Fencing for Farmers
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Fortunately, my many years of fencing experience allows me to interpret many of these terms and explain some of the more common words and phrases in English. For example:
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Lunge: The most basic movement in modern fencing, this most often will occur when you trip over an old wire or step into a gopher hole, usually while carrying a roll of fencing, a wire stretcher, and two or more T-posts. Often immediately followed by the utterance of various phrases d'armes, unless your children are there helping you.
Feint: May occur when you finally tally up the costs of the three rolls of field fence and T-posts you ordered from the feed store.
Disengage: A common occurrence with a young farmer when his fiancée gets a first look at the young farmer's pay stubs.
Dérobement: An action that occurs when the wasps get into your coveralls.
Riposte: What happens when you discover that you put the post in too shallow a hole.
Hilt: Where you end up when you step into a fence post hole after lunging with a full roll of barbed wire in your hands. As in, "My leg went into the hole right up to the hilt." Very often followed by phrases d'armes whether any youngsters are there or not.
Parry: I'm guessing it's a reference to the late Parry Farhnam, the first man to try stretching a quarter mile of barbed wire with an ATV.
Foil: The successful stopping of a cow trying to get through a three-wire fence when you only got one wire up.
En Garde: What you should have been doing when you failed to foil the cow's escape.
Passé: Straight fence lines.
Touché: How a fencing artist feels about the criticism at Big Bob’s.
Beat: A long day of lunging and ripostes.
Forte: What your farm looks like if you're married to an over-enthusiastic fence installer.
Coup de Gráce: Not a fencing term per se; it's a chicken enclosure made of hay bales.
Well, that’s all for now, but rest assured I’ll be En Garde for more innovative fencing ideas. Now I'm off to the pawn shop. Harvey's got an old ATV for sale, and once I cut off the quarter mile of barbed wire wrapped around it, I bet it’ll run fine. And I think I can talk him down by a side of beef and 2 pounds of coffee.
Humor writer and woodworker Don Lewis takes his fencing seriously around the family farm in Northern Idaho. His website is www.DonLewisDesigns.com.
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