Grazing and Irrigation 6 – April 29-30

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Robin

There were more photos for April 29, the first day of irrigation with the new system. I started this story this morning. To continue:

I needed a strategy to keep track of what I was doing. This was partly because the ryegrass was so tall I couldn’t even find the valves at first. Then I wanted to remember what I had opened and closed and be able to tell Dan how it was going. I decided to write on my photos. By the way, there are 7 valves across the north end of the north field near the blackberries. This photo shows the south end of that north field and the top of the lower pasture. There is a pipeline all the way across this one from west to east.

So this photo shows that at 5:30 p.m. there was water all the way down the north pasture and I had opened the first 6 earlier. At this time #1 on this field was finished and I turned #7 and #8 on.

At 7:30 p.m. this is the status. I opened 9, 10, and 11.

At 8 p.m. I opened 12, 13, 14, and 15.

I had been marking the valves with the white plastic stakes. Now I don’t remember if the sideways posts indicated On or Off.

At 5:30 a.m. the next morning I closed #7-15 and opened all the rest.

This shows the last valves, #16-20.

At 7:30 I noted that #20 was finished.

This is how I figured out that I could report back to Dan what was going on. I think I can make sense of this photo now. There was water 100′ from the south border in #17, 90′ in #18, and 50′ in #19.

I’ll be doing this all over again in the morning and I think maybe I should number these in the opposite direction. If I am at the house or barn and “read” from left to right then Check #1 should be on my left (the one next to the road). I guess I’ll figure that out tomorrow. Maybe I need to paint numbers on the south border posts so I can keep track of where I am.

Grazing and Irrigation 5 – April 29

Posted on May 29, 2025 by Robin

I started this series of posts to explain the outcome of our major pasture and irrigation renovation in the fall (another series of searchable posts). The most recent of this series is here.

It was time to try out our new irrigation pipeline. I didn’t know what to expect, never having irrigated from a pipeline before. Dan, only 3 weeks after knee replacement surgery was not going to be the irrigator.

Where do we get our water? If you look at the fifth photo in this post you see the hills. Lake Berryessa is in those hills and that is the water source for the Solano Irrigation District. There is a low spot in the center of the skyline and that marks the place where Putah Creek flows from the Lake.

This photo is northwest of our property and this is the main canal from which we get our water. This view is southwest. When the valve is opened water runs down the next canal, seen below.

This view is due south. That water will be getting to our pasture after it turns a corner at the edge of the orchard.

Here is that corner. View is southeast.

Just past the corner looking due west. Our property is at the end of this canal.

This is the same location as the previous photo but showing the view to the west. That barn is the Hendrix Hay barn that you see from our property.

Walking along the road before the water is visible in the ditch. That is our barn that you see in the photo.

The same ditch but looking west from the corner of our property. That opening on the left is where overflow from other properties or storms can exit this ditch and not flow into our property. When we irrigate lengths of 2 x 6 boards are slid into a channel to prevent most of the water from flowing out into that ditch.

The view as the water is getting to our place. The red handle opens the gate to let water into our property.

When this gate is open the water flows into that concrete box where there is a flow meter and then out into the pipeline. The concrete box is 8 feet deep and 4 feet square. See some of the details in this post.

Once water fills the pipeline we start opening valves.

It will take me awhile to learn how much to open each valve, how many to have open at one time and how long to leave them open. We’re irrigating again tomorrow (a month after the irrigation in this post) and I’ll experiment again. Do you remember the old way of irrigating? I just searched my posts for “irrigation” and found this one from 2010. Wow! It shows the same corner with the old standpipe, but what is amazing to me is that north fenceline. Where are the blackberries?

Pasture and Irrigation Renovation – Part 10

Posted on December 6, 2024 by Robin

The last post I wrote about this project was on November 21, two weeks ago. At that point we had just come back from our Arizona trip The pipeline was put in while we were gone. We were anxious to get both the irrigation work and the field work finished before the real winter rain started. With it this late in the year it was certainly possible that there would have been significant rain before this time. I don’t know what we would have done if that had happened. I think the whole thing would have been put off if the ground was as wet as it is now.

