Hand-tended

It has been unusually warm in the Basin during the last few days and we have been scrambling to get water to our corn crop. Much like kiddos who need attentive care during their formative years, corn needs water at specific times to minimize stress and maximize production.

I’m not a crop scientist. I just know that well irrigated corn is happy corn.

Much of our farm is still furrow irrigated. (See: old school) So, we plant corn in neat, tidy rows like all commodity growers do but our planter has the addition of “ditchers” that cut furrows into the soil for irrigation water to flow through. The furrows are approximately 18 inches wide. When the time comes, we set about “counting out” fields into eight-row “sets” for irrigating.

Each set gets its own siphon tube or hose (depending upon the field) to direct water down the aforementioned furrows/ditches for approximately 12 hours at a time.

Here comes the “hand-tended” part. We have to manually move each siphon tube or hose — by hand — every 12 hours until every ditch has received water. In addition to moving the tube or hose, we must extend some ditches, again, by hand, because the ditch does not reach the water source.

I will do a separate post about the deep, abiding love we have for our shovels. But, for now, I will say shovels become one part essential implement to help us extend ditches to water by hand; one part ditch repair mechanism (we are talking about running water in dry soil for 12 hours at a time); and one part walking stick/balancing tool.

This time of year is grueling. We have spent an average of 2 hours and 15 minutes “changing water” in the morning and an additional 2 hours and 15 minutes “changing water” in the evening every day for the last two weeks without a day off.

Why? Because our corn crop needs us. And because the people who rely upon us to raise an abundant corn crop need us too.

Simple pleasures

Doing some field work today I was thinking about a story my mom used to tell me about chicken.

Growing up, we raised chickens and my mom would often cut the whole chickens apart on nice days and grill them. More often than not, she would end up with the “back” of the chicken as her piece. Not because there weren’t other pieces available but because it was what she chose.

I asked her once why she chose the hardest piece of chicken to eat. She told me it was the piece that was left when she was a kid and she’d grown to enjoy it over the years.

That is exactly how I feel about the field work I was doing today.

About a third of our farm is still rill irrigated and part of making rill irrigation work involves extending the ditches with an auger attached to a three-point on a tractor. We call it “headlanding” and it effectively digs the ditch longer so we don't have to do it by hand. Though, there is still a great deal of hand shoveling to do be done.
It is tedious work, even on a tractor. Every six feet or so, the auger gets set down in line with the ditch for a few seconds, then picked up, and on to the next ditch, times as many acres as we have in rill irrigation for the year.

It is the “chicken back” of field work. No one volunteers to do it.

Except me.

I find it peaceful. And it gives me a sense of being extremely useful doing something everyone else hates but that I have come to enjoy. I get off the tractor with aching knees from keeping pressure on the clutch and brakes; a tight back and shoulders from being twisted in the seat to see both the rear of the tractor and drive at the same time; and a full heart knowing I’m doing something to contribute that no one else wants to do.

Blood and water

We farm in a desert. A real desert.

The Columbia Basin gets less than 12 inches of rain a year and less than 24 inches of snow a year. What we lack in water, we make up for in rich soil perfect for farming.

Back in the 1930s, the Bureau of Reclamation realized the rich soil here just needed a nice, cool drink of fresh, clean water and … Hello the Columbia Basin Project. OK. There were a lot of steps in between and a great many people willing to gamble everything they had to turn our beautiful sandy loam soil into the thriving farmland it is today after adding some water from the mighty, roiling Columbia River (shout out to our Canadian friends!).

But, now, the water from the East Columbia Basin Irrigation District is the blood running through the veins of our farm through a series of ever smaller ditches, irrigation pipes, and sprinklers helping us to grow our crops. The large feeder canal, the East Low Canal, is the eastern boundary of our farm and, each spring, we watch the life-giving water it provides roll past as a sign of the busy and beautiful season to come.

We are grateful for the water that gives our farm life and, in turn, gives us the ability to do what we love.