Saturday, July 22, 2006

95 at 9:30

And it is humid too. I can just imagine the corn stretching like a cat after a long nap over at farm #2. Dad and I were out seeing to some irrigation in the late melon field and I was struck by how much they were loving this too. Especially the watermelon. In the dusky twilight their leaves looked like greedy grasping hands reaching to cover all the ground they could. Hoorah for greedy watermelon.

We'll be up several times this night moving the water through its last set in the pumpkins and melons. Hopefully by morning we'll be able to get some water into the grapes too. It reached 106 here today and should be almost the same tomorrow so the irrigation ditch will certainly be dry by noon tomorrow. The people upstream get Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. I get the remaining three. How's that for egalitarianism in the 21st century? The rich people with big lawns get 4 days and the small farmer who is just trying to feed people gets three. The first 12 years we worked here we had a full ditch all season plus a month earlier in the year and two weeks later into fall. Now that politician and environmentalists have stuck their noses into the mix the district has been forced to cut back pumping which has made the fearful lawn waterers upstream even more glutinous for water.

Well, to spite it all I'll wish you a happy night and joyful morning.

1 comment:

Rae Ann said...

Wow, that is some oppressive heat for us people, but it's good that the plants love it. too bad you can't petition to 'outlaw' lawn watering or something.