So in these photos the ground is dry. This is the view from the western edge to the east. The pipeline is 15″ and the valves are 30 feet apart

That is a pretty deep trench at this end. There has to be gravity flow so I assume the west side is a little higher than the east.

View to the west.

The is the trencher they used. I was interested in that conveyor that looks as though it is just stuck in that wheel to get it out of the way. But, of course that is not the case–it is supposed to be there. . As the wheel turns, the dirt is brought up to the top where it drops onto the conveyer which drops in a long ridge next to the ditch.

This view if from the corner where the water enters our property There is a north-south pipeline buried here.

This is the connection where we get the water from the SID canal.

The concrete box is 8 feet deep. A flow meter will be placed in one of the pipes.

Another private contractor showed up this day. He is a welder and his job was to cut a hole in the horizontal pipe and shape and then weld an upright pipe onto the horizontal one. I think it is to allow air flow in the pipe so that the water will flow better.

This is the row of valves after the trench has been mostly filled in.

This was all finished just in time before heavy rain was predicted to start. The other crucial task was to get the field seeded before rain made it impossible to drive a tractor across the field. Rain was due by sometime during the night.

To be continued because I’m too tired…

Pasture and Irrigation Renovation – Part 9

Posted on November 21, 2024 by Robin

I wrote the last post about this project 9 days ago. The crew had removed the old standpipe at the northwest corner of the pasture and replaced it with a new concrete box. When we irrigate the box will fill with water and create pressure to force water into the rest of the system.

In the meantime we were concerned with getting seed on the pasture at the best time. Michael had finished putting up borders, even though the irrigation pipeline work would disturb the upper end of the field. We needed all of that work to be finished before seeding. I had ordered the seed mix from a company in Tracy, about an hour and a half from here. I said that we’d pick it up to save on shipping cost and to have it here when Michael was ready for it. This time of year farmers are trying to get the field work finished before it rains a lot and they can’t get on the fields at all.

The day after the irrigation work was done in the corner we drove to Tracy to pick up the seed we had ordered. This photo is the warehouse there. There was some kind of communication problem between the order desk and the warehouse. Our order was wrong. I had paid for 350 pounds of seed but there was only 64 pounds there. The people at the seed company said they’d get the seed to us on Wednesday of the next week. That was the day before we were to leave on a 5 day trip. (That will be in the next blog post.)

The next morning I took these photos (above and below) of Michael smoothing out the edges of the field.

Skip ahead five days. The irrigation crew planned to come out on the 15th. We left that morning for Arizona. I asked my friends who were going to farm sit to take photos of the progress for me.

The crew spread the pipe out in the proper location. Then there was a lot of digging. They used this excavator at the northwest corner.They used a trencher for most of the lines.

The pipe that runs east-west in front of the blackberries has one T to send water south to the other east-west pipeline.

This is the rest of the pipeline at the north end in front of the blackberries.

This photo shows what the valves look like. They will be at ground level.

Here is that first east-west pipeline completed.

Pasture and Irrigation Renovation – Part 8

Posted on November 12, 2024 by Robin

I wrote the last post about this ten days ago. This project is taking a lot longer than I’d hoped. The last field work was October 31 when Michael put up the borders. It wasn’t until November 6 that the irrigation part of the project started.

This is a photo taken in May when we were starting to irrigate. This is just outside of our fence line. The water is starting to flow down the ditch after SID (Solano Irrigation District) personnel opened a valve. The red wheel controls the position of the gate that lets water into a pipe at the base of that concrete structure.

