A Ride to the Farm

With my new job, I have a little discretionary time on my hands, at least until I get trained up and hit the ground running.  It is something that I'm not accustomed to.  I was able to make arrangements to meet up with Dad and ride with him out to the farm.  It's been a long time since Dad and I rode together out there.  That afternoon, he took me down all the roads that border the cropland, and I was able to see a lot of changes in terms of improvements.  But I was also able to just see fields that reminded me of the way things were decades ago.  

Dad is leasing out the farm to a gentleman that is crawfishing on a number of acres and also planting rice.  He's doing a good job taking care of the land.  They were already fishing a number of acres and were in the midst of putting out crawfish traps on the remaining ponds.  The irrigation wells were all pumping water to fill the ponds.  The ponds are essentially rice fields flooded up with water so that fishermen with boats can run the traps.

Dad wanted to show me an improvement that was recently made on a 10 inch well.  The diesel engine recently went out and it just made good sense to replace with an electric motor.  In the past, it never made good economic sense due to a spike in electric current which would push you into a very high rate.  Now there is a "slow start" that alleviates that.  The wells pump water from underground aquifers to flood the surrounding cropland.  The crop you see below is rice that was planted for the crawfish.

The electric motor appears to pump more water.  Another thing is that now that it is electric, it is very quiet.  When this very engine was a diesel engine, we would check it before heading home for the evening.  The straight pipes were very LOUD.  I also remember in the evenings, the exhaust manifold was glowing 'cherry red' it was so hot!  Converting to electric seems to be a better choice right now with oil/diesel prices rising.  The diesel engines we run would burn a little north of seven gallons of diesel per hour and they run 24/7 for days.  The engine oil and filters must be changed often to protect the motor.  The electric motor, in contrast, on takes only a 'dripper' oil for lubrication.

As I watched the water, I remembered that about 22 years ago I dug some Louisiana Iris that were growing in the roadside ditch off the gravel road just 30 feet north of where I was standing when I took the photo below.  I replanted them at our home and they've multiplied.  They should be blooming in a month or two.  I'll be sure to show some photos.

It was a nice afternoon, driving around with Dad, looking at the land that I grew up on.