#irrigation ditch

[huariqueje]

Acequia , Irrigation ditch  -   Carlos Morago

Spanish,b.1954-

Oil on wood, 30 x 30 cm.

[cactusflowerfemme]

Please, please. Always wear your seatbelts.

[smoredoghubble]

I had to explain low value vs. high value reinforcers to my dad today because Hubble got out of the yard and wouldn't come back to me. He didn't understand why the treats I had on me at the time didn't work. I explained it to him by saying if he was outside playing with his grandkids and my mom said she'd give everyone a handful of cheerios if they came inside right now he probably wouldn't listen. But her saying there's ice cream sandwiches would definitely get everyone moving. AND HE UNDERSTOOD IT!!!

A win for me in the communication with Papa category!!

[passavantsridge]

i like to tell my wife stories of growing up in oregon because she seems horrified by most of them

[jadeseadragon]

I would have made a gooseberry and dandelion pie for you.

“You never pretended to be a bride when you were a little girl?” No???? Like literally never?

[michael-massa-micon]

Irrigated Field - February 2024 This cotton field is on the north side of Casa Grande, but well within the city. It has open air irrigation ditches and the field is carefully plowed in order to distribute that water. The cotton crop is not yet planted, so no water flows in the ditches, but it is ready for when the time comes. In the meantime, it provides some interesting image opportunities for me. Note the cotton residue in the main ditch from last year’s crop. MWM

[wilwheaton]

During a speech on Sunday night, Donald Trump repeatedly spoke as if Barack Obama were the current president. It wasn’t the first time. In recent speeches, Trump has also claimed to have beaten both Obama and George W. Bush in 2016. That’s when he wasn’t promising to use irrigation ditches to bring water to bathrooms or keep California’s forests damp. It’s not that Trump hasn’t always been an egotistical, vindictive jackass with few concerns for whether his hateful, antisemitic, misogynistic, and racist rants had even a passing encounter with the truth. But this is different. In the 2024 campaign, and in the messages he posts to social media, Trump has been in a confused and addled state, one where he has frequently makes statements that are both incoherent and irreconcilable with reality. Still, did you hear that President Joe Biden made a “gaffe”? Sure you did. Because the media not only devotes heavy coverage to Biden’s every hesitation or stumble, it goes out of its way to create them even when they don’t exist. All to promote a narrative that Biden is old and losing his grip, while Trump is somehow vigorous. That narrative isn’t just a clear disservice; it’s a signal measure of how willing major media outlets are to coddle Trump, savage Biden, and keep the nation in the dark.

Donald Trump is unraveling, and the media is covering it up

[wigmund]

Something to tug on your heart strings today - researchers working with Indian Elephants in tea-producing areas of West Bengal have been finding evidence that the elephants are burying their deceased calves in plantation irrigation ditches. A common feature of all of the burials is the calves' legs sticking up into the air out of the grave.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A First Nation in B.C.'s Interior has received more than $147 million from the federal government after more than 20 years of fighting for the acknowledgement of its water rights. The Esk'etemc (pronounced es-KET-em) First Nation, located southwest of Williams Lake, B.C., first filed with Specific Claims, which deals with past wrongs against First Nations in Canada, in 2003, raising issues arising from being prevented from completing an irrigation ditch in the 1890s.  In 1881, land was set aside for Wycott's Flat Indian Reserve #6 and the agreement noted that all the water flowing out of a nearby lake was reserved for the Esk'etemc Nation, according to Anispiragas Piragasanathar, a spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.  The Esk'etemc Nation said all the water from Vert Lake, southeast of the reserve, was promised to the Esk'etemc for irrigation as part of a reserve land agreement. The First Nation started digging in the 1890s, but after two years of work and just one kilometre away from completion, it was told it had to stop.  "It was devastating," lawyer Stan Ashcroft told CBC's Daybreak Kamloops guest host Doug Herbert. "I mean, after all that effort to be told you can't continue, when I talked to the elders, they said it was completely devastating." The irrigation ditch has lain dormant since, according to the First Nation. 

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Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

[mail-me-a-snail]

unless spy wants to get railed napoleonic war style, i don't think soldier would take his messing with spy to the point of like. actually doing him/his suit significant harm. they kill each other on the regular and that's part of the foreplay but also spy takes pride in his appearance like soldier takes pride in his country. literally who is he to mess with that

anyway i think soldier straight up licks spy and gets great enjoyment out of grossing him out. while i love soldier being a dense war machine i do think he has his moments where he's a lucid little shit

[kingdoms-and-empires]

Please tell me as an inventor/engineer MC we will be able to create power armor or overpowered weapons or maybe even a cannon or just make anything powerful in general.

Engineer MC will be civil engineering, the most OP things we'll be creating is aqueducts and ramparts for defensive siegeworks.

