By Rick Houser-
I just filled a cardboard box with some papers and such that I want to store away. Of course, to seal it so the box won’t come open and let items spill out I got out a roll of my trusty duct tape. You know? That tape that a book was written about it entitled “1001 Uses for Duct Tape”. It is a product that I know I have used in many ways that I never would have thought of until I had the need. A resilient and durable product to be sure.
As I was wrapping that box, I got to thinking and I asked myself a question. Just what was used before the appearance of duct tape? Having been raised on the farm, the answer came to me in a flash. We used baler twine I answered quickly. As a matter of fact, I still have a few strands of baling twine hanging out in the shed just in case I can’t find or run out of duct tape. For the majority of my life using baler twine was the initoial answer to a problem.
I owned a hay baler and we baled a lot of hay. It took two pieces of twine to hold a 42-inch bale of hay or straw together. So if you bale over four thousand bales of hay and straw and haul all of them to the barns, the thought that without the twine there would have never been any hay in the barn. However, after the hay began to be fed to the cattle and the straw was used for the bedding you then realized that the twine had indeed been useful and now it was piling up in a corner of the barn and a farmer asked himself just what was he going to do with all of that twine. I have used it to bundle up tobacco sticks so when it was time to take them to the field they were ready to be handled easily. I have tied barn doors that needed closing . When it came time to mend a fence I have grabbed a handful of twine and weaved a hole closed. (This was a temporary fix because when twine gets wet it stretches some but it helped fix that fence at the moment.)
It just seemed that if you needed something to fix something, you had all of those used baling twine cords. I mean we might as well use them as they were just taking up space and in the way. However, it is a safe conclusion that a farmer is not one to toss stuff away as today it might be useless, but tomorrow it might be just what you were needing. One year the pile got to be so high that my Dad made a decision that it had to go. I figured he was going to toss it all into one of the hollers he was filling up but no. He, my brother Ben, and I lugged it all out into the barnyard where we piled it up. This was over a couple hundred feet from the barn and then Dad pulled out his faithful Zippo lighter and torched off that pile.
That morning we learned a couple of things. First was that a huge pile of baling twine can create the hottest fire I think I have ever seen. I know it got Dad’s attention and we spent most of the rest of that day tending to a scorching hot fire and I must say at a further distance than normal. The second thing was it wasn’t too long after this that Dad needed some twine and we didn’t have enough, so that was the first and last bonfire using baling twine. I did notice that from that point on on if a friend or relative was visiting us and they mentioned needing to fix something my Dad would immediately offer them some twine to take home. By doing this, he was creating a bigger demand and kept his supply in a little better control.
I observed my Aunt Margaret’s father in law, John Hetterick, using baling twine to make ropes. He showed me how to take those strings that were long enough to hold a bale of hay together and make a 50-foot rope. On days in winter that were nice enough to work in the barn, I began to braid ropes. By braiding three of these twines together, you had made a rope with good strength. The trick was how to splice the end of one twine to another. If done properly it would give you cause to feel special at a craft. Since I had to do splicing between spools of twine that went into a baler, I had some knowledge of how but with John I learned how to do it right and do it right the first time. He was a stickler for working hard but not allowing the need to waste your time repeating it.
In the early years when the barn was, my domain for playing in, I was known to help myself to the baling twine and tie things together in the barn that helped me to play better. Here was where I learned that my Dad really disliked leaving things he needed to use tied into a stationary position. It was at this time I learned to be much more cautious about what and where I tied things but none of that could have been done without good old baling twine.
If there was enough of the twine still lying around, I thought it would be on the shelves in the hardware store next to the duct tape and even the WD-40. If you had these three items in your possession, you could conquer just about anything. Still though to take some twine, twist it, and weave it and tie it in several knots, you knew whatever it was you had fixed it as as good as it could be fixed. The old saying was with a little bit of baling twine I can fix anything. I am pretty sure I tried at least.
Rick Houser grew up on a farm near Moscow in Clermont County and loves to share stories about this youth and other topics. If you would like to read, more of Rick is writing you can contact him at [email protected]. Or just write to Rick at P.O. Box 213 Bethel,
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