The water goes through the pipe into the concrete standpipe in the northwest corner of the pasture. There is an opening that faces south and water flows into our ditch. We are replacing the ditch system on our property with a pipeline. We can’t pump because there is no power back here. Therefore the whole system has to work with gravity feed. Engineers from Pacific Southwest Irrigation proposed this system, approved by NRCS.The first step was to replace this standpipe and pipeline

I was surprised at the finesse with which the excavator operator could work around the existing structure. It was important to not damage the concrete structure that has the red wheel control. They had to dig up the existing pipe that went into an opening at the base of that structure. In this view the top of that standpipe to be removed has already been knocked off.

A lot of dirt had to be moved and this pile was a lot bigger by the time they finished.

Some handwork (with a shovel) was necessary to break away the mortar.

They also used a handheld jack hammer to break more away without damaging the concrete box. The excavator loosened the old pipe without damage to the remaining structure.

Eventually they were able to remove the old pipe and the rest of the standpipe.

In the meantime Dan made a frame and poured concrete to extend the walkway behind the barn. The concrete chunks under the new concrete are the leftover parts of that foundation that we hauled out of the pasture after the initial work to remove it.

This is the new pipe.

It was lifted into position and then cut to fit.

The crew dug a pit and made a concrete pad at the bottom.

The next day they installed two concrete box structures with the pipe that connects the SID structure to this one. The view is to the west. That tree is right at the corner of the property.

The view east. This was last Friday. Another crew will be here this Thursday or Friday to work on the rest of the pipeline. We wlll be gone, but that is another story. I need to get my friends to take photos.

What’s in the Pasture?

Posted on June 5, 2016 by Robin

The pasture is not a lawn. It is not a monoculture. My brother says it is more of a salad bar for sheep. Unless you walk around out there you don’t realize the number of plants that grow there. I am embarrassed that after 16 years of living here I don’t know the names of all of them. I have decided to change that. I am going to combine my enjoyment of photography and my recently dredged up college hobby (and class projects) of pressing plants and create a personalized herbarium of sorts. These photos are a start.I irrigated this weekend. The sheep were just moved off the paddock to the right and when it dries up enough they will go on the one to the left. Can you see the difference? It took only two days for them to eat that feed. Birdsfoot trefoil-2 One of their favorite plants is Birdsfoot Trefoil. It is a legume which means it is one of the plants that converts nitrogen in the air to a form that can be used by the plant. It is actually not the plant that does that but the bacteria that live in nodules on the roots of legumes.Clovers are also legumes. This is a variety of white clover.This morning I noticed just a few of these flowers. I can’t decide if this is a variant of the white clover or is a different species. The leaves are similar. I’ll have to do some more checking.Do you see how most of the other plants have been eaten and this one has not been touched? The sheep avoid plants that are toxic to them. This is Narrow-leaved Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). Not only is it a favored species for the monarch butterfly but according to a Plant Guide published by the NRCS “Zuni people utilize the silky seed fibers, which are spun on a hand-held wooden spindle, made into yarn, and woven into fabric (especially for dancers)…Milkweeds supply tough fibers for making cords and ropes, and for weaving a coarse cloth. Milkweeds stems are collected after the stalks dry in late fall to early winter. The dried stalks are split open to release the fibers. Milkweed fibers are sometimes mixed with fibers of Indian hemp, Apocynum cannabinum.” Sounds like a good challenge to my fiber-loving friends.
Narrow-leaved milkweed-3 These are Narrow-leaved Milkweed flowers in various stages… Narrow-leaved milkweed-5 …and a close-up.Field bindweed (Convolvulaceae arvensis), also known as morning glory. It is, according to a U.C. IPM website, “a perennial broadleaf, is considered one of the most problematic weeds in agricultural fields throughout temperate regions worldwide”.Soft Chess or Soft Brome, a non-native annual grass. Hare barley

