Ditch Head

Today I went searching for the ditch head that feeds into the far arroyo. Head may not be the right word for the boundary between man and nature, but it’s all I can think of for the terminus.

A concrete lined ditch sweeps across the land between the near and far arroyos, going underground where it nears a road.

When it reaches the last piece of land, a neck of concrete, so thin it resembles plaster, channels the water away from the owner’s coyote fence.

It’s path from there is obvious, its course marked this time of year by brilliant leaf colors. There’s a long drop into a dry pool where water collects briefly.

What’s interesting is that after the drop the water’s route is no longer directed by the actions of humans, but follows ancient soil patterns.

The area lies on a long downward slope that angles south and west. The surface is crossed by ridges and valleys going roughly east-west. When nothing has disturbed the land, all’s covered with bunch grass.

When a low place is created in the land, perhaps by a road cut or ATV tires, water has a new path. The softer soils absorb more of the water than the harder ones. They are dissolved from the developing walls, fall into the bottom, and are carried away by wind or water.

The harder soils stay longer, creating what look like eroded craters.

The acequia water, which runs most of the summer, apparently lapped into soft spots of soil along its course that then began washing out. There are two major gullies uphill from the main water path. As they near each other and the main ditch path, they remain separated from each other by harder land.

The harder land looks much like the hard walls in the arroyo, and like those it doesn’t support as much vegetation as the softer soils that are eroding away.

The thing that has always surprised me about this man-made feeder to the arroyo is that it ends so abruptly that it endangers the houses near it. It’s hard to tell without digging before you build if a particular section of land here is on hard ground or soft.

The acequia association probably had no choice. After years of land disputes, and I suspect these particular houses, as well as mine, are sitting on some land grab, the pueblo probably wasn’t interested in making any more of its land attractive to interlopers and simply said no.

Unfortunately, no is not a word water understands.

Pictures top to bottom: 1 - ditch just outside the last fence. 2 - ditch as seen through the last fence. 3 - ditch from bottom looking up at same fence. 4 - land from across the ranch road; the white shed left of center is next to the arroyo terminus. 5 - the current end of one of the wash outs feeding into the ditch path. 6 - two wash outs separated by a spit of land; the cottonwoods to the right mark the main ditch path. 7- wash out between #5 and #6 showing bare hard rock and colonized softer soil.