Sprinkler System

Here on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountain Front, we reside in something of a rain shadow.  Robbed of their moisture as they stagger through the mountains to our west, clouds have little rain or snow left to offer by the time they reach us.  A normal year will see us capturing only about twelve inches of rain.

If you want a green lawn throughout the summer, you will need to drag a sprinkler around the place or install a more formal sprinkler system.

Somewhere around forty years ago, Leo, my neighbor on the lake, decided he wanted a little patch of green lawn.  He started modestly—watering only a small patch around his cabin—but over the years decided to bring green to something near an acre of rumpled land climbing uphill from his lakefront.

Green takes a lot.  Hundreds of feet of underground piping.  Hundreds of feet of spaghetti-style hoses above ground.  Dozens of sprinklers of every design.

To maintain green this time of year, sprinklers need to chick-chick above the lawn every other day at a minimum.

Leo’s system is not automatic.  Moreover, the system was created in piecemeal fashion.  It’s a complex compendium of pipes teeing off pipes, valves that must be opened or closed, aboveground pipes going underground, pipes vanishing in untended sections of landscape and appearing again under trees many yards in the distance. 

Yesterday, I helped water Leo’s yard and garden, which is now under the care of his son, Kevin.  “How do I turn on the sprinklers for the garden,” I asked him.

“The best thing is to follow the hose down from the sprinkler and open whatever valve you find connected to it.  Then you can start the pump down by the lake.”

Suffice it to say I wandered around the yard for the better part of a half-hour working to get the sprinklers I wanted spraying with sufficient pressure.  After following ten or so hoses and pipes, dashing through unintended sprays of water, cranking eight or nine valves in one direction or another, and dragging one sprinkler into the appropriate spot, I got the sprinkler system to do as I wanted.

This morning, I am heading down to do the same. I have my hiking shoes on. 

--Mitchell Hegman