Pigs in the Pasture
Way back in history the price of electricity was cheaper. A powerful electric pump took water from the ditch and pumped it into a network of pipes under the fields surrounding my home. The grass was green and lush during the summers and made a beautiful barrier between the dry hills and our house.
My son Ryan longed for a return of those beautiful green pastures of his childhood. When he and his wife bought the ranch, one of the first things he started was a project to once again turn the pastures green. However, the price of electricity today is greatly different than during his early years growing up on the ranch. This made the purchase of solar energy a much more practical alternative.
Ryan’s job is near San Jose so he can usually only be on the ranch during the weekends. This meant I was going to be the one person responsible, with Bob’s able assistance of course, for putting the system together and making it work.
When a pile of equipment was delivered to the hilltop, I looked at it with more than a little trepidation. I wasn’t as confident as my son with my ability to put these unfamiliar pieces together into a working solar system capable of pumping sufficient water to make the pastures green again. However, Ryan remained confident. He felt it was definitely something I could, and would accomplish.
During several of the summers when I was teaching high school, I worked for a cousin in Bakersfield who was an electrical contractor. However, nothing I worked on during those summers looked anything at all like the pile of equipment and pieces waiting in our garage. Bolstered by Ryan’s confidence in Dad, Bob and I began work.
As the project progressed, and construction continued, the system began to take shape. A pipe frame was built and cemented in place, the solar panels were carefully mounted on the heavy pipe framework, the pump was mounted over the ditch, and conduit was run between the panels and the pump. A 10,000 gallon tank was mounted on the hill. Pipes were run between the pump and tank.
The system was designed to pump water into the tank during the daylight hours, then use gravity to provide pressure to the sprinklers. If everything went as planned, the sun would shine, the pump would pump, the sprinklers would sprinkle, and the grass would turn green. It was an energetic plan. But would it work?
The day finally arrived when everything was complete. All was finished. There was only one thing left to do. Turn it on and see if it functioned as planned.
Because it was a wellmade system designed so you didn’t have to use professionals, it worked when I first turned it on. Obviously, Bob and I had done everything properly. We’ve all been pleased to find it has continued to work flawlessly. Every sunny day the system pumps water into the tank, while gravity provides the water pressure to the sprinklers on the pasture.
Much to Ryan’s pleasure and satisfaction, the ground in the pasture is getting wet, and the grass is indeed turning green. The cows, and of course Mr. Boo, have delighted in the fresh green grass growing in the back field. We keep them shut off this area several days at a time to allow the grass to grow, before we allow the bovine mowing machines to graze and nip it short again.
However, we’ve discovered there’s a problem developing. Our ranch is located at the edge of the foothills where wild animals abound. There are large numbers of squirrels, too many in fact, quite a few rabbits, we often hear coyotes in the distance at night, occasionally we see bobcats, though seldom do we see any deer.
We have learned there’s also one more critter residing on our hills. This one is causing destruction of our nice green grass which the cattle like so well, and which is such a pretty shade of green. We have wild pigs coming off the hills and digging up the roots of the grass we’ve worked so hard to grow.
In our foothills, the first plant to come up when bare ground is irrigated, or in the mostrare of worldly events, after a rain storm, is the filaree plant. This vegetation has a juicy tap root which digs down into the soil far below a beautiful green crown. The pigs don’t care what it is or what it’s called, and they don’t care one bit about the green crown which the cattle like so well. They do enjoy digging their snout into the wet and well-irrigated ground, in order to turn over their midnight snack. These are generally nocturnal critters, only showing their faces in the dark of night. Occasionally they will let themselves be seen during daylight hours, but only rarely.
Bob went out to see what he could find. He had no trouble learning where the pigs entered our property. A bit of upwardly bent hogwire, complete with a few thick hog hairs, easily revealed their entry spot. Plus, there were plenty of tracks to point the guilty finger at the “snooty” culprits.