I enjoyed the Western Farm Press’s pictures of spring in the southern San Joaquin Valley. The third picture caught my eye.
Water being returned to an irrigation canal after irrigating small grains that may go to feed dairy cattle in the San Joaquin Valley. (photo credit to the Western Farm Press)
I wouldn’t have thought of a moon buggy being used to drain a field into a canal, but why not? They are an unusual type of irrigation equipment, local to the southern San Joaquin Valley. Usually the pump is in the canal, and the outfall on the field, but here that’s being reversed to drain tailwater. In the field, you can see intermittent darker green lines. That is border strip irrigation, a form of flood irrigation. Lots of skinny lines? Furrow irrigation. Fewer lines, delineating much wider checks? Border strip irrigation.
No deep significance, just cool machinery.
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I have very much enjoyed reading the Foothill Agrarian’s posts during the lambing season, now finished. Congratulations on the strong season, Mr. F. Agrarian!
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I’ve added Dr. Kearn’s blog to my sidebar. She’s one of the few thinkers addressing how people feel during the drought. I’ve long thought that people are the third biggest driver of the water cycle in California (after solar heat and gravity), so it baffles me that we rarely talk about how they feel or what they want.
On the public record 