Jade Meinzer

There is no doubt that irrigation has changed agriculture for the better. Irrigation is what makes farming in a large portion of the Great Plains possible on a large scale. Since the dawn of time farmers have been working to get water too their crops. Large ditches were dug in Mesopotamia to support civilization. Ancient Egyptians used the Nile River Valley to grow their crops. To this day states fight one another over water to be used for irrigation. Endless court battles are fought over water and who has a right to use it. Somewhere down the line, someone decided that it was more efficient to water crops with a center pivot sprinkler system than it was to keep digging ditches and flooding crop ground with water to help it grow.

The tack boxes are loaded, feed, water buckets, wood shavings and a blocking chute fill the front of the trailer. Shovels, rakes, brooms, wheelbarrows, fans, tarps, the generator, extension cords, lawn chairs, and a deck of cards are stuffed into the bed of the pickup and the cab barely has room for the driver and one passenger. All week long the preparations have been made to spend a week away from home at the county fair. Bright and early in the morning the animals will be loaded, and the journey will be underway to showcase all the hard work that the young showmen have put into their projects. The kids probably won't be able to sleep tonight for all the excitement running through their minds of the week ahead. Dad on the other hand has been asleep in his recliner for the last half hour because he has spent the last three days cleaning out the trailer, loading all the supplies, moving the camper to fair so his kids have a place to stay for the week, wiping away nervous tears, and trying to make sure that Mom doesn't lose her cool when one of the kids gets all the way to the fairgrounds before remembering the keys to the tack box on the kitchen counter over an hour drive away.

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The first week of August is bike week in Sturgis, South Dakota. I know this because every highway running north out of Nebraska is filled with motorcycles doing their best to beat everyone else there. Just the other day as I was traveling to Scottsbluff to pick up some four wheelers that had been up there being worked on, I was reminded that it was bike week by the two impatient motorcycle riders who were bound and determined to make it there just a little faster than everyone else. I got to thinking, I bet their guardian angels look a little strung out after taking care of them all day. Their hair is probably standing on end like they stuck their finger in a wall socket, they have bloodshot eyes with bags underneath them from the lack of sleep and constant state of anxiety that they are living in. I don't know if the Good Lord allows cigarettes in heaven, but he might make an exception for these poor souls.

There is an old saying that you make hay when the sun shines. What a load of crap that is. The only hay I have ever baled in my life while the sun was shining was wild meadow hay that was very forgiving about how it was put up. Mow it down one day, let the sunshine down on it and rake and bale it up the next. Alfalfa on the other hand requires a doctoral degree in molecular biology, the sign of the moon to be just right, all the stars to align in order, no humidity for the first two days after it is mowed and then just enough humidity to keep the leaves sticking to the stalk when you go to bale it, and a permission slip from God himself to get alfalfa baled correctly. There have been great advancements in steam technology that allows alfalfa to all be baled at a specified moisture level, but for the average rancher and cowman, we figure that hay in a bale is better than a snowbank when it comes to feeding cows.

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I'm beginning to wonder how we as a society have ever got anything done without a camera being present. It seems like everything that we do, from getting ready to go to town, to doing our daily job has to be documented with a video and shared for everyone to see. I'll admit that I can spend a fair bit of time watching videos on my phone that someone shared, but I catch myself wondering how much time is wasted on both ends of that video. The person that made the video of themselves doing their job had to take extra effort to set up a camera, or wear one, make the video, edit it so that it looked professional and then take the time to post it to their social media so that all their followers could marvel over the thirty second clip. The viewers are wasting their own time watching the video when they could be doing almost anything else.

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My grandpa was a very wise man, most of the time that is. He probably forgot more about the cattle industry than most folks will ever know. He lived through the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, postponed his wedding to Grandma because Pearl Harbor happened and he thought he would be drafted into service, served as a founding member of the local fire department and served on the local school board for many years. Throughout all his years, he always had a practical solution for almost every problem. One of his solutions was neither safe nor practical, however. See Grandpa had the only center pivot irrigation system in our part of the county. It was an electric drive system that required a few different components to make it run properly.

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