With temperatures hovering around 80-90 degrees for the last several days, irrigation is critical to preserve the health of the crops.
Can irrigation be poetic? Isn’t it just aluminum pipes and rubber gaskets? Well, hear this essay here:
This essay, written by Russell Carter (1923-2015) for one of his college English classes, was originally neatly handwritten. This composition strongly indicates where his heart and mind often traveled (to his family’s southwestern Michigan farm) while he was a college student in downtown Chicago in the 1950s. As he built his own farm in northern Minnesota, the sentiments of this essay still held him. He was one of the first area farmers to use commercial irrigation extensively.
“I can think of no scene more refreshing or impressive than that as one looks westward from our front lawn at the quarter-mile line of irrigation sprinklers as they spout water into the air in all directions. The sun is setting in the background, making each water drop glisten like a diamond and miniature rainbows appear and disappear as each of the forty sprinklers rotates independent of the others. The green rows of tomato plants seem to almost dance as the refreshing water falls on their leaves and as it seeps through the rich brown soil reaching their thirsty roots.
As a gentle west breeze begins to blow, one can smell the freshly moistened soil seasoned with a faint odor from the river water. A robin takes an evening bath at the edge of the lawn, and the neighbors’ three ducks are excitedly investigating.
The sun finally disappears behind a distant hill; and as the darkness and quietness of night descend, one can hear the faint clicking of the sprinklers, the rushing of the water, the distant bellowing of the irrigation pump motor down at the river bank, and the laughing and shouting of the men on the night irrigating crew.”
Happy watering!
