I irrigated this morning. When I went out to let in the water at 5:30 am, there was a bullfrog at the gate. The temperature was 45º F (7.2º C) and Mr. Frog stood his water and held tight even though the gate made a lot of squeaking noises as I cranked it open, and the current from the water rushing into the culvert tugged at his buoyant body.
Click here —> Photo of the Day, Etc to see the week of May 11th — 17th at a glance.
May 11th: Annoying cat photos — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/black-spunk
May 12th: Lily in the valley — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/oriental-lily
May 13th: Out and back — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/going-out-coming-back
May 14th: Rose — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/america
May 15th: More cats and other annoying things — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/kitties-cookies-moths
May 16th: Midnight Farmer — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/gophers-in-the-night
May 17th: Maximumly strong, annoyingly sensitive kitties — http://photos.tandlphotos.com/blog/2015/5/maximum-strength-sensitive
Two o’clock in the morning and not a skunk, porcupine or raccoon in sight, so after turning in the irrigation water, I turned my camera toward the night sky. Photo stats — Camera: Fujifilm X-Pro 1. Support: hand held. Film speed: ISO 3200. Lens and aperture: 35mm at ƒ/1.4. Exposure: 1/4 second.
While walking out to the ditch to turn in the irrigation water at 2:00 am under the Harvest Moon, I saw a critter scurrying my way. Skunks don’t see very well, so it got pretty close to me before it stopped and we had a brief stand off — long enough for me to sweet talk it into letting me get a couple of photos. The skunk wasn’t sure what to think about a giant troll talking to it in the middle of the night — it stomped its front feet and stepped from side to side trying to decide whether to scurry past me, spray me or retreat. It finally decided on a compromise and ran into the tall grass on its right. Fortunately, it turned out to be an uneventful encounter, but I had a difficult time getting a clear shot of the nervous little skunk as the shutter speed was only 1/5 of a second at ƒ/1.4. On the other hand, it was easy to get a clear shot of the spider that had built its web on the irrigation gate. It held perfectly still.
The garden got about 3/4 inch of rain over the past few days, and with a good soaking from the irrigation, the grapes have gone wild (along with most of the plants on the property), and climbed into the apple tree, where they are dangling among the apples. I’m sure most self respecting winers would not allow their grapes to mix with their apples, but when we get a little water in our dry climate, grapes (and a whole lot of other stuff) happen!
When I went out at 2:00 am to let in the irrigation water, this spider had built her web on the gate. A smaller male was hanging out off to the side.
I went out at 3:30 in the morning to put down the gate and let the irrigation water in. A half moon peaked out between the clouds, providing just enough light to get a photo of the gate in the main canal. The ditches I dug over the weekend worked really well to efficiently distribute the water where I needed it. The water was moving very slowly when I put down the gate, so it took over two hours before it ran over the gate to provide enough pressure to really push the water through through the ditches. I had good water pressure for about an hour before someone upstream took the water, but that was enough time to get almost everything watered thanks to my new ditch system.
I dug over 60 meters (about 180 feet) of ditches yesterday afternoon to make irrigating more efficient — we can irrigate every other Tuesday if there is water in the ditch. The areas that need to be watered most are furthest from the main canal, so the new ditches I dug will route the ditch water more directly to the end of the property that needs to be watered, by-passing the other areas. In past years, I’ve had real problems with only getting water about halfway to where I needed it before someone else took the water.
We have a larger variety of tulips blooming now — the tulips are not planted in areas that get irrigated (I water them with a drip system) so they are happy to bloom. The dry air doesn’t seem to bother them too much, but the hard frost makes them droop in the early morning hours until the sun warms them up, and they open again.
Off Center & Not Even 