Hare Barley. Also from the U.C. IPM site, “It is a useful livestock forage early in the season before the flower spikes develop. However, at maturity the spikelets have stiff, barbed, needle-like awns, and sharp bases that can injure the mouth, eyes, nasal passages, ears, and skin of animals.” Those are one of the many grass seeds we call foxtails and spend a fortune getting out of dogs ears and noses and agonize over when we find an otherwise beautiful fleece full of them.Medusahead as it is drying out. Medusahead covers thousands of acres of California foothills. It is not normally found in irrigated pasture, but it is in the easternmost paddock here which sometimes does not irrigate well. I have reclaimed part of that paddock, but I continually fight this plant. I find patches of it in other areas of the pasture and, although this is not an effective control technique, I pull it up by the handfuls as I walk by, coming back to the barn with it stuffed in the pockets of my overalls. It is a nasty plant that is “…among the worst weeds: not only does medusahead compete for resources with more desirable species, but it changes ecosystem function to favor its own survival at the expense of the entire ecosystem…Because grazing animals selectively avoid this plant, and because medusahead thatch tends to suppress desirable forage species, infestations often develop into near-monotypic stands.” From the U.C. Davis Medusahead Management Guide.

I have ID’d this one as Blunt Spikerush (Eleocharis obtusa), not a grass, but a sedge that is found on poorly drained soil and marshy areas. That’s my pasture…poorly drained soil. There is a lot of this sedge in the middle and south end of three or four of the paddocks. It looks like foot-tall grass, but that is why it is important to actually look at what is out there. This does not make good forage. Buckhorn plantain-3 A rather artsy shot of Buckhorn Plantain, found throughout California… Buckhorn plantain-2.jpg …and a photo in which you will probably more easily recognize it.

Well, that’s nine species of plants in the pasture. There are dozens more to go.

Irrigation Season – Part 2

Posted on April 24, 2016 by Robin

In the last post I showed photos I took while getting ready to irrigate the pasture.This is the ditch that runs north-south and brings the water from the upper ditch to the one that goes from west to east along the bigger pasture.This photo is looking the same direction but from a little bit west of the first one. You can see the same row of overgrown blackberries along the fence. The standpipe where the water comes in is in the upper left corner. In the lower center of the photo is one of the cut-outs that lets the water flow from the ditch into the field.Looking to the east as the water is flooding the pasture from north to south. In this photo the water hasn’t gotten very far into the paddock where the sheep are.Here is that tarp I showed in the last post.There are things to see besides just water and grass. One of the first things I noticed after the water filled the ditch was buzzing. These insects were everywhere over the water. I tried to ID it on the internet but didn’t find it. Anyone know what this is? DSC_8192 Swainson's hawk This is one of the pair of Swainson’s hawks that lives nearby and hunts in our pasture. DSC_8197 Swainson's hawk We have enough gophers to feed an army of hawks. DSC_8205 Swainson's hawk

I was hoping to see the hawk catch something but it continued to soar higher and higher. When I saw the buzzard (upper right) it reminded me of watching airplanes that you know are in different flight paths, although they look as though they’ll fly right into each other.

Irrigation Season – Part 1

Posted on April 22, 2016 by Robin

I keep talking about seasons and everyone has their seasons that are important in their lives. Lambing Season for me may be Tax Season for someone else. Some of these seasons overlap. Last year Fly Season began to overlap with Lambing Season. It’s not fun to see lambs born and have flies everywhere. (I could comment on Global Warming here…). Fortunately Fly Season has held off. It is now Irrigation Season.

I live on the western edge of the Central Valley. We are supposed to have wet winters and dry summers. Here are some facts gleaned from the USGS website.

“The Central Valley, also known as the Great Valley of California, covers about 20,000 square miles and is one of the more notable structural depressions in the world…

Approximately 75% of the irrigated land in California and 17% of the Nation’s irrigated land is in the Central Valley.

Using fewer than 1% of U.S. farmland, the Central Valley supplies 8% of U.S. agricultural output (by value) and produces 1/4 of the Nation’s food, including 40% of the Nation’s fruits, nuts, and other table foods.”

