Posts Tagged ‘San Rafael’

We have been without a drop of rain for over 4 months and have been nearly 3 months without a drop of irrigation water. The farm is looking like a desert and the well has dried up. When you walk anywhere a cloud of dust rises from your footsteps and coats you with a fine, grey layer.

Yesterday (29th July) it rained! And not the normal quick downpour, but a fine drizzle all day long. At last the dust has settled and the moisture is actually penetrating the ground.
Then, last night, it snowed and has continued to snow all day. At the time of writing we have had a good foot of snow which is a blessing as the melt water will help fill the dams up in the Andes.

Snow in the town of San Rafael

Here, in this part of Argentina we received a foot of snow in a few hours. All the transportation systems are still running, there is no panic buying in the supermarkets and no panic queues for petrol. Life goes on normally, except that work outdoors and in the fields stops. Not at all like in more ‘civilised’ countries where an inch of snow brings everything to a complete stand still.

Winter time

It is still snowing, late in the evening, which means that the skiers will be out in the higher mountains, the rivers will fill up and we will be able to water before spring growth starts.

The house building has come to a halt with the change in the weather, but we are not complaining.

With our thinking caps on (in reality it was Graciela who solved our water flow problem) the ‘secret’ of controlling our irrigation lay in the level of water as it enters the farm and the slope of the land.
Take the inlet water level as the reference level and then ensure that all ditches are dug to that depth and all ditches gently slope towards the far end of the farm and water has to flow to where you want it. Therefore it was not surprising that with shallow and partially or totally blocked ditches the water pressure forced the water up and over the banks and hence the flooding.

The sheer force of the water entering the farm means that any work in that immediate vicinity of the entrance has to be solidly built to withstand the pressure, the erosion and the flow.
For another job (later on in the blog) we bought concrete pipes from a family firm called “Los Leones” who specialise in concrete castings and formwork. When they delivered the pipes we showed them our problem and they offered us a concrete solution.

They dug out a new entrance to one of our internal channels and created a new section gate.

Wooden formwork for the gate guides was built in place in the channel.

Wooden formwork ready for concrete

And then they filled it with concrete and steel mesh to make  reinforced concrete gate guides.

The end result was a set of gates that nothing short of an earthquake could shift.

Reinforced concrete gates in the inlet channel

Once they had cleared site we then spent a couple of days laboriously digging out the rest of the inlet channel to the same depth as the supply canal. This was no mean feat as we had to dig a section 15 meters long and two spades deep. All the earth dug out was piled up each side of the channel to increase the height of the banks in order to help contain the water.

We dug ...

and dug ...

... and then dug some more

The next restriction in our system was the entrance bridge that crossed one of the main ditches. Water should flow through an underground section here, but when we looked we saw that the underground section was almost totally blocked the full width and depth of the bridge. That was causing the water to back up and flood down the road instead of flowing along the ditch.

Hardly any water could flow through this underground section

So, nothing for it but to crawl underneath and hand dig out all the earth, silt and rubbish. That was bad enough, but when Robin started digging he found that the damp, dark space was where all the flies and other insects lived during the heat of the day!!

World War 1 re-enactment?

At this stage our irrigation ditch looked like a scene from a World War 1 film in the trenches!

It was obvious that even though we were deepening and clearing the entrance area we still needed a huge amount of work in the rest of the system to enable the water to get to the far end of the farm. Once we could achieve that, then our flooding problem would disappear as the water would no longer back up and, instead, would flow freely.

So we hired  Antonio and Diego to help clean two of the existing irrigation ditches of weeds and saplings.

Robin with Antonio and, in the background, Diego cleaning ditches

The results of the ditch clean were staggering:

An irrigation ditch before the clean up

After the clean up

In 3 days we managed to clean over 600 meters (600+ yards) of irrigation ditches. All this work was done in temperatures between 30 and 40 degrees centigrade too! (80 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit).

Now we opened the inlet gates to the farm, and for the first time the water did not overflow the banks nor run down the road. Instead it went down one of the main irrigation ditches to our grenadine tree, white fig tree and the line of quince trees.

Job done!

Job done, time to relax

Well… almost. We still have to clean and dig out 400m of ditch to the other end of the farm. Then dig a new ditch 150m long to water our apricot trees. And create a new section  20m long to bypass a ditch blocked by oak tree roots and build a cement bridge capable of taking a vehicle across a main internal ditch and ……

At last, secured onto Hector’s tipping lorry, the container makes its grand entrance onto our farm through the area we spent so long clearing. Good job too, as it just fitted through the entrance.

A grand entrance!

As the container was longer than the lorry there was a chance of the front wheels coming off the ground, so it was a good job we had taken so much time to clear a track across the farm.
But there were now two new problems left to solve as Hector’s lorry was so tail heavy.

Running across the farm is an internal irrigation ditch 2m (6 feet) wide and 1m (3 feet deep). We had filled a section about 3m (9 feet) wide with stones, bricks and earth in order to create a simple ford/bridge for the lorry. But with the need for Hector’s lorry to have a smooth a path as possible, urgent work was now needed. The bridge had to be raised up in order that the transition from ground to bridge was as smooth as possible and that the bridge itself was as level as possible.

Without being asked, Hector’s children grabbed spades and moved a huge quantity of earth onto the bridge in no time at all. As this went on, the lorry was slowly grinding across the farm in first gear, avoiding any ruts or bumps in the track.

Leveling the crossing across the ditch

An incredible amount of earth moved in a few minutes

Safely across the temporary bridge, Hector drove down our smooth track, turned left at the boundary fence and came up against the next unplanned obstacle.
The  track just clipped the edge of a rough surfaced field due to a tree being in the way. Originally this would have been OK, but Hector did not want to chance the front of the lorry tipping up into the air, so the tree was quickly ‘adjusted’. A process whereby you drive through the tree and then cut off what does not give way with a saw.

Minor adjustments in progress

Nearly there

Eventually, the lorry and container reached the final place and tipping commenced.

Tipping commenced

1 end almost down

Old tyres had been put on the ground as a cushion, the first pair of logs laid in place and the front end of the container slid as gracefully as a ship being launched onto the ground. No crunch or bang. The tyres and soft earth did the job perfectly.

Note the remains of the tree!!

The plan was to gently tip the lorry bed and drive slowly away at the same time. As more and more of the container came off the lorry, then more pairs of logs would be put into place as supports. Finally the last drop of the front end would be cushioned by tyres and all would be completed.

Almost there now

Tipping and moving away slowly and gently went a tiny bit faster than planned and the result was that the final cushioning of the container’s front end was not by earth, tyres and logs, but by the unplanned removal of the rear of the lorry bed, complete with bumper and lights acting as a cushion. Followed by the remains of the tree as a rather artistic afterthought!

Once the dust settled and the container was on its log supports, the back of the lorry was dug out from underneath and loaded onto the lorry for repair later.

After over 9000 miles and nearly 2 months our container was in it’s new home.

Home at last

Some four hours had passed since Gustavo’s container lorry had arrived, everyone was tired, so we all adjourned to the neighbours for lunch (and a celebratory glass of wine or two).
We also arranged with Hector for the repair of his lorry.

And then the unloading of it’s contents commenced.

"Are you sure we packed the cork screw, I can't find it...."