After I slogged through the creek and squelched up the dusty road, I joined the guys in The Project of the Day.
We irrigate mainly by flood irrigation. In short, a temporary dam is built on the creek, backing up water to flow through a head gate which can be adjusted or closed, the water filling a ditch that will flood out onto the field. Brandon’s head gate was old and no longer would completely close, which creates problems, plus the culvert the water ran through was collapsing after working for fifty, sixty, seventy years…
Project: Remove old culvert. Insert new pipe with new head gate. Cement into place. Fill in over pipe to secure and rebuild the crossing for machinery.
They had been working for quite a while before I arrived. The old was gone and the new almost in place.
Brandon and Daniel give direction to Vernon to lower the pipe a bit.
The white thing is the head gate. The old one is left in place as well, it’s the metal piece you see on the creek side. The plywood and 2x6s will be the form to hold the cement to hold it in place.
Vernon nudges the pipe into place and Brandon and Daniel start pouring bags of Quikcrete and buckets of water together in the form.
Time for finish work, a little hand shoveling, and cleanup, and leaving Vernon to finish covering the pipe.
If you ask me what I can do on these jobs… and why would I leave my salsa making and four loads of laundry behind… I just learn so much and the weather is perfect and I love helping! And maybe housework isn’t really my “thing”! Oh, I can’t run the excavator or be very “hands on”, but I can fetch and carry with the best of them and maybe, just maybe, those ten times I handed them tools or boards or screws or the level will be times that they may remember I made life a little bit easier…
Before squelching away back home in my still soaked tennis shoes, I look back and capture this classic view. The boys checking in with Vernon on the next day’s plan. There’s cow work and inclement weather coming… but we’re trying to get some extra work in there before it rains or snows… I guess I’ll find out tomorrow the next Project of the Day.
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With such a beautiful day I can understand why you’d rather be outside. Sky is such an amazing blue. I also get that ‘fatal error’ info, but my posts do appear ok.
Very very interesting! You have a family of rancher-engineers!! I think
watching guys use any heavy equipment (esp. tree removal) is fun. And you do, indeed, learn a lot.
I never cease to be amazed at what all of you can do. And you make it sound so simple! Those guys are running heavy machinery! I bet you can build roads too (and probably have). Thanks for this post showing real people doing real work.
And I know the post won’t work because of some fatal error which seems to only affect me, but I had to try.
As a I reader of Red Dirt in My Soul, I too get that “fatal error” notice.
But both our posts are always there on the blog. Just thought you’d like
to know.
I absolutely love this posting, Carol. Real work, done by real men doing what needs to be done to feed us all. Thanks!
I’d be out there with them too! They are such hard workers! You must be so proud of your boys