Trim and Grade

So we have flood irrigation here in Arizona. That’s where we left off last time. That’s the prologue.

I’m not going to get into the deal about the finer points of the irrigation in Arizona. Water flows downhill. We ain’t got no water. The native americans actually had it all dialed in and then the settlers pushed them off the flow from upstream and that was kind of the Arizona version of economically Wiping Out The Buffalo Heard (which we also wiped out a whole bunch of animals out here when we settled but do you want to deal with roaming packs of megascorpions at The People’s Open?). The tribes took it to the Supreme Court and the Reparations / Self Determination Compromise was to basically fund the Tribe and Bureau of Reclamation (because US Waterway) joint project to build them a California-type lined canal system through Central Arizona — fine by me, so long as Florida is picking up their portion of the tab. Linked is a Smithsonian article that, best I have known the story, is not fake news. There’s a super “bringing Indians back to their roots in the native soil” vibe that I find condescending but don’t use me any kind of a litmus test; I still can’t believe this rose to the level of action:

Fun fact, a young blax’s first professional contracting project was field engineering work on the canal system. Was my first adult job — learned a lot from the flawed (how do I say that without a tone of judgement?) manager who oversaw my work. He was really pulling all the strings everywhere in the company and with the farmers and officials — he really understood the switches to every facet in the organization and was, literally, the only guy who could have pulled off this greater work relationship with a very particular customer/project. I mean, large general contractor doing federal work shareholders, if you do care about the profit and cash flow.

So fast forward to today: blax gets cheap untreated water delivered to my property but I’m responsible for making it all work because the 1970’s were a crazy moment where, I guess, energy and water were just obviously going to last forever. Like those shirts. I dug up the pipe and so that brings us to this week.

I earlier mentioned how water flows downhill. No one really has to worry about that with sprinklers because water is also easily dispersed. So my entire area to receive irrigation — from the front yard near the street where the service pipe is buried to the backyard needs to be regraded so accommodate the new water deliver system. About 10″ of height needs to be eliminated from the front yard and 2″ of height added to the back yard — plus shaping berms around the edges of the yard.

So this is the wall that needs to come out. 50 year old slump block. Well done workmanship. I really didn’t want to screw with it but, hey, what can you do. Good news is that most of the blocks were left hollow and, thus, are reusable. Which, good for price, but really good because I got a block front on the front of the house and I’m trying to minimize mixing-and-matching aged block on the aesthetic front. This place is getting a 50 year update once — then it’s the next guy’s problem for the centennial remodel.

So the first day and a half was basically ripping the grass from the soil. See? When you’re in the city, you need to incur these costs because no one wants the dirt unless it’s clean. Another cost to remodeling vs new build. My neighbor took a few little piles but the total haul off was four dump trucks.

So the during photos aren’t very sexy. These were the days that really brought by the neighbors for a good old walking about the dirt and then asking me if everything will fit and I’m like, “yes.” and then they’re like, “I don’t know. It kind of looks like…” and then I start thinking about moving.

So the valve guy comes tomorrow to tie in the pipe. Trees don’t arrive until mid-May so, for now, this is it. I guess sprinkler layout or something but, honestly, I expect more changes now that everyone “can really see it”, which my well-labeled and scaled overhead imagery of the property plans do not do.