As one to take his own medicine, I'm following the work-study program I preach as a university standard: weave in the hard physical jobs as components of reshuffled PhD programs, or call them whatever, connotation: advanced, but more polymathic than some of the predecessors.
The camera shot is obviously posed, but we (me 'n Sam) really did the work of screwing the aluminum wheels onto those lengths of pipe, all meant to be spliced together and moved by a centered "mover", a machine. That's farming 101 (beginner terms) for a lotta ya, sure was to me. The "wheel line" so-called, is not the same as a "reel line" which I've also learned about, in previous episodes of Kirby Visits the Farm.
The picture above gives a better sense of the project: the wheels get delivered in halves which need to be (a) clamped around their pipes by bolts and screws through the provided holes and (b) screwed to one another around the rim.
These wheel-borne pipes, when connected, support an ensemble of crop sprinklers, water spreaders, fed by highly pressurized water to the pipe at one end, and all of it moved as a unit, very slowly across a wide field, by means of a petroleum combustion engine.
Yes, these wheel lines come in other forms. Sometimes the pipe is held much higher, with wheels supporting tall pillars. Sometimes the pipe is fixed at one end, such that the other end traces out the perimeter of a circle. We often see these patterns of circles from airplane windows, when flying over cultivated lands.
This field, used for wildflowers, eventually grows too high for the wheel lines to traverse. The barley fields are already that way now. At this point, a reel line might come into play, with lanes mowed in a diagonal pattern, through which to drag a sprinkler on a retractable hose.
If this is still a fertile valley as advertised, one is hoping for rain to also do its part. Irrigation technology alone is not able to win most fights against climate change. Water pumped from a nearby river keeps the show on the road and harvests predictable, provided long term weather patterns (climate) continue to cooperate, which they may not.
Meanwhile, back in the trailer, I was reading through Black Pill, on advice of the Mercado Group (my daughter a member), which no longer meets at El Mercado, an ethnic-themed indoor mall on SE Foster, which succumbed to fire at the start of last year. Rebuilding is ongoing. The group meets other places.
I'm also reading Glorious Bodies, and re-reading Into the Cool. Mercado Group includes professional readers, librarians, who not surprisingly take in other media with a voracious appetite. I'm oft reminded of my Grandma Esther, a super curious-minded woman, who loved to read about any and everything. Talk about polymathic!
It's at the farm that I sometimes catch up on Rachel Maddow's show (I don't subscribe to cable), whom I've acknowledged is influential, even if we're not always on the same page. When Air America (the talk radio network) broke up, I followed my peeps, like Thom Hartmann, over to RT America, whereas others went to MSNBC. Little was I expecting at the time, RT America's eventual banning, amidst tank, drone and missile extravaganzas, other lurid orgies of monstrous violence.
Rachel did not disappoint, with her strong message regarding EWR (Newark Airport), which had a recent vital infrastructure outage making air traffic controllers unable to perform effectively. They were like firefighters without water in LA.
The whole Atlantic coast might be becoming more tiredly provincial, awaiting a next long overdue upgrade. I'm not the expert, although I did live in Jersey City, close to Newark, for some years.
PDX seems to be operating normally, but this coast has a separate economy to some degree, not discounting the huge volume of domestic "land shipping" by truck and rail (nor forgetting barges, nor airplanes used for freight...). Transportation is a big subject, especially if you factor in fuel and power delivery by pipeline and grid, and water delivery by myriad modes, including in plastic bottles stowed in refrigerated dispensing machines.
My work-study program also emphasizes how, in earning academic credit, and in being provided with more than adequate digs for the circumstances, I am not thereby replicating any exploitative migrant farm hand conditions. No one is forced to go undocumented and unappreciated.
