Anyone who's ever lived near a farm field knows that they are constantly changing. The field goes from dirt, to sprouts to full bushy, blossoming plants. The light hits the plants differently from every angle, at every moment, on every day. The sound can be a quiet hum of insects or the loud whirl of farm equipment. It is a living, breathing organism all its own. I love living by a farm field. In fact, I live by many, many farm fields - in the middle of about 1000 acres of prime Oklahoma land. In this part of the country, one of our primary crops is cotton. But, as with any crop, an important resource needed for it to grow is water. Not too much, but it definitely needs water. Water is the life-blood of the field.
When you think of Oklahoma, the song "Oklahoma" from the Rodgers and Hammerstein's Broadway show and movie of the same name probably comes to mind. The line that no one can forget says "where the winds come sweeping down the plains". Wind here is a constant - rain, not so much. And when it does rain, the wind and sun make sure that water dries up pretty quickly. So we take our rainfall, or lack thereof at times, pretty seriously. Oklahoma is not known for it's major waterways. The few God-made lakes and rivers that we have have been supplemented with some man-made ones, and they often double as reservoirs and a means to get water to farm fields in our area. The irrigation system in SW Oklahoma is comprised of dirt and cement waterways used to bring water from Lake Altus-Lugert to the North of us, to our red-dirt cotton fields that surround my house. It starts off at the lake as a rolling river, then branches into canals and eventually rolls behind my house as a small stream in a cement aqueduct. And when I say right behind - I mean RIGHT behind - about 20 feet from the property line. So the activity around the aqueduct is always noticeable from our land.
While the farmers and farm workers view this aqueduct as a simple tool in their lives, for the betterment of the field and success of the crop - for me it is an amazing bonus to growing season. Normally our yard is pretty quiet - the occasional truck driving by, our rooster crowing, a dog barking, a plane flying overhead.... but when all the activity of the growing season starts, we get the beautiful accompaniment of the dancing sounds of water and workers. The farm workers suction the water from the aqueduct with the tubes you see in the picture and let it spill into the fields. One for every valley between rows. The metal plate you see jutting from the water is actually a portable, adjustable damn. It is used to slow and stop the flow of water as only one section of field is irrigated at a time. There is continuous movement of water and tubes and workers. The workers know just what to water when and for how long. Some days I may come home to a full and flowing aqueduct with every row-valley of the field behind our house full. Other days the aqueduct is almost empty - the flow being halted at the flowing canal a quarter mile up the road by the turn of the wheel to close the flood gates. And then a few days or week later - the water reappears.
Some folks like the hustle and bustle of a large city - the noise, the lights, the movement, all kept alive by the roadways bringing people in and out of the city.. I prefer the (much more subtle) hustle and bustle of a farm field - for all the same reasons.