I'm a Farmer!

I have a job! Many jobs, actually, most of which include driving green tractors—oh yes, John Deere gets a nod from Australia—and struggling with irrigation and its ups, downs, flows, and stops. The Watsons hired me while I was still in Montana, kind of a wing and a prayer I suppose, thanks mainly to Laura Boyce. I can’t thank her enough. I am now living in one of their cottages and enjoying their kindness and hospitality and surplus of farm work, some familiar, some entirely new to me. Along with lateral irrigation, the Watson farm uses mostly siphon irrigation, which falls into the category of work that is unfamiliar to me. Well, it’s at least marginally familiar now, but I did struggle and elicit quite a lot of laughter from my trainer, Cliff, in the early period of my irrigation expertise.

I now can start many siphons in a much shorter time period. The basic formula is water in an irrigation ditch, a black plastic tube about 6 feet long, and an arching motion that includes creating suction with one hand and plunging the tube into the ditch and back out with the other hand until it is full and ready to be thrown down. The full pipe is thrown into a rotor buck, an earthen, wide ditch that is dug by an implement on the back of a (green) tractor, on the other side of the irrigation ditch. So the pipe is draped across the field side of the irrigation ditch and siphons water until it is lifted, kicked, flipped into inertia. It’s definitely an acquired kind of enjoyment.

The idea is to direct the water between two cotton rows; the water runs down every other ditch between the cotton rows and is “subbed up” in the remaining rows from exposure to water for 12 to however-many hours it needs to run through the rows. Cotton came up first on the field I irrigated with much assistance from Cliff and my boss, Andrew Watson. Here’s photographic evidence for your records!

Other than actual irrigation, I’ve spent hours with Wayne, another of my coworkers, throwing siphons into the ditches, aiming for the rotor bucks on the other side of the irrigation ditch. Roads skirt every field, every irrigation ditch, and we drive along them pulling the pipe trailer, throwing siphons from the back. The result: I have the shoulders of a football player.

Every morning and evening that I went to my field, W9, I was berated by cockatoos and galahs. If ever I’ve been happy with a thorough butt-chewing, this is the time. To think that I can wake up in the morning, say hello to the inevitable yard kangaroos that hop away with a reproachful wave of their tails, listen to the countless songs, chirpings, and crowings of the hordes and hordes of birds, and weave my way through stands of gum and eucalyptus trees, leaves me with a pleasant feeling and a solid justification for my choice of country to live in for a year. 

I'm sorry there are no pictures. The internet is deplorable, and it takes over an hour to upload two or three pictures. When I find better internet, I'll add pictures; I promise!