He leads me beside still waters.

      "Chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi. . ."

It is the sound of the sprinkler-heads, when everything is working.

It is music. 

It reminds me of the 23rd Psalm, which I hear read at funerals to conjure up an image of the departed at rest in the happy arms of a loving God. Still waters and green foliage seem like heaven in a biblical desert environment. Still water feeds a soul at rest. The chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi is the sound of life being fed by water moving through sprinkler head onto a dry field.

It has been 100+ degrees every day all week. The melons were smashed flat by the hailstorm three weeks ago, but about half the plants survived. Half does not mean every other plant. It means that the less-damaged half of some of the plants survived and took over. I will have a small crop of watermelons and cantaloupes.

The chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi sound is the culmination of a long process. It is a reward. Imagine the murmuring sound of contentment an infant makes in your arms when happily nursing after a long period of fussing and discontent. That's the sound. 

I have ample water out of two ditches that cross my property, and recorded water rights. I get my water as run-off from pear orchards a mile away and six feet higher in elevation. Their water comes out of the Rogue River, via the Table Rock Irrigation District. They sprinkle it down onto their trees out of tall risers. Some of it evaporates, cooling the orchard, some moistens the leaves, some goes into the ground to water the trees' roots, and some runs off into the ditches. The trees aren't getting all the water they need unless some is running off. Run-off isn't wasted. It feeds my ditches. 

I use a little of it, but 99% of the ditch water keeps right on going past me into an ancient river channel pond called the Modoc Slough, and then it meanders back into the Rogue River. Downstream the City of Grants Pass drinks it. Further downstream it goes into the Pacific Ocean, where it evaporates and returns in the cool, wet months as rain or snow onto the Cascade mountains 60 miles to my north and east. That feeds the Rogue River, the orchards up-ditch, and me.

The chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi is satisfying because there are many things that go wrong before one gets that sound.

Gunk is a problem this year. The weather is so warm I am getting an enormous bloom of vegetation in the slow-moving ditch. I deal with it by wrapping the bottom of the leader line in a 3-foot square of stainless-steel window screen shaped into a blousy bubble, which I then tie onto the pipe with wire. Over the course of three or four hours of pumping, the screen's holes get clogged, but until then the gunk stays out and screen-filtered water gets in. Every four hours I pull the leader line out of the ditch, getting mud up to my knees, scrape off the gunk, and start over.

The pump has to work. It is a piece of mechanical equipment, and there are a hundred points of potential failure. There is nothing more frustrating than pulling on the starter rope of a small engine and having it not start. A couple days ago I praised Toyota. Let me say a word on behalf of Honda's small pumps. The first pull of the year takes two pulls. After that, it starts on the first pull. It purrs, another satisfying sound. I pay about $6/gallon to find ethanol-free gasoline to put into the engine to protect the carburetor.

The irrigation pipe fittings have to be tight to seal. If I used new pipes this probably wouldn't be a problem, but I use the pipes my father bought when I was a child 65 years ago. The rubber gaskets leak. I need to connect pipes at the elbows with wire to hold them tight. If the joints don't fit perfectly the lines don't get the internal pressure they need to seal. I fiddle with the lines to get the leaks stopped, the pressure right, and the chi, chi, chi, chi, chi.

Grit gets into the irrigation lines when the pipes are disconnected to be moved. Like plaque in an artery, the grit clogs up the narrow spots, in this case the hole on the sprinkler head. Usually one can de-clog that hole by sticking a wire down it and jiggling it around while the water is on. Sometimes one must shut everything down, take of the end cap plug and drain the system. Every year or two the thing that plugs the pipe is a mouse that found refuge in the pipe. 

When everything works, from the water in the ditch to the moment the water comes out of the sprinkler head, one hears the chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi, chi. It took me ninety minutes yesterday morning to get it running.

I lay me down near moving water. It restores my soul.