Miracle Wire

For a while, our son was convinced my husband made miracles happen with wire. As a three-year old, he believed baling wire produced miracles because his dad used it a lot and called it “miracle wire.”

The nickname stuck with our son because he witnessed bailing wire saving the day many times when my husband made a lot of farm and ranch toys work again that wouldn’t hold up to rough play. Dad’s miracle wire replaced broken toy trailer hitches and attached accessories to the tricycle, hot wheels, and little bike. It also added a cowboy ambiance to the tree fort. My husband bent and manipulated a piece of baling wire into whatever was necessary to meet a kid’s desire, and could get our boy back to playing in no time. 

Our pint-sized cowboy learned early on that baling wire is an important staple on our ranch. He spent a lot of time going with his dad and saw how miracle wire could be used in place of any tool, if the right equipment wasn’t brought along. When he didn’t think broken fence wire or gates could be repaired, my husband eased his mind and demonstrated how baling wire can miraculously repair a fence. Dad showed him how to splice broken wires, wrap it around a post or barbwire to replace fencing staples and stays, or loop it to make a new gate latch if an old one gave out. Our son was along a lot of the time when a fence needed fixed and watched or helped out his dad. Our future rancher also learned that miracle wire could be a temporary fix to buy some time, or a permanent one, since baling wire can hold up so dang long.

As an inquisitive toddler, our son asked a lot of questions and always wanted to help or talk about whatever his dad was working on. I wasn’t surprised when he tried to help his dad fix a windmill that wasn’t producing any water for a livestock tank. My husband and father-in-law needed to get it working again and junior and I went along.

I stayed at the pickup with our son, while the guys tried to figure out how to get the windmill working again and listened to them vent their frustrations at each other over the problem. To avoid making the situation worse, I kept our little man occupied with the junk banked up in the corners of the pickup box until his dad and grandpa were able to come up with a solution. The tension between the guys over the situation escalated and I hoped our son was too busy to notice. He kept showing me little rocks and pop tabs he’d found and stuffed them into his bib overalls pockets until he spotted a wad of baling wire in the debris, held it up in the air and spoke a quote of inspiration for the day; “DAD! I got some miracle wire for ya!”

Column originally published June 15-21, 2008