Irrigation is the only way that we have green plants in the summer and fall. So Irrigation Season is important, but irrigating isn’t as simple or as easy as just turning on a faucet. Here was my irrigation prep this week.This was taken from standing in the northwest corner of the property and looking west. When SID (Solano Irrigation District) opens the right gate the water comes down that canal, through a gate in the cement structure at the bottom of the photo and……comes up through this standpipe. It goes out that hole on the left and…into this ditch. At the end of the ditch it turns south and goes into the other part of the pasture. Later in the year this ditch will require weed-wacking for the whole length to allow the water to flow. This time I didn’t need to do that.This part of the ditch has old pipes that take the water under the burm. I can find two of the three that used to be functional.The first job is to dig out around both ends of these.As I walk through the pasture I find thistles that need to be chopped.The rest of the pasture doesn’t have those pipes, but instead has cut-outs or places where the burm is cut away to allow the water to flow from the ditch into the pasture. I didn’t get photos of those. This photo is a cut-out (under the fence) that I had to fill in because it was where we had cut through the burm to allow water flow INTO the ditch in the winter to help drain the rainwater that was all around the barn. Here is the place at the northeast corner of the pasture where I have to put a tarp to keep the water backed up in the ditch. After this point the ditch turns south and drains at the southeast corner of the property.I can never remember what size tarp to get. I bought 2 sizes and took this photo to remind myself that this one is just fine.The idea is to set the tarp so that the edges are buried in dirt and those boards behind will keep the water from pushing the tarp down flat. I did this twice. The first time the dirt that holds the tarp down on the bottom was too high. That means when I released the tarp at the end of irrigating there would still be a dam. I have a hard enough time getting the ditch to empty that I don’t need to impede it more.This is a second tarp that I set just around the corner in the ditch that goes south. I shouldn’t have to do this, but due to gopher holes, tree roots, and maybe my lack of irrigator skills it seems that one is never enough. Two tarps hold the water back better. Or at least one is a back-up for the other.While I was working in the pasture I saw that a couple of lambs had their heads through the electric net fence and didn’t seem to care. That prompted a search for the problem with the electric fence. I found a broken wire at the south end. I got new wire and fixed it but then found several more places where I had joined new wire to old. The more times you do that the less conductivity there is. So I took out a long stretch of the old pieced-together wire and replaced it. Low and behold, my tester showed higher strength than it has in years!One thing leads to another. While I was at that end of the pasture I was bothered again by the old dallisgrass that effectively mulches my pasture. It’s one thing to mulch a garden to keep weeds from growing, but mulching a pasture is counter-productive. If you search dallisgrass in this blog you’ll find many attempts to deal with this. This time I was simply knocking it off the electric wire that is about a foot and a half up on inside this fenceline. It broke and pulled away so easily at this time (this is last year’s dry grass) that I started pulling it away by the armfuls. I didn’t have any tools or even gloves, but threw mounds of it over the fence–hey, I’ll mulch the outside of the fence and maybe keep the growth down there. That felt somewhat productive although it may not be useful at all. But at least I could see a difference in the before and after.

More about irrigation in Part 2.

Green Pasture

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Robin

You have all seen photos of my green pasture.

This does not happen naturally here in California’s Central Valley . We have what is known as a Mediterranean climate. I thought I’d give you a definition but what I found when I did a google search is more interesting:

There are not many places in the world that have our hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. So how do we grow all that clover and grass in a hot, dry summer? Irrigation, of course. But irrigation water has to come from somewhere if it’s not coming out of the sky this time of year.

Our irrigation water is provided (sold) by Solano Irrigation District and comes from Lake Berryessa which fills from winter rainfall. Here is how our irrigation water is delivered.

Do you see that low spot in the mountains on the right side of the photo? Lake Berryessa is behind there. The water is carried down Putah Creek. Eventually it works it’s way into a system of canals. When I call for water the SID person opens a gate at the end of this ditch that is normally dry. The water flows to another gate at the northwest corner of my property (that cement box on the other side of the fence). When that gate is open the water flows under the fence into the standpipe in the foreground.

