Rain birds of Summer

I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart about the sound of rain birds. Rain Birds are a brand of sprinkler once very common on irrigations systems, not your typical yard sprinkler, not the hyper plastic things that annoy summer lawns, rain birds are strong and debate. They slowly swing until the spring stops the motion and then fall towards the stream of water and in a perfect balancing act, they strike the water to force a slow incremental turn, a few degrees. The strike interrupts the strong stream to make a sideways spray and the stream, spray and the interruption make sure that each piece of ground receives its allotment of water. Large rain birds swing with a heartbeat, shtuck, shtuck. Small rain birds swing at a slightly faster rate, tucktucktuck...
All summer they water the lawns and irrigated the field of ERN. They worked, mostly, diligently until the pump sucked up a tadpole to set towards the tip of the spray and clog the spray or a small rock would lodge and I’d wander by and clean the orifice of the leftover froglet and the rain bird would return to work.
If the rain birds on the quad stopped that meant that something had gone wrong in the complex system to fed water from the Navarro, through the large pipes by the pastures and then up the hill. Blown pipe, very bad, blown irrigation line, not too bad. Water was and is life in fire rich California. The irrigated areas made a small fire break incase of a wildfire. To have the green surrounding you meant you didn’t have to fear as much.
Chores for me was pulling pipe—to think of a bunch of city kids pulling irrigation pipe. What a great resume comment this would make, BA, MS, PhD, Pipe-puller. I loved the huge balanced aluminum pipe, trying to not drag the rain bird and standpipe through the mud and grass, making sure the gaskets had stayed inside. Turning on the water and the thunk of each pipe seating along the line and then the slow pressure would build—rain birds before their first full spring-driven swing spin. Then the pressure reaches the point that they begin the work, hopefully.
I have Rain Birds around my yard—the blueberries and few other places. The solid brass reminds me of camp, of summer. It’s about time to open the value and return them to work.