Our neighbor invited us to help him clear "our" ditch. We knew that we owned a 2/32 water right to the Hoosier Ditch as part of our property. We had no idea where or what the Hoosier Ditch was and accepted the invitation figuring that we'd learn about it on the job. So at 7:30 we met Tony at our building site and drove with him, his 11 year old son, Ike, and another able bodied fellow in his 4WD jeep up to higher ground along the North Fork something or other creek. There we got out and were introduced to a very burly fellow who apparently had opened the source gate for the flow of the ditch the day before ... the terrain consisted of severe overgrowth and water everywhere. Back in the car for a short run to the beginning of our task of the day. Equipped with pitch forks we were to clear any debris that might impede the flow of the water on its way downstream and eventually (7 miles) to our properties at Eureka Ranch. Easy. Piece of cake. The ditch is 2 to 3 feet wide its full length so you can hop over it if the going look easier of the other side. We did a lot of hopping, and got sopping wet from the knees down. Mostly it was branches and pine needles that piled up and clogged the flow. We split up into two groups taking different stretches of the ditch ... Chris and I alone much of the time, the ditch on one side and steep ravines on the other overlooking drop dead gorgeous Alpine vistas ... clamoring over, under and around vegetation and wielding our forks at anything that dared float in our ditch. Nature is wily and we couldn't keep up with every twig, but we did our darndest to do our job well. We traversed lovely high meadows and glorious aspen groves as the ditch kept on meandering toward our lands. This is a venerable old ditch from the old west days when folks got bullets in their fronts and backs for even a suspicion of using more than their share of the wet stuff. Dug by hand to bring the snow melt down to the ranches at lower elevations. An amazing feat if you think about it. This was hard serious work for the old timers ... digging and then maintaining their ditches constantly. At one point we came upon a serious blockage where masses of pine needles and twigs, semi-solid enough to stand on, if somewhat precariously, needed to be dislodged ... this took real heavy duty muscle effort along with some floating and shouts of "watch out!." Lunch was provided by Tony's wife, tailgate style and then we went back to the task and finally got to the end, which was Tony's pastures and his homestead which is next to ours. By 2:30 we had a nice beer in hand and were sitting on Tony's porch that looks out over the same view that we will have from our deck once it is built ... boy, was it beautiful and grand. What a wonderful experience we had! It was so much fun! Boy, were we tired! Looking forward to doing it again next year.
Our neighbor invited us to help him clear "our" ditch. We knew that we owned a 2/32 water right to the Hoosier Ditch as part of our property. We had no idea where or what the Hoosier Ditch was and accepted the invitation figuring that we'd learn about it on the job. So at 7:30 we met Tony at our building site and drove with him, his 11 year old son, Ike, and another able bodied fellow in his 4WD jeep up to higher ground along the North Fork something or other creek. There we got out and were introduced to a very burly fellow who apparently had opened the source gate for the flow of the ditch the day before ... the terrain consisted of severe overgrowth and water everywhere. Back in the car for a short run to the beginning of our task of the day. Equipped with pitch forks we were to clear any debris that might impede the flow of the water on its way downstream and eventually (7 miles) to our properties at Eureka Ranch. Easy. Piece of cake. The ditch is 2 to 3 feet wide its full length so you can hop over it if the going look easier of the other side. We did a lot of hopping, and got sopping wet from the knees down. Mostly it was branches and pine needles that piled up and clogged the flow. We split up into two groups taking different stretches of the ditch ... Chris and I alone much of the time, the ditch on one side and steep ravines on the other overlooking drop dead gorgeous Alpine vistas ... clamoring over, under and around vegetation and wielding our forks at anything that dared float in our ditch. Nature is wily and we couldn't keep up with every twig, but we did our darndest to do our job well. We traversed lovely high meadows and glorious aspen groves as the ditch kept on meandering toward our lands. This is a venerable old ditch from the old west days when folks got bullets in their fronts and backs for even a suspicion of using more than their share of the wet stuff. Dug by hand to bring the snow melt down to the ranches at lower elevations. An amazing feat if you think about it. This was hard serious work for the old timers ... digging and then maintaining their ditches constantly. At one point we came upon a serious blockage where masses of pine needles and twigs, semi-solid enough to stand on, if somewhat precariously, needed to be dislodged ... this took real heavy duty muscle effort along with some floating and shouts of "watch out!." Lunch was provided by Tony's wife, tailgate style and then we went back to the task and finally got to the end, which was Tony's pastures and his homestead which is next to ours. By 2:30 we had a nice beer in hand and were sitting on Tony's porch that looks out over the same view that we will have from our deck once it is built ... boy, was it beautiful and grand. What a wonderful experience we had! It was so much fun! Boy, were we tired! Looking forward to doing it again next year.
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