Our house lost Internet access last Thursday noon, and our service providers didn’t have tech support over the weekend. We drove in to town to speak with them first thing this morning. We went in together because Bob was so mad that there might not have been a good outcome, and because I planned to stay and work from their office if they couldn’t fix access in mine. Cheerfully, mind you, but there nonetheless.
Vladimir came home with us, and took three hours to unravel two different problems; I sent him off with a jar of apricot jalapeno jam, Bob gave him a fat tip, and we’re both back at work.
And for now, here’s a butterfly pic with no story.
The squirrel came back and started tunneling the potatoes, and that was the end of that. If something eats my lettuces, I can say shoo. It messed around with Bob’s potatoes, though, and he called Department of Wildlife that morning to see if he could shoot it. He was told, sure. So he set the trap out for show, and the squirrel walked into it by early afternoon.
Bob told me he said very nice things to the squirrel when he drowned it.
When he said the squirrel had to go last week, I wrote that he was ruthless. It made me wonder, what is ruth? Is anyone ever ruthful? It turns out that the root of the word is rue, or regret. My husband is a man who rueth less.
ruthless
c.1327, from reuthe “pity, compassion” (c.1175), formed from reuwen “to rue” (see rue (v.)) on the model of true/truth, etc. Ruthful (c.1225) has fallen from use since late 17c. except as a deliberate archaism.
rue (v.)
“feel regret,” O.E. hreowan “make sorry, grieve” …
Living next to wilderness with no deer fence, no cat and a dog that’s trained not to chase wildlife, there has to be someone willing to take a stand. Glad it’s not me. And since I live in a world where I get to rue because he rueth less, I’m making a nice shrimp and snow pea Thai curry in thanks. Wanna keep that man strong.
Published on July 2, 2008
in water.
We’ve past high flow for the year, and the boulder didn’t shift.
On April 15th it was covered,
and on March 23 the water was about the same level as it was today. It’ll take a heck of a season to move that rock downstream.
The railroad bridge in Durango was swept away in the flood of 1911, and was rebuilt high enough to be safe in a hundred-year flood… if the flooded river just carried water. But water high enough to toss this boulder downstream would take out a few trees, and it would float away some of the trailers in the floodplain upstream of the bridge. Next time there’s a big flood, the water won’t take out the bridge like it did in 1911. Instead, the build-up of trailers knocking against the bridge would likely tear it down. The older I get the more it seems that it’s not the journey that’s the problem; it’s the baggage.
Published on July 1, 2008
in water.
West of the Mississippi, the right to use water in a stream or river is real property that is bought and sold like a house or a car. If you own property with a ditch or a stream running through it, you can’t touch a drop unless you buy water rights. This area has 19 inches of rain a year, so your water rights determine whether your land is lush pasture or near desert.
Water rights have three parameters. There is the location the water is extracted from the waterways; there is the amount of water you can use; and there is the original date that the right was first filed for in water court. Bob and I own shares in a ditch company with rights from 1881, and since the oldest water rights get their allotment first when the river runs low, we’re set for most any situation.
In La Plata County, well over 90% of the water rights are owned by ditch companies and old ranching families. Agricultural diversions account for most of the water extracted from the river.
From a management point of view, you’d think since these ditches take so much of the river’s flow that it’d be measured. No, no, nooo. You just get in some heavy equipment and split the flow.
Just move the boulders swept downstream in the run-off to partition off part of the river for the ditch company. Casual over-appropriation is part of the reality of western water management.
On some of the smaller rivers and streams, more water rights are owned than are actually flowing in the river, so the streams are drained completely. A friend with land on the La Plata River used to watch as a backhoe placed stones to divert the entire flow of the river into an irrigation ditch. After midnight, she’d tiptoe out in her nightie and move rocks to let some of the flow into the streambed. She’d telephone a friend downstream at 1am to say, Water’s coming in 20 minutes.
Women in nighties subverting the flow is also part of western water management.
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