By Zoë Bradbury

May 29, 2008

There is water. Water on my fields. Water in pipes. Water in hoses. Water on asparagus. Water on raspberries. Water on carrots and beets and potatoes and leeks and artichokes and dahlias. There is water at last.

Of course, now it’s raining again.

But during those few recent days when Oregon was blasted with heat so hot that even our coastal mercury pushed into the triple digits, the story had all the elements of a suspenseful melodrama.

The setting: a fledgling farm on the southern Oregon coast, newly planted to produce and berries and flowers. Heat waves dance over the field. The skies are clear without a rain cloud in sight. The soil moisture is dropping, fast. A half mile of irrigation trench lies open along the edge of the field, like a larger-than-life gopher tunnel. Dawn breaks hot on a Thursday. Baby lettuce is sizzling in the field by 10 a.m., flattened and crispy by 2 p.m. Tender new strawberry leaves are scorching along the edges. Newly germinated beets push through a dry crust into a brutal glare. It’s a grim day to be a seedling.

The cast: me, alone, sunburned and tired. I’m covered in dirt head to toe, wearing an apocalyptic respirator while I rush to glue the last PVC joints in the line. Sweat is pouring down my face and pooling in the respirator with the sun high overhead. At one point the trench collapses in on itself and I break into tears while I scoop out the dirt by hand, buried up to my shoulder. I know that I’m running out of time. My body aches. I try not to look behind me at the fields where all of my plants are screaming for mercy. The next day’s forecast is even hotter.

And then, in the peak of the afternoon when I am almost to the point of breaking, they start to show up. A neighbor arrives with a cooler of cold drinks. A long-lost friend drives up and rolls up his sleeves. Danny comes home, puts on his wet suit and dives to the bottom of the creek to anchor the pump. There is a rush of progress, and then it’s time for the moment of reckoning: flipping the breaker at the electric panel.