Baling Twine and Duct Tape

                                           Jean, Sydney, and Boyd splinting the calves feet
                                                 and ankles with boards and Duct tape.

(Published in Intermountain Farm and Ranch on Friday, March 18, 2011)

            The hay baler has to be considered one of the great inventions of all times; not necessarily for the activity of baling hay but for the availability of the baling twine.  Baling twine is to a farmer what aspirin is to a doctor: twine it together and call the mechanic in the morning. However, because the twine works so well, the proverbial “in the morning” never seems to arrive.

            Uses of this fixing medium are as numerous as farmers. Whenever the call “get me some baling twine” is heard the correct assumption can be that something is broken or loose or torn. Broken gates are fixed with it, fences are linked together with it, the shed is full of tools hung up with it, doors to pickups and trucks are tied shut with it and the tailgate of the pickup is secured with it.

            Twine is used for shoe laces, belts, halters on horses, ropes to lead calves and tie up dogs, tying a cowboy’s hat on during a wind storm, line to hang the clothes on, tying the tops of boots so snow doesn’t get down in them, etc. This is one way in which farmers recycle.

            Twine even works in the house. Not long ago our toilet broke – it wouldn’t flush. I remember this same thing happened about 18 months earlier and our oldest son, Doug, fixed it. Taking off the lid I assessed the new problem. There was a piece of water-rotted baling twine holding the two broken pieces of hardware together. This time I went to the hardware store and purchased the correct part. It will be interesting to see if the purchased part will outlast the twine. My bet goes on the store-bought part and also on the fact that the men will never be convinced that twine can be out-done. 

            Another piece of mending material is duct tape. The other day while reading a book, which I do a lot of, I came across the following information about duct tape:

There is a saying in every organization of the world, either military or civilian, that if something doesn’t move when it should, use WD-40, and if it moves when it shouldn’t, use duct tape. Originally designed during the Second World War to keep gun magazines and ammunition boxes watertight in jungle conditions, duct tape has since become the must have item for each and every mission. It was even used to fix a fender on the Apollo 17 Lunar Rover when it was broken on the moon, as well as making the circular CO2 scrubbers “fit” square holes to save the lives of the crew of the stricken Apollo 13. (Taken from Cross Fire by Dick Francis and Felix Francis.)

            We have found that duct tape can be used in places that baling twine can’t. For instance, the other day we had to splint all four legs on a new calf. It was trying to walk on the first joint of its legs with its hoofs bend under. Our son, Derrald, cut some small pieces of wood to use as splints. Then we wrapped the duct tape around the splints and legs. It didn’t take many hours for those splints to work and the calf was up walking normal on all four hoofs.

            Duct tape has been used to fix canvas on our birthing sheds, patch holes in the grain combine, and reattach a mirror on the pickup. Out driving around I’ve noticed it’s used to keep broken car windows in place and hold a fender onto a car.

            Why, with duct tape and baling twine, mechanics probably are losing a lot of business. And they probably have to use a lot of chemical to get the adhesive off from the cars and farm machinery that duct tape has been stuck to.

            Needless to say, farmers would be in a world of hurt without twine and duct tape. Wish I had invented one of those.

DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME

Beautiful sunrise, even with Daylight Saving Time

            Published March 4, 2011 in Intermountain Farm and Ranch

              Daylight Saving Time is almost upon us once again. “They” say young children have a hard time adjusting to this time change and I say they are not the only ones with adjustment problems. I’ve done some research, trying to find out who I can blame for this biannual disruption in my life. 

            There are a lot of stories about how, why and when this all started. One is that is was introduced to help the farmers have more time to do their work. Well, farmers work according to the light available, not according to the clock. A change in time doesn’t make a difference to agriculture. A poll conducted by the U.S. Department of Transportation indicated the reason Americans liked Daylight Saving Time is that they enjoyed the recreational opportunities offered by long summer evenings.

The idea of Daylight Saving Time was conceived by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 when he was in Paris as an American delegate. Some friends of Franklin, who had invented a new kind of oil lamp, applauded this conception. However, nothing was done about this until 1907 when a London builder by the name of William Willett wrote a pamphlet “Waste of Daylight”, proposing that clocks be advanced 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and moved back the same amount of time on four Sundays in September. About a year after Willett began lobbying for Daylight Saving Time, it attracted the attention of those in authority. In 1908 Robert Pearce – later Sir Robert Pearce – introduced a bill in the House of Commons making it mandatory to adjust the clocks. Though introduced in Parliament several times, this bill met with ridicule and opposition, especially from farming interests.

            Daylight Saving Time was instituted in the United States during World War I in order to save energy for war production by taking advantage of the later hours of daylight between April and October. During World War II, the federal government again required the states to observe the time change. Between the wars and after World War II, states and communities chose whether or not to observe Daylight Saving Time, causing much confusion. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized the length of Daylight Saving Time.

            A 1975 study done by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) showed that because there was less electricity used for lighting and appliances Daylight Saving Time trimmed electricity usage by a small but significant amount,. The rational behind this study showed a direct relationship between energy used in the demand for electricity for lighting homes and the times when people went to bed at night and got up in the morning. Although a 1976 report by the National Bureau of Standards disputed the 1975 DOT study, and found that Daylight Saving Time-related energy savings were insignificant, the DOT study continued to influence decisions about Daylight Saving Time. Actually, determining energy savings from Daylight Saving time is difficult and based on a variety of factors. It’s possible that little or no energy is saved by this change of time.

            Not all areas observe Daylight Saving Time. Arizona (except some Indian Reservations), Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and American Samoa have chosen not to.  European nations have been taking advantages of the time change for decades. Iceland observes year-round Daylight Saving Time. And Antarctica, where there is no daylight in the winter and months of 24-hour daylight in the summer, still have many of their research stations observe Daylight Saving Time to synchronize with the supply stations in Chile or New Zealand.

            But it really doesn’t matter if we switch to Daylight Savings Time or not: the cows need to be fed whether the clock says 2:30 or 3:30; the crops need to be planted  and irrigated, no matter what time the sun comes up or goes down; and the voles don’t seem to be affected much. I personally would like to see Daylight Saving time either completed abolished or moved to a permanent, year-round time. Then the young children and I wouldn’t have to go through this miserable process of adjustment twice a year!