I was teaching a class of fifth and sixth graders a while back and the kids were using twisty ties to temporarily secure some weaving material to a stool until it could be fastened permanently. The one little feller was having an awful time getting his twisty tie tied. I thought back to my barn full of 1/16 scale toy farm equipment that I had growing up. Thank goodness we always had extra twisty ties around the house, because twisty ties were a young man’s version of baling wire. You could fashion just about anything out of those little things. When the little hook on your little wagon won’t stay attached to the tractor, get a twisty tie. Twist several together to make your own scale-model tow rope. Just don’t pull too hard, or it will break just like the real ones. Need to snug up a Lego connection that won’t stay together? Grab the twisty ties. Need a flexible joint in your Lego set that the Lego engineers haven’t thought of yet? More twisty ties.

Now about the baling wire. First, let’s establish a few things. When I read about baling wire, I bet it’s misspelled just as much as or even more than it is spelled correctly. That’s got to stop. The verb form of b-a-l-e, bale, means to bind a package of raw or finished material. That’s the bale I’m talking about. The verb form of b-a-i-l, bail, means to remove water from a boat. We’re not dealing with boats here. It’s baling wire, not bailing wire. Bailing wire sounds to me like money you send electronically to get your brother-in-law out of jail.

It’s hard to find a definitive history on wire-tie square balers, but suffice it to say, you could really pack the hay or straw in a wire-tied bale. Once the wires were pulled off the bale, bingo, you had wire that could be doubled-up and used for just about every imaginable purpose. Most folks would agree that baling wire is easier to work with than, say, an old wire coat hanger.

When we moved to my grandpa’s farm in 2015, there were still a few pieces of baling wire leftover from the wire-tie baling days, and the wire-tie baler probably hadn’t been used on the farm for 25 years before that. Some of it was in use holding up gates and some of it was still laying right where it had been put after being taken off a square bale so many years ago. Today, plastic and sisal twine have largely taken the place of baling wire, though you can still find wire-tie balers being used here and there.

To wrap things up, here’s a short list of the things baling wire could be used for around the farm: fastening gates, securing hitch pins, making temporary fence repairs, holding up your truck exhaust, hanging up parts to paint, repairing broken springs, and 101 other things I have not mentioned. Shucks, you can even make newspaper articles out of baling wire.

Reach BJ Price at 937-456-5159 for more information.