Ditch

Even though it is winter, the farm is a busy busy place! My entire family is in Mexico and I am holding the fort. Namely, working on an irrigation system for the veggie field. I will have the entire two acres on a drip irrigation system when its all said and done. First I need to finish the pipeline project that has been in the works for the past five years.

We are part of the Three Sisters Irrigation District, and our sub-district has been piping our irrigation canals into a high density polyethylene pipe. It has been done almost exclusively with volunteer labor by the farmers.

And its almost done! The system will be live when the water comes on April-15. Exciting and terrifying. We won't need pumps any more, but we will have so much pressure I hope my little on-farm section doesn't blow right out of the ground. I've done it myself and thats always a bit of a worry :)

So, the other day I dug the last bit of ditch on the farm and welded the last weld of the pipe. The completion of the task felt like a small triumph. Not only because it marked the end of a long haul, but because it was the first time I set out to do something and managed to do it... before dark... without wrecking something... or finding the task absolutely impossible with the tools I had available. It was a miracle. And after I walked the borrowed excavator two hours back to where I borrowed it from, I stood there in the last of the light, watching my breath curl in the still air, marveling and my tiny success. For me, farming is confronting my ignorance on a daily basis. The learning curve is vertical. I take stock of the rare things that come easy.