Friday, March 13, 2015

Summer of dreams

The weather was hot and dry as we watched storm clouds, wishing for rain, but dreading the possibility of hail.  It was like this every summer, but this year it seemed different.  I couldn’t get my thoughts away from Cheney, the new, exciting things I saw there.  That glimpse of a new world I experienced over the short time I visited, stuck in my mind. I kept replaying it over and over.

We had various jobs to accomplish around the ranch that I put my whole effort into, but my mind was otherwise occupied.  There were so many questions.  Could I master college studies?  Would I be able to make the basketball team?  How much money, over and above the scholarship and job would I need?  How would I get along living with several other guys?  Finally I realized my mind set was getting me nowhere and the summer was slipping by.  I wanted to enjoy this last time with my family as “me”, and not some college guy.  During these next college years I felt sure I would loose touch with much of the day to day events that we had shared as a family.  With that bit of logic I started to focus on the activity around me and the work to be done.  Summer dreaming was set aside for real summer time fun.

Grandpa wanted to build a dam in the main canyon east of the shop building. There were springs in the bottom of the canyon that would feed fresh water into the pond if held back by a dam.  A tall dam would hold back a lot of the runoff water during the year.  In addition to the snow melt I have seen a roaring river in the canyon after a big rain storm.  We would have to provide a spillway so the dam wouldn’t fill and wash out.  A channel leading from slightly below the top of the dam, along the side of the canyon and gradually reaching the canyon floor below the dam would take care of the spillway requirement.

Work on this project started one day as Grandpa assembled a large braking plow, a fresno and a team in the bottom of the canyon at the dam site.  First he hooked the team to the plow.  I walked behind the plow, keeping it upright and pointed in the correct general direction.  This was like trying to control a yearling steer.  The plow would hit a rock and jump out of the ground.  I was fighting it every step of the way.  Grandpa was driving the horses and they were straining with the load and moving at a fast pace.  We were ripping the bottom of the canyon above where the dam was to go.  Gradually we worked up on the edge of the canyon where the soil was softer and had fewer rocks.  When Grandpa decided we had plowed enough, he pulled off to the side and unhooked the team.  I was ready for a rest and the team looked as if they needed one too.  That would have been a good work out for a football player.

After every one got their wind back the team was hitched to the fresno scraper.  It was a metal scraper that gathered up the dirt and held it in the C shaped bowel behind the 5’ long blade.  A long handle extended out the back that the operator held to control the angle of the scraper blade.  Lifting up on the handle would cause the scraper to dig deeper.  Pushing down on the handle would have the opposite effect.  When the scraper had a full load the handle would be pushed down and held as the load was scooted over the ground to the spot where it was to be dumped.  To unload the dirt the handle was raised high until runners on either end of the blade drug and rotated the scraper bowel, so the dirt was dumped.















The Fresno scraper was invented in 1884 and built in Fresno California, thus the name.  Thousands of “fresnos” were made for use in agriculture, canals, ditches, and land leveling.  They were even used on the Panama Canal.  Many of the early workmen would tie lines from the team together and then loop them around their back while operating the Fresno handle with one hand and driving the team with the other.  We drug the dirt loosened with the plow to where we formed the base of the dam.  Grandpa drove the team and I wrestled the handle of the scraper.  I wasn’t ready for the one handed technique.  It was about all I could manage with two hands.  This would have been an excellent exercise for a football player too.  Grandpa was constantly cautioning me to watch out for the handle.  He knew of men that lost teeth when the handle got away.  I could see how that could happen, as when the scraper blade hit a rock the scraper would skip over and catch me by surprise.  Eventually we scooped all the loose dirt up and deposited it on the dam site.  It was starting to look like a dam and the plowing had opened up several little springs that trickled down and began making a puddle.

When we quit for that day Grandpa waved his hand toward a ridge of dirt above the dam and stated, “We’ll start pulling that dirt down in the morning.  A couple more days work and we should have enough height to be safe this year.”  It felt good to be constructing something new and needed.  Our livestock would do much better with all the water they wanted.

Priorities changed and we didn’t get back to dam building the next day as we planned.  When I returned from college several summers later I was surprised to see a major dam built where we had started.  Grandpa had a way of talking favors out of people.  He managed to persuade a bulldozer operator that was working on the highway gravel pit to finish our dam.  It was done right with a spillway that would carry the water away before it reached the top of the dam.  Quite a pond had been created in the several years since we started our dam.





*Taken from "Which Road Should I Follow?, Volume 1, Growing up in the country", an autobiography by Edwin K. Hill.

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