Casa Grande AZ, a couple springs ago. The last day of my urban boondocking I rebuilt the trailer's battery box. It was enjoyable to learn more about how the travel trailer was built, and to think how it should have been built. During this work in town the dogs were a real nuisance to me. They only got one real run at sunset in an open field--on one of those deeply furrowed, irrigated fields that central Arizona is famous for. Or used to be.
Sometimes my youngish dog, Coffee Girl, would gambol across the field, jumping the furrows like it was a steeple chase. At other times she adjusted her angle across the furrows so that she ran horizontally--her stride's wavelength commensurate with the bottoms of the furrow. She had reinvented the principle of the interference filter, which a thin layer of oil on water can also do.
Sometimes my youngish dog, Coffee Girl, would gambol across the field, jumping the furrows like it was a steeple chase. At other times she adjusted her angle across the furrows so that she ran horizontally--her stride's wavelength commensurate with the bottoms of the furrow. She had reinvented the principle of the interference filter, which a thin layer of oil on water can also do.
The little poodle looked completely different running across the furrows. He looked like a small skiff sinking into the trough of an ocean wave, and then bobbing up on top. Finally I had to give it a go. I ran perpendicular to the rows, landing in the bottoms. The soil was soft so there was no danger of turning an ankle. But I had to lift my knees so high it seemed like they would slap my jaw. It would have been comical for anyone to watch.
And so we finally headed west from Casa Grande, off to Table Top mountain. On the way out there were huge holding pens for thousands of cows! How do they survive in summer? Roofs provide shade for only some of them. The rest should turn into medium-rare steaks while still on the hoof.
I often try to imagine unimaginably slow geologic processes, like the deposition of soil so flat that you can farm it with furrow irrigation. But near Stanfield AZ I saw a huge "field Zamboni" actually grading and leveling the field. Apparently that is a service that farmers pay for, around here.
Finally we crossed the cattle guard and were home again, on BLM land. The washboard held me down to about 8 mph. Were the dogs as happy as I was to be out of town and back to a place where they could run free? Who knows -- you know how secretive dogs are with their true feelings.
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