Most Shocking!

So today (of all days) we decided to go work outside and get some chores done. I might mention it didn’t get out of the 30’s today so it was freezing! I bundled up as much as possible with layers upon layers of clothes. Our first chore was to fix the electric fence because Carmel keeps getting out, like almost every day! Danny got a call at 3:00 in the morning just this morning saying he was out again. I think our neighbor (bless her heart!) is getting sick of him (to which I don’t blame her!)! We had up an electric tape up but it kept falling and it wouldn’t stay up and the horses keep walking right through it. It’s very frustrating because we spent so much on that fence only to find out that it’s fairly flimsy. So we decided to couple the electric take with good old sturdy horse wire. We hook it up to the solar shocker only to find it doesn’t work. So we put in a new battery and it still won’t work. We hooked up the ground wire and not even a pulse. So Danny grabs the ground wire and the fence and he screams and I try not to laugh (though I’m dying to inside) because it shocks the heck out of him. So we are trying to figure out why the fence won’t work on its own, but it will work perfectly well if you are dumb enough to grab the ground wire. So Danny starts trying to rewire the fence. I help where I’m needed and offer my suggestions. So he thinks he has it figured out and he asked me to touch the fence. I do and nothing! So he asked me to grab the ground wire to see if it still works, so I figure if the fence isn’t working then when I touch the ground wire I might (I stress that might!) be fine. But no!!! I screamed so loud! It hurt like no tomorrow. So we keep working on it and from here on out Danny asked me to grab the fence and call me a sucker I sure did! The one troubling thing was that the regular fence wouldn’t send out a shock unless you grabbed the ground wire and we couldn’t figure out why. So we come inside briefly to look it up online. After reading on the website Danny says we have it wired right. But then he looks at our shoes and realizes that we both have on rubber soled shoes. So he asked me to take off one of my shoes and touch just the fence. I’m thinking we’re going to go into town and buy a new solar shocker because there is something wrong with this one. So I’ve been right so far and the fence doesn’t work, right! Well I take off my shoe and stand on my one bare foot and touch the fence and son of a gun!!!! That shock hurt so bad! So this ate up the majority of our afternoon. After that we went and played Farkle for awhile with Ma and now I’m back inside where it’s nice and warm. I plan on staying that way for the rest of the evening. Just a little piece of advice; when your husband asked you to grab a hot wire, kindly decline!

Melissa Fitzwilliam