I left the last post knowing that the irrigation would not be finished by the time the water was shut off Tuesday afternoon. I was able to have the water start again at 6 a.m. I waited for the ditch and pipeline to fill again and went out about 7:30 a.m.
I could tell right away that there was more water flowing in–it had already progressed farther down the checks where the valves were still open than the previous day. The following are the notes I took on my phone that morning. The numbers refer to how far down the field the water is for each check.
7:45 a.m.
13 is 1/2, 14 and 15 are 2/3, 16 is 1/4, 17 and 18 are 2/3, 19 is 1/2
9:20 a.m. 13 and 14 almost finished. 15 over 3/4. 16 is 2/3. 17 and 18 are over 3/4. 19 is 3/4. 20 is 2/3
9:40 a.m. 13 finished. Closed. Opened 21 and 6-7-8
I had to go to Davis and didn’t get back until 12:30
12:30 p.m. 15-16-17-18-19-20 finished. 21 is close to end.
Now only 21 and 6-7-8 were on. Closed 8. 7 is 1/2. 6 is 3/4. Both of these were flowing backwards into the lane a lot.
The last note is about 21, 6, 7, and 8. Valve 21 was the last one I opened. I had closed 6, 7, and 8 because the water wasn’t flowing enough there and I wanted to make sure all the rest got enough water. It was only after the water was flowing so well and everything else was finished I opened those again.
I took this photo in a place where I could actually see the water. Many times I can’t see it because the forage is so thick or tall. In that case I can tell if it’s wet because I can hear the water splashing where I’m walking. I recorded a video to share that, but I can’t upload it here.
This is what the soil moisture sensor looks like. I get the graph on my computer or my phone.
This is what I meant by #7 and #8 flowing backwards. It took only a couple of minutes for the lane to be flooded. Before we irrigate next time we’ll have to pile dirt around those valves.
The red line on the graph below shows that the amount of water was more than twice what I had the previous day. It also shows that the other soil moisture sensor finally measured water. I see an anomaly–that faint blue line that rises as the water is shut off the first time. I think the timing is coincidence, but it shows underground flow that activates that 12″ deep sensor on the east. Flowing through gopher holes?
There is a lot to think about before the next irrigation.
I turned the sheep out this morning. The paddock on the left was last grazed May 1. The sheep moved to the north paddocks after that and then moved from west to east. The one on the right hadn’t been grazed since March 29. The whole flock is out there, but you can’t see them because they are in a jungle of chicory.
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.
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 
These are Narrow-leaved Milkweed flowers in various stages…
…and a close-up.
Field bindweed (Convolvulaceae arvensis), also known as morning glory. It is, according to a 
Soft Chess or Soft Brome, a non-native annual grass.
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 
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.
A rather artsy shot of Buckhorn Plantain, found throughout California…
…and a photo in which you will probably more easily recognize it.
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? 
This is one of the pair of Swainson’s hawks that lives nearby and hunts in our pasture.
We have enough gophers to feed an army of hawks.
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.
Meridian Jacobs' Blog 