Recently I was sharing with our kids some of my experiences with growing up on a dairy farm.

One of the fun tricks we used to do to unsuspecting cousins and friends was to stand beside the electric fence (in our rubber boots) and grab the the wire. There we would stand uneffected by the voltage that was coursing through that wire. We would then proceed to laugh hysterically as the naive friend (in running shoes) would wrap their fingers around the wire then receive a mild jolt of electricity. (I don't know...we didn't watch much TV)

Besides kids and their tricks the other interesting thing was to watch how animals responded to electric fences.

One of the things I could never fully understand was how a whole herd of cows could be contained in a pasture by a single strand of wire a couple of feet off the ground. There they would graze on short stubbly picked over grass while just on the other side of the wire there was corn growing or a field of hay almost ready for harvesting.The sad reality was that all it took was for the cows to be shocked once, then they never bothered with the wire again. Some days you could even keep the electricity off the wire and they still would be contained in that one field.

But, bring on spring, open the barn door and release the young 2 year old cows who have never experienced "the fence".There would be snorts and kicks, tails in the air and a mad charge to the corn field. They would not even see the fence as they busted through it......the funny thing was all it took was one crazy cow and the whole herd would follow and the great escape would occur.

So today, in the midst of a rainy day and all my mom chores I am thinking about cows, the farm and springtime............and listening to Israel's song (No limits) on my MP3 player...