A farming all-nighter

At the end of last week we pulled a farming all-nighter.  From dusk till dawn we had the water, and therefore we spent the night in the field, with lights and shovels.  At first it was magical and entrancing and surreal. The night sky was full of stars, the moon was a crescent on its way towards setting, and the water moved slowly.  It was easy and new and mesmerizing to watch a trickle flow across the earth and move the earth from high spots to low spots.  It continued to be mesmerizing and surreal, and even a little magical when the sky brightened with a rising sun, but by then my body was worn out and I was more ready to lie down and sleep than I ever have been.

To back up, I will explain what "having the water" means.  It means that for a certain amount of time, all the water flowing in the canal is yours.  You can open the gate that runs onto your land, and welcome a rushing waterfall that you direct into "minglas"  which is the word that refers to the long strips of field sectioned off by small furrows and hills from other parts of the field.  Except, its not so simple to have the water apparently.  The ins and outs of small town life are becoming more obvious.  Or perhaps less.  I'm picking this up somewhat second hand, since Stevan negotiates with the "juez de agua."  But apparently we weren't going to get a turn at all, because we didn't go ask him, which apparently one is supposed to do every time it is your turn (about every 15 days, unless you are growing beans, and then it is 8 days).  And not only that,  but this time he said we could not have it because we do not have crops.  Apparently word got around that earlier in the winter, we used the water to water the tree grove where a mix of mesquites, elderberries, walnuts, and mulberries grow with an understory of chiltepines (a wild very hot pepper that supposedly all peppers originate from) and lots of other shrubby plants and herbs.  But the whole point about needing the water now, is so we can grow "crops" or at least crops that are considered "crops" around here.  The ones that grow in the field.  I guess we are going into the most intense period of the year- from April to June- and people get worried there isn't enough water or time in the watering cycle.  Or something.  But it was starting to feel rather ridiculous hearing that we couldn't get water because we don't have crops, when we need water to be able to have the crops.

Anyhow, our turn this time wasn't really supposed to start till 2 am, and around 7pm, after a full day already, starting with getting a lesson with the seeder at the neighbors place (which is another story altogether, but lets just say involved lots of guys enjoying the new batch of bacanora, and some mules, and bean seeds that were more or less going into the field) we were getting ready to go eat snacks and reconsider plans.   Maybe actually go get some rest for a bit.  But at this point, the neighbor who was currently watering his field next door, came over unprompted and started shoveling, to help ready our field for the water.  It had only just been plowed with "lines" an hour or so before, so the water wouldn't all run off.  And what can you do when someone with more knowledge than you just comes over and starts helping? Well, of course we had to go back to work too, and pretty soon the plan became to start watering then, with the trickle that slipped past the neighbors gate, before we got the whole torrent of a canal which probably would have blown through everything and ended the process right there.

I made a big mistake at this point, not to run to the store in town for fresh batteries for my headlamp before it closed.  For some reason, using the solar powered reading lamp from Ikea seemed smarter.  Sure the light was brighter than my headlamp, and at that point I figured I could find some way to fasten it to my body. It was fine draped around my neck for the first part of the night, but come 3 am,  started to really be a headache to get to stay there just so.

I was blown away by the generosity and help from the neighbor though.  Until 4 am he helped us, going every hour or so to his field to switch the water from one mingla to another.  I guess other than that he didn't need to be there because he'd spent much time grading it and smoothing it. And then around 4am, the neighbor who had been using the seeder earlier in the day, and a friend of his, showed up.  It felt a bit like being part of some sort of organism where things just happen a certain way.

I was gearing up to write "how not to water a field" from my first watering experience a few weeks ago when all this happened at the beginning of the weekend.  The bullet points from that were:  1) Don't ever skip your turn, because it means you will come get woken up at 7am on a sunday to be told it is now your turn... which gets everything started on a bad note and leads to point number 2) Don't think you know better than your partner who at least has done this a few times where you have never done it, because its not helpful to be arguing while trying to persuade a gushing torrent of water to go where you want it and not wash away all the top soil.  3) There is a reason why those designer steel-toed rubber boots sold on the street corner in Nogales were only $12.  They leak.
and more...  but that is a snippet of what I learned the first time around.

Anyhow, thats the story on watering for now.
After the all nighter, we took a weekend and didn't do much at all, which was great, and are now back on, working full days to close in the building.

I am curious, if anyone who might be reading this has thoughts on flood irrigation.  It dosnt make sense to me yet, and doesn't feel like the best things for the land either, but I'm curious to observe it further.