What duck tape is to Red Green, Bailer twine is to us.

I hate to bring up this subject now that the sun is shining but I wanted to share this practice before it goes back into the deep recesses of my mommy brain.

Our main source of heat is a large wood stove situated in the kitchen/great room.   For the most part the stove stays lit  but for those unfortunate times that it went out (like say...when I forgot to put wood in it) we had to start it up.  The usual practice is to fire it up by using paper and kindling but we have found that paper burns so intense and quick there was little chance for the kindling to catch.  In addition we always had to gather this material before fall which usually meant contacting some mills and or carpenters for scraps and remnants.

My dad came up with this ingenious idea.  So here Dad, this ones for you.  Because we live on a farm we are not short on two things; poop and bailer twine.  Seeing we have not come up with a way to cash in on the pile of manure we thought "why not get some use out of the mass quantities of twine we end up throwing away"?  Although a tad time consuming yet therapeutic at the same time we bundle up a dozen strings and tie a large knot in the he middle.  In our kitchen I have an antique round box that easily houses a large amount of this product.  When the time comes to light the thing up we stack the stove with a half dozen of these bundles and add a few sticks of kindling to the top.  The fire is a intense but slower burning fire that quickly heats up enough to allow us to start piling logs in.  We did have a problem with wet wood this year and this heat quickly dried it out to gather some warmth. 

Now not everyone has a farm at their disposal but I am sure if you ask around you would have no problem getting this.  Normally this is thrown in the trash and farmers would gladly gather this up for you.  Other than burning the stuff I cannot think of another use for this...actually it makes a heck of a belt when you run out of clean clothes and have to resort to your hubby's jeans....yes I am speaking from personal experience.

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