The Year Money Grew on Trees - Aaron Hawkins [40]
"I can't believe that fits! What are the odds?" yelled my uncle. He and my dad were mostly used to parts not matching up.
They were actually excited to drive the tractor around with the plow on it for a few minutes. They figured out which of the tractor's levers to push to make the plow go up and down, and they started digging a little trench down the middle of a row.
"Hey, not there!" Amy shouted.
They finally gave the tractor back, and Amy turned it toward the top of the orchard where the main ditch was supposed to be. We dragged Lisa and Jennifer away from their homework, and everyone but Amy stood on the plow to weigh it down so we could make the deepest cut possible into the ground. Someone fell off every few feet and had to run and jump back on as Amy steadily drove the length of the orchard. After three passes, we decided the new ditch wasn't getting any deeper and would have to be good enough.
***
The next day we gave watering another try and pulled all the aluminum pipes from Mr. Nelson's tool shed. Underneath the pipes, we found the tarps for making the little dam and secured them in the ditch with some rocks.
"Okay, Amy, you go turn on the water. I'm going to grab every shovel I can find. I have a feeling we'll be needing them," I said to her.
"Everyone else stay here and stay out of the ditch," Amy warned, looking at Sam and Michael.
When I got back with the shovels, water was already pouring out of the ground and most of it was running down the new ditch. Sam and I frantically shoveled dirt and mud to redirect any water moving in the wrong direction. When we reached the dam and tarp, lots of water was leaking around it, but Amy and my sisters were starting siphoning pipes, anyway.
"See what you can do about the dam," Amy demanded.
We got the dam more secure, but the ditch just wasn't very deep and the pipes were hard to start. After a lot of complaining, though, Amy had water dribbling out toward the first ten rows of trees.
"I'll stay here and watch the pipes with the girls," Amy said to me. "You take the boys and figure out where the water's going." She smiled, thinking most of her work was done.
Looking down the rows of trees, it was easy to see there were no nice ditches to channel the water like in Brother Brown's orchard. There may have been at one time, but they were now long gone. Instead, the flowing water was making its own little paths, cutting across some rows and filling the middle of others. Manure and weeds were carried down the rows, blocking off some of the water's escape.
Sam, Michael, and I tried to unblock some of the largest obstacles to help even out the water flow. We also shoveled to try and redirect water, but as fast as we fixed breaks, new ones appeared. Water eventually reached the end of some of the rows. There was nothing to catch it, so it flowed right toward our houses. It formed large puddles in the driveway and pooled up in our yards.
My dad came running into the orchard. "You birdbrains better turn off that water or you're going to flood this whole place!"
I ran back toward Amy, waving my arms. "Turn it off! Turn it off! It's going everywhere!" I screamed.
Amy and the girls were sitting by the ditch, laughing together, but Amy jumped up and ran across the road to the gate. We spent the rest of the day driving the tractor back and forth through the orchard making little ditches down every row.
The yards of our houses had dried out by Sunday afternoon. By then, my mom and aunt decided they would like the yards to be flooded periodically so they could have a real lawn and flower garden. Amy told them they would probably get it whether they liked it or not.
***
On Monday after school, we cranked the water on again. The ditch filled up to the dam, and we let Amy start all the pipes while Sam, Michael, and I watched the rows. There were little breaks, but nothing like what happened on Saturday. We dug and filled to