.

 

[SoonerP226]

There use to be a old cowboy comedian cowcatcher might know the guys name but he talked about watching his dad and friends drinking beer and roping and he was playing with a hotshot when he noticed a trickle of water passing by his feet and he thought to hisself I wonder if I can dry up this little river with my hotshot? So he stuck it in the river and pulled the trigger I can’t remember the excitement that happened next but it ended with a wounded cowboy and a sore rump lol

I remember the story (or at least a similar one), but I cannot, for the life of me, remember the guy's name or the book in which I read it. He'd been watching the sci-fi movies at the local theater, and the hero had a ray gun the dried up lakes. He was next to the cattle chute, which was about six feet high, and the boards were close enough together that you couldn't see who or what was on the other side, so when he saw the "lake" starting to form under the bottom of the chute, he thought of the movie and hit it with his cattle prod. The next thing he heard was a sharp yell and something about "lightning from out of a clear blue sky."

He got away with it in the story I read, BTW.

 

[MacFromOK]

Equally humorous.. If I invite ya over and feed ya a nice ham and bean dinner you think you can do the TV trick for us ?

Ha! If cornbread is involved, I could do a trick for ya.

You'd be amazed how quickly a large quantity of beans, ham, and cornbread can be made to disappear...

 

[TerryMiller]

When I was a youngster, my grandfather always used 12V fence chargers, so I learned to check a fence for "hot" by grabbing the wire and then sticking a finger or two into the ground or grabbing a plant. Went to work for the wife's dad and didn't think that they used 120 volt chargers. Next trip into town, I bought one of those fence testers.

For the really stubborn critters (and bulls), they had an old neon sign transformer that they could hook up to a fence. Even with pieces of rubber inner-tube between the insulator and the metal fence post, one could still get a spark going through. We quit using that after the spark got a piece of that rubber inner-tube burning and started a fire in the stubble.

Oh, and I never tested that one.

 

[Tanis143]

I've had a few brushes with electric fences from going into customer's yards. One time I was working a drop (the cable from our pedestal to the customer's house) and forgot about the fence that was right beside me. I was reconnecting the drop with my right hand when I inadvertently moved my left hand just enough to hit the fence wire. Thankfully it was a pretty weak system as I was touching our tap which are grounded with 8 ft ground rods but yeah that hurt. I was feeling it for quite a while after that and I count myself lucky it didn't affect my heart as the current traveled across my body.

 

[SdoubleA]

A purty fair story ya spilled out thar neighbor.

I remember my FFA days very well....and thats all I got to say about that.

 

[dennishoddy]

When I was a youngster, my grandfather always used 12V fence chargers, so I learned to check a fence for "hot" by grabbing the wire and then sticking a finger or two into the ground or grabbing a plant. Went to work for the wife's dad and didn't think that they used 120 volt chargers. Next trip into town, I bought one of those fence testers.

For the really stubborn critters (and bulls), they had an old neon sign transformer that they could hook up to a fence. Even with pieces of rubber inner-tube between the insulator and the metal fence post, one could still get a spark going through. We quit using that after the spark got a piece of that rubber inner-tube burning and started a fire in the stubble.

Oh, and I never tested that one.

Oh yeah, found that out real early. Inner tubes nowadays have too much carbon black in them to be an insulator.
I have an electric fence tester that I carried around in my shooting vest when quail/pheasant hunting. Can't remember the name of it, but it's just a neon bulb with a metal hook on the back, and then about 3' of lead with a spike to stick into the ground. It's still in my vest, but I'm too lazy and it's raining to go to the shop and check the brand.