Dad walks in the house and tells me, “Andee, I need you to go walk the ditches.” Beautiful music to my ears because I hate housework. I drop that dust rag on the nearest table quicker than you can spit and sweep my hair back into a ponytail. I have my boots on in a matter of seconds and am running out the front door. I pick up a round-mouth shovel on my way out to the field and huck it onto my shoulder. The handle is old and rough. Dang it, I forgot my gloves, so I do an about-face and head back into the kitchen to open the drawer that’s supposed to have 'em. All I can find are two left handed gloves. Doesn't matter much to me, so I stick 'em in my back pocket.

As I’m heading out to the field I stop to slide a piece of green alfalfa out of its sheaf. I suck all the juice out of the end and keep the rest to chew on as I’m walking across the field. The alfalfa head is bobbing in perfect time with my steps. The smell of fresh alfalfa in the summer sun mixes with muddy water. Farm fragrance.....ahhhhhhh. This is another one of my favorite jobs on the farm. Basically I’m moving mud clods from one row to another to direct the water. Bigger farms have irrigation lines and fancy stuff like that. We don’t.

I get to the first row, pull my gloves from my back pocket, and put 'em on. Takes a bit of doing on the right hand. Positioning the shovel, I slide it deep as I can into the ground. Feels so good to sink that well-worn shovel into the mud. It makes a slow, wet, sucking sound as I release the clod from the ground’s hold on it. I hurl it from one line to the next with a giant splash of water and mud mixed. The blend hits my Levi’s at knee level and all the way up to a once white T-shirt. From the cold splat I can tell some also made it all the way up to my cheek.

Water flows into the furrow slowly at first pushing mud and crud out of its way, then a little swifter and smoother as it gains way. I move on to the next and the next. This is where I love to be, out in the sun, in the tall alfalfa, being a farmer’s daughter, by myself. It doesn’t feel like long but I’m at the end of the field. I look back and I’m a good 50 acres from the house. Looking down at the design on my T-shirt, I smile.

I love wet dirt!