The upper corn field is a pasture away from the headgate. As Terry and I work (last night I shoveled ends and Terry dug the little depressions to hold the siphon tubes and then started the tubes, the night before he shoveled and I dug and started tubes) we can hear the roar and the crashing of the water in the FN Lateral Canal, as it moves over the little dam and into our headgate, then the turbulent flinging of the water back into the canal heading on toward the Gunnison River, then into the Colorado River.
It’s our own mini-Niagara Falls.
We usually work in companionable silence; the rumbling of the water making casual conversation hard to hear.
After checking the headgate for trash we drive through the Upper End pasture, around the Fox den area and take the ditch bank road separating the largest corn field from the Alfalfa field to set water in the soon-to-be-planted Pinto Bean field. (Whew! That was a long sentence!)
By this time the sun has set and twilight fills the land. I was walking back from the dirt ditch, (counting rows of set water as I went—too many open and the water dries up, not enough open and the cement ditch over-flows—when the full moon started rising.
I am not a ‘good taker’ of moon photos…usually I have the wrong camera with me at the time . Still I thought…why not. The full moon in June is called the Strawberry Moon.
Once away from the roar of the headgate the land is growing silent. Although, night is never truly silent, the sounds take on a deep hush, shhhhhhhhhhhhh, bidding our hearts to be still, step lightly, those who live in the daytime are preparing for sleep.
Here and there the night sounds start, the hoot of a owl, or a cry of a far away fox, the night birds starting to awake, the earth’s breath slowing down to a gentle heartbeat.
It’s easy to stand with Terry, our arms linked, or me resting against his chest his arm around me-both holding a shovel. 🙂
Silently we survey the rushing of the irrigation water down it’s own little furrow. Boomer at our feet, waiting for the word to load up.
The earth calms, our hearts match the beat of the earth’s– peace descends.
Your friend on a western Colorado farm,
Linda
Everyday, twice or more times a day we are changing water.
The days are long…way into the night right now…but passing fast.
We are making headway…my circle garden in now complete and planted. No longer the derelict western prairie graveyard it WAS looking like. If the seeds grow, fingers crossed it should soften up.
I am thinking it will look sort of like this garden in time.
Life on a Colorado Farm 