Reelin’ in the Years

As the oldest of two daughters, my father considered me the son he always wanted. When I was a little girl, he bought me a tiny shovel so I could help irrigate the orchards. After he used tractor and disc to create ridges in preparation for flood irrigation, I went behind him, shoveling to patch gaps in the intersection of levees. When the ditch tender turned water into our field, I waded waist-deep into the trench bisecting two sections of orchard to drag a canvas dam used to divert flow into the appropriate check. I could irrigate thirty acres of almonds, unassisted, by the time I reached adulthood.