That black circle is the pipe carrying the water into the standpipe. It flows out the hole on the south side of the standpipe (at the top of the photo).

This is a close-up of that rushing cool water. It’s not a rushing mountain stream but it sure looked appealing this afternoon when I was outside working.

Here is where the water flows out of the standpipe into the pasture.

There is a ditch at the north end of each pasture. The water is just starting to fill the ditch.

I have to dig cut-outs in the ditch to get the water to flow where I want it. It’s not a perfect system because our ditches are worn out and trampled by sheep and the pastures aren’t level, but I can usually make it work. I have the water on for 24 to 36 hours to irrigate everything.

This is the last pasture the sheep were on yesterday and I finished mowing it (a story for another day) just before irrigating.

This is what we’d have in the summer if we didn’t irrigate. (This is a small pen behind the barn.)

Here is what irrigation gives us.

Irrigation time again

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Robin

I live on the western edge of the Central Valley in CA. We get winter rain and it’s dry all summer. The only way that things stay green here is through irrigation. One reason that we wanted this property was because it was part of the Solano Irrigation District and we could get irrigation water without having an ag well.

When I order water the water tender opens a valve at the west end of this ditch (left in the photo). This is not on our property, but the water flows down this ditch and then onto our property by opening the valve at this end.

The water flows through a pipe that goes under the fence and the water comes up in this standpipe and out the hole into the ditch in the pasture.

This view is still looking west. The water is starting to flow from the standpipe down the ditch at the north end of the property. The ditch turns south and gets the water to the rest of the pasture. The ditch is supposed to have high enough sides that the water is contained and only flows out where I dig a cut-out that lets the water into the pasture. The idea is to open a few areas at a time and be able to fill those cut-outs in as you open more. Ideally the pasture would have just the right amount of slope so that the water would flow evenly. Easier said than done. One problem with our place is that we don’t have the equipment to re-ditch the property. I’m using the same ditch that we had dug (by a neighbor with a tractor and ditcher) when we first started here. I see the alfalfa farmers re-ditch every time they irrigate and I’m jealous. I’ve looked into a pipeline system in which there wouldn’t be a ditch, but a buried pipe with valves that could be open and shut to control the irrigation. Unfortunatly the cost is completely unrealistic for my business. So I keep plugging away with the shovel and hoping for the best.

That is a mowed alfalfa field on the north (top of the photo) and our property is the green field. The standpipe is in the northwest corner of the property and the ditch in one of the photos above is along the north fenceline. You can see the water flowing down the ditch going south and that part of the pasture is already flooded. The sheep have to be in the corrals and barn when I’m irrigating. (So I have to feed them hay for several days every 3-4 weeks. I usually have the water on for 36 hours, but it takes several days for the field to drain enough to turn the sheep back out.)

That ditch that takes the water south dead-ends on this ditch that runs east-west and carries water to the other 5 acres. This view shows the south west corner of the property.

Here is the south east corner. I strip graze this 5 acre pasture. The strips run north-south and are separated by a 3-wire electric fence. You can make out the strips in this photo. See that black thing towards the top? That’s a portable water trough that I plug into the water pipeline that we installed a couple of years ago. The water trough is on one of the fencelines. I have just finished grazing the strips on either side of the water trough. The next two strips are more lush. They are ready to be grazed next. Notice the very pale green in the strip above the water trough? This strip is hard to irrigate and for several years I couldn’t get much water on it. That light green color is medusahead–a very unpalatable grass. Ideally I think burning it would be good, but I don’t think I can do that. We just bought a better heavy-duty weed-eater and I think I’m going to try to stay on top of the medusahead by using the weed-eater. I hope that I can make an impact on it this year. It renders that strip of the pasture unuseable. I noticed tonight that my irrigation water was getting there. I hope that if I can keep the medushead at bay then something else will start growing there.

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