For those who are interested, and have asked to know more; to understand our irrigation system

This is a wee blog post about the dams…see those straight lines in the cement ditch.  Those are wedge-shaped dams…blocking up the murmuring water so the siphon tubes can be dipped into the water and quickly flung over the side (going downhill) to start sucking out the water and into the fields.

Terry does a complicated sort-of insert on some of the dams (see the one closest to us) half tipped up straight, one side down crooked.  This allows the water to fill up and spill over so the next set of tubes has enough water to siphon.

As you can see we haven’t set the tubes closest to us yet.  We are waiting for the water to fill back up to the ‘wet’ line.  Then we will set the tubes

Here is the very last dam…we are allowing the aggressive water to flow over in a mini-waterfall

so the next field can have enough water we can set tubes in it.  You can see the dam way, way down there.  It will stop the water and start it to back up and start filling up the cement ditch

Once it gets full enough (and before it spills over the side) we will set the siphon tubes. The cornfields require two tubes per furrow, skipping a furrow,

while in the alfalfa we set one tube in each and every furrow

Each furrow must have the top dug out by hand so the tube can set in the perfect little slot and the water rushing and tumbling down the furrows STAYS IN the FURROW it’s supposed to be in.

Here you see the result—goals accomplished—in one of the corn fields. Water making it all the way to end and subbing across so everything is nice and wet.  Once this ground dries out to the proper moisture…Terry will plant corn.

There you have it… a tiny wee blog post about dams (and water, and furrows, and siphon tubes); the heartbeat of farming in the high mountain desert of western Colorado :)!

Your friend on a western Colorado farm,

Linda