Trickle down irrigation

Our water came!  It feels a little like a short lived excitement, as the drought has limited the water we received.  In the past couple years, we receive water for about 24 hours.  This year we got less than 10 hours, I think.  And it started at 4 AM!! 

Thomas and I were out with our shovels and headlamps early, early, early this morning, traipsing along the snow covered ground.  (It snowed Tuesday - not enough that the ground noticed.)  We checked the ditch to make sure everything was looking good up the line from our diversion, then moved the diversion at our neighbor's property line to send the water down to us.  After a few hours of sleep and then a chilly and energetic burst of activity, it was difficult to get back to sleep.  Late morning we checked on the water and moved our diversions before a late breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs, sausage, and fruit smoothies.  Already the snow was gone, and my layers were too many.  We went back to sleep after breakfast for a couple more hours before checking on the water again, more layers shed.  By the afternoon I was in cut-off pants and flip-flops, a hope I didn't think would be realized when it was snowing on Tuesday.  But by then, the water wasn't flowing anymore, and our efforts to keep the water on our property and flood the fields were over.  Hopefully we got enough to recharge our well some.  And we'll pray for more rain to refill the lake!

Despite the snow yesterday, the ground was dry - no mud except in the fields.  After seeing to some chores, we headed down to the firehall, so I could get a little time in behind the wheels of our wildland trucks.  When we keep busy on the weekends, it can sometimes be tough to find time to do things like this, so I was grateful it worked out.

And the kitty caper of the week - Tuesday I came home a little early.  When the snow was coming down so thick, I figured there was no harm in getting home, in case the roads got slick.  The snow was more wet than icy, so the roads stayed clear, but still - no harm.  I was in the bathroom when I heard a loud crash from outside.  Hoping it was just the cat house lid/roof, I went outside to check.  The snow was evenly covered over the lid/roof, but I couldn't figure out what else it could have been.  Looking around, things seemed to be in place.  Then I heard a meowing like I'd heard the night before.  I thought maybe Felix finally brought her kittens to the house, but it sounded more like Buttermilk.  The meowing was also really loud - as if it might be reverberating from the walls of Tom's shop.  She didn't readily come out from underneath it - and she isn't the shy one.  So I opened the door to the shop, and there she was, perched atop a high shelf.  Sadly, Thomas has been too preoccupied with house stuff to work on cleaning up his shop, so it was a little hard to tell what the cat mess was and what was the way it was before.  Oddly enough, I had to practically pull her out.  Not sure how long she was locked in, but Tom thinks she learned her lesson.  (I don't.)