It’s Hot!

  The snow is beautiful. There’s ten or more inches piled on everything in the yard. Outside of the trees, the thirty mile an hour wind we got with the storm made some impressive drifts. It’s not cold, so it’s not miserable, just slow. Everything takes longer, especially with heavy wet snow.

  I got paths scooped to bins and buildings, bunks scooped and everybody fed their grain. Haying was a trick. I drove the loader tractor a ways, then dug it out with my trusty shovel and mutt scraper. It’s not a bad cardio workout. I took the girls on the pivots a couple bales. By the time I had dug the tractor out twice and got to the gate farthest from the pickup, because the drifts were too big to use the close gates, I was getting warm (In more ways than one).

  The gate popped right open, but for some reason, after I fed, I lacked about two inches from hook to loop. I didn’t have any tools, and the fence is hot both ways, so the gate was hot and the loop was hot. I hate getting shocked.

  I know some of you guys are tougher than me and would have just grabbed it, taken a couple hits, and hooked it up. Not me, I found a little plastic ice scraper in the tractor and tried a dozen different ways to pry, pull, or push the gate close enough to hook. On my last attempt, I had the gate handle in my left hand, and was trying to push the fence loop towards the hook on the scraper handle. I was SO close. I gave it just a little pelvic thrust to get that last fraction of an inch.

  I’m standing in a foot of wet snow, sweating bullets, coat, hat and gloves off. I went to ground and I went to ground the last place I wanted to go to ground. NEVER pelvic thrust an electric fence. That Gallegher 30 mile charger sucked the breath and nearly the life out of me. I dropped to my knees and tried to throw the handle. It made two circles around my wrist and the hook caught in the hammer loop of my coveralls. Now I’m basically tied to the fence and every second and a half it’s alternating shocking my hand and leg. I can’t catch my breath to even cry out.

  The cows think I’m playing charades. “Oh, Oh, Oh, a fish on the ice!” “No,no,no, he’s doing the worm.” “He’s MC Hammer!!” When I got loose, I noticed I had made the craziest snow angel you’ve ever seen. I staggered to my feet, I didn’t care anymore,  I grabbed the fence and hooked it up. I climbed up into the tractor, kind of weak kneed, and sat there thinking I could use a cigarette. I’ve never smoked. Seems odd.