Sewers, drainage systems, irrigation ditches, dams, etc. We really take such things for granted, and i really think itd be pretty cool to rediscover such incredible things our ancestors did back then. Take for instance the:

Dujiangyan

The fucking thing was built in 256 BC, and it is still in use. The irrigation system here literally propelled the Qin State to dominance as it helped control the Min River and alleviated the dickish Yangtze River (one of the two major rivers of China that helped China become such a political, social, and cultural superpower historically) by suddenly making the Qin able to produce vast amounts of food to feed their armies. Back then it wouldnt have been possible due to the constant and unpredictable flooding.

Shit like the above is what the Engineer MC will do and work on. Your work wont be a mere weapon, it will shape the land to your will and be used, marveled, and studied for millennia after your death. Youre a civilization builder!

[druid-in-hiding]

Misfits, Magic, and Myth

Ep 9, Misfits and Magic Season 2 and I am FUCKING LOSING IT!

Why?

Throughout a chunk of the season, there's this looming snake in the sky that pops up. Great generalized mythical storytelling. But here's where things get odd.

I always go under the assumption that the GM does their homework but I also know that it's equally possible this was stumbled across.

Dropout TV and, by default, Dimension 20 are headquartered in Los Angeles. And in L.A., everyone who was a kid here or knows someone who was raised here or knows someone with kids here has heard about the Rainbow Serpent.

Basic story is that the Chumash (north of LA) were beloved by the Rainbow Serpent, but his gifts made humans so successful the island they first emerged on--Santa Cruz, if you are curious--got overcrowded. So the Rainbow Serpent arched his back so the humans could get to the mainland. Some dropped off and became dolphins.

End of story.

The kid's version, that is. But if you go talk to the local tribes long enough--Chumash, Tataviam, and Tongva for the greater Ventura and Los Angeles area--you get to learn more. Like how Sky Snake and Xutash (the earth) were lovers and that's why he felt joy in his lover's children, resulting in the gifts and the exodus. You can see Sky Snake's "trail" when storm clouds wrap around the Valley. There's rock art with him all over it. Or you can find his symbology hidden in various Christian spots where the indigenous slaves managed a very poignant fuck you to their enslavers.

Sky Snake is revered enough here that European-descended children know the basics, his story crosses over with some occult beliefs later on, and he's just about as famous as Coyote, another local guardian of humanity.

But there's more...

(spoilers)

There's a sigil holding the Mismag Sky Snake captive, carved from the soft earth. This binding resulted in the horrific wizard civilization that fell apart during Misgmag 1 and Mismag 2.

That's TIAMAT's story.

Oceanic water serpent that the founder of civilization killed by dragging claws through her body--basically a shorthand for creating irrigation ditches that turned a fertile delta into crap ground only really good for growing wheat. And then the civilization-founding god enacted SLAVERY to keep the system working, leading to the total fucking mess we are in now.

When Evan Kelmp said the only moral thing to do was to free Sky Snake, he was dead on.

I composed a book ("Silence in the Chapel") with freeing Tiamat as the initial premise. I am writing a book which goes into the myths of Sumeria and its impact right now. So needless to say, I am absolutely completely delighted to see these concepts--both at the heart of Los Angeles and the heart of civilization--play out on the small screen.

Absolute kudos, @quiddie from this old game designer to you. Amazing work and an incredible delight.

Now I have to hunt down the Chumash Storyteller at the November 30th powwow coming up to brag about what you did.

[feybeasts]

I think I need to start inherently distrusting the opinions of people who have never had to do hard labor they didn’t really want to for a period longer than two hours

You begin to understand some very core truths of reality when you’re on hour four of digging ditches for irrigation piping

[venerablemonk27]

I've done a lot of birding the past couple months and not a lot of posting, so I'm going back to our Tucson, AZ trip from April. I hadn't been to the Western US since picking up birding or wildlife photography, so I knew I was going to pick up a ton of lifers. One of our target species for the trip was also my fifth Owl species ever: the Burrowing Owl.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. They are facing left and looking toward the camera. The sun is low in the sky off to the right, which illuminates the right side of the Owl's face and their back, while casting the rest in shadow. They have striking yellow eyes and a furrowed brow that gives them the appearance of a permanent scowl. Their oval-shaped head transitions naturally into a slender cylindrical body covered in mottled tan and white feathers. About half the bird's height is body and folded wings, with two naked grey legs planted on the ground. End ID]

This was the morning we had picked for me to do some solo birding, so I drove out to a spot west of Tucson where eBird indicated that Burrowing Owls were likely to appear. It was just after sunrise when I found the road cutting between farm fields where the Owls were reported. I drove slowly down the side of the road in my rented Dodge Charger, stopping occasionally to inspect a suspicious clump of dirt with my binoculars. I had not seen any sign of the Owls when a Land Rover pulled up behind me. A group of three folks in their 60s with binoculars piled out of car, clearly more birders here to do exactly what I was doing.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt, facing the camera. The sun is still low in the sky, but now the bird's face and chest are more brightly lit, showing the transition in feather colors from tan to mottled tan to white as they progress downward from collar to belly.]

They introduced themselves as coming from the UK, and had been visiting Arizona for several weeks in search of all the unique birds the state could offer. The driver was particularly puzzled about the location of the Owls, saying he was "absolutely foxed" that this place with no real habitat could host Burrowing Owls. I showed him the recent sightings on eBird and explained that it was possible the birds just hadn't emerged from their burrows yet.

