I was pulling the push lawn mower out of the Quonset the other day, getting ready to trim around our farmstead buildings and fences when I realized that my pants were slipping down toward my knees.
That was a dilemma because I didn't want to take the time to go back to the house to get a belt, but at the same time, I didn't want to scandalize anyone who might drive by the farmstead or into the yard.
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As I looked around for something I could use for a makeshift belt, my eyes landed on a ball of twine that my husband, Brian, had removed from the baler.
Problem solved. I cut a length of the green twine and tied it around my waist, Elly May Clampett style. One of the signature looks of Elly May, one of the main characters on the Beverly Hillbillies, a sitcom that was on television from 1962-1971, was wearing a flannel shirt and blue jeans hitched up with white rope.
My twine belt wasn鈥檛 as fashionable as Elly May鈥檚 rope, but it worked well in a pinch, and I was grateful that once again, twine had come to my rescue.
From the time I was a child growing up on the farm, I鈥檝e used .
When I was young, most of the uses my siblings and I had for twine were less than honorable 鈥� like tying each other up when we were playing cops and robbers and as a makeshift way to keep gates shut when we lost the chain that we were supposed to use.
Our parents didn鈥檛 mind much about the former as long as we didn鈥檛 hurt each other, but my dad got pretty irritated about the second because he equated using twine with being hayseed farmers. He took pride in his fences and gates and didn鈥檛 want them cobbled together with twine.
When I got older and rode horses, I found out that twine made an adequate lead rope when I couldn鈥檛 find the real thing. I just had to be careful that the horse didn鈥檛 get spooked because having a length of twine burn through your hand was not a good experience.
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Later, I also discovered that twine worked well as a dog leash. If I forget to bring the leash with me when I go to the outdoor kennel to get one of our dogs, I loop a piece of twine through the ring on the collar.
Another practical use of twine on our farm is fastening together the netting that we used to cover the young beets and beans in our garden so the bunnies wouldn鈥檛 eat them, Brian made a cost-effective cover with old chicken wire and twine.
Of course, Brian and I also use twine for its intended purpose, which is to we bale. He and my brother, Terry, and brother-in-law John are experts when it comes to knowing how tight to turn the part on the baler so the bales are tight enough that they don鈥檛 fall apart when they鈥檙e moved, but not so tight that they burst apart from too much tension.
Whatever use I find for the twine, I am careful to dispose of it in the trash when I鈥檓 finished with it. I learned the hard way that it doesn鈥檛 take a very big piece to wind around the mower blades seemingly 9,999 times and bring them to a screeching halt. Laying on the ground and reaching under the blades to unwrap the twine or if it鈥檚 really wound tight, sawing it off with whatever tool is handy, is a strong deterrent to careless twine disposal.
As time goes on, I鈥檒l probably find more uses for twine. Whatever they are, I鈥檒l be grateful for access to the tie that binds.
Ann Bailey lives on a farmstead near Larimore, N.D., that has been in her family since 1911. You can reach her at 218-779-8093 or abailey@agweek.com.
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