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.