After another 15 minutes of searching the fields, I offered to lead them to an alternate site nearby. We got in our cars and slowly drove back the way we had come. Just as we were approaching the end of the road, I spotted a small tan creature standing right on the edge of the irrigation ditch along the near side of the field. A Burrowing Owl! I swung the Charger around and flagged down my companions, who had also spotted the Owl.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. The one in the foreground looks decidedly sleepier and plumper than the one in the background (seen in previous images). Both Owls are similar in coloration, but the one in the foreground has an aluminum leg band for identifying them. End ID]

We got out to take a look and grab some photos from long distance, then slowly crept forward with my Charger as a rolling blind. There turned out to be four Owls spread out along the irrigation ditch, likely close to their burrows which were out of sight. They were surprisingly unbothered by the cars rolling up to them, probably because they see trucks and farm vehicles driving past all day every day. Once we were directly across the irrigation ditch from the closest pair, I climbed into the passenger seat to take some better photosm. Mostly the Owls just stood on their tiny hill and looked around. Though I did witness one of the pair above fly down to pounce on a grasshopper, then return to feed it to their partner.

[ID: A pair of Burrowing Owls stand on a mound of dirt. This photo was taken midday, with the sun directly overhead. At least one of these individuals is different from those above, as they have two leg bands instead of one. It's also apparent in the photo that the Owls are standing at the edge of a farm field from the row of green plants out of focus in the background. End ID]

I had such a great view of the Burrowing Owls that I had to bring my family back to see them on our last day in Tucson. Because we were heading out of town in the middle of the day, I was confident we'd find them right away and avoid testing the patience of my kid. It turns out I didn't have to worry. Not only were the Owls right where I left them, but the kid had fallen asleep on the drive, so we had to wake him up to see them! And seeing as I already had the camera within easy reach, I had to take a few more photos.

[ID: A Burrowing Owl stands on a mound of dirt. This one is looking alert in the midday sun, standing and scanning the area around the edge of the farm field. End ID]

On a trip full of exciting views, long hikes, and thousands of photos, it was nice to finish the trip quietly sitting in the car just a few yards away from such a compelling bird. And it always feels good to track down a lifer and share that experience with others!

[ohsalome]

I often hear comments about Crimea and the other territories occupied by Russia being the “price of peace” in Ukraine. I, like many Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, know that rewarding aggression and brutal occupation does not bring peace.

Crimea is not Russian to be “given back” to Russia. It never was. It never will be.

It is the homeland that has been repeatedly, brutally taken from us; it is the homeland we will not stop fighting for.

My grandmother, Shevkiye, was just 11 years old when on May 18, 1944, Soviet soldiers barged into her home at five o’clock in the morning. World War II was still raging and the Soviet regime had just accused the Crimean Tatars of collaborating with the enemy, the German Nazis – a baseless allegation that led to the unimaginable horror of genocide by deportation.

My great-grandfather was at the front, fighting those same Nazis whom he was accused of collaborating with. So the Soviet soldiers found at home just his wife and four children – the youngest one only a few months old. The soldiers gave them 15 minutes to gather their belongings and did not stop hitting my great-grandmother with their guns as she struggled to pack.

They marched them out of the house and – along with other families from their home village of Ayserez – hoarded loaded them onto a train meant for transporting cattle. The wagons were packed with people and there were no toilets on them; people struggled to breathe. No food or water was provided on the long journey, during which my grandmother’s family remained unaware of their destination.

Exhausted and starved, they focused solely on survival as hunger and disease killed many along the way. One of the most traumatising memories of the journey for my grandmother was witnessing a pregnant woman give birth on the train and then pass away shortly after. A Soviet soldier threw her body out of the wagon while the train kept moving.

After 20 days on the train, they finally arrived at Golodnaya Steppe station in the Mirzachul region of Uzbekistan, where they were unceremoniously unloaded onto a scorching hot platform. With no money or support, they struggled to survive in this unknown land.

They settled in a dilapidated barrack with no roof, windows, or doors. Their food consisted of grass, nettle, potato peels, and rotten potatoes; their drinking water came from irrigation ditches and often caused dysentery. There was no medical assistance available; the Soviet authorities clearly wanted as many Crimean Tatars to die as possible.

The forced deportation of the Crimean Tatars to Central Asia resulted in the death of 46 percent of the population, leaving a gaping wound in the hearts of those who survived. It was the culmination of a century and a half of deliberate and systematic destruction of the Crimean Tatar people, heritage and culture after the subjugation of the Crimean state by Russian imperial forces in the late 18th century. It is on this obliteration of the Crimean Tatars that the bloody myth of Crimea as a “Russian territory” was built.

[sitting-on-me-bum]

The world’s tallest flying bird at around 1.7-meters (5.2-feet) tall, sarus cranes (Antigone antigone) live alongside people in parts of India, foraging in and around canals, irrigation ditches and cultivated fields.

Image © Bjorn Olesen.