Digging ditches

[Dave]

I remember growing up my Dad would say I don't care if you are a ditch digger just be the best ditch digger there is. It didn't sink in. After all who digs ditches? Now I realize that when he was a kid they were probably still digging ditches by hand. These pictures are of the Oxman ditch. It runs west to east for well over a mile on our property. And it goes several miles each side of our property. About 5 feet deep and about 12 to 15 feet wide at the top. Dug by hand over 100 years ago. It was dug to take irrigation water to fields previously not reached with irrigation water. These men were not afraid to work. It washed out some time in the mid 1920's and never worked after that.

 

[jltrent]

Around here neighbors would pitch in and hand dig all the graves a few years ago. Now if you depended on neighbors to dig graves everybody would rot above ground, probably Indian style.

 

[gcreekrch]

I remember growing up my Dad would say I don't care if you are a ditch digger just be the best ditch digger there is. It didn't sink in. After all who digs ditches? Now I realize that when he was a kid they were probably still digging ditches by hand. These pictures are of the Oxman ditch. It runs west to east for well over a mile on our property. And it goes several miles each side of our property. About 5 feet deep and about 12 to 15 feet wide at the top. Dug by hand over 100 years ago. It was dug to take irrigation water to fields previously not reached with irrigation water. These men were not afraid to work. It washed out some time in the mid 1920's and never worked after that.

I guess millennials started to populate the world back then.....

 

[Ryder]

Around here neighbors would pitch in and hand dig all the graves a few years ago. Now if you depended on neighbors to dig graves everybody would rot above ground, probably Indian style.

When I was a young one I remember more than once going with my daddy when he would go to help dig a grave.
If a man had hay on the ground and clouds looked like a rain coming, neighbors would show up to help get your hay in the barn.
If a neighbor was in the hospital and needed blood someone would "get up a load" of donors to go give blood.

I remember stories of depression times when government money would be available for projects like road building.Those that didn't get 'hired on' would stand around and watch so if a man fell out they could maybe get his shovel.

Yes, they would work.
They belonged to that "great generation".

 

[Dave]

Lots of ditches dug in this area. In a land with not much water people worked hard to get water where it was needed. About 20-30 miles from here is the start of the Eldorado ditch. That 134 mile long ditch was first surveyed and started in 1863. Mostly dug with pick and shovel primarily by Chinese laborers. It wound through the hills bringing water from the South Fork of the Burnt River to Malheur City dropping at a rate of 4 feet per mile. As a crow flies the ditch only went about 40 miles. It brought water to an area rich in gold but the miners needed water to wash the gold out of the dirt.
There were disputes over who had the rights to that water. The farmers and ranchers vs the miners. The miners had armed guards protecting the ditch. There were several wooden flumes built over canyons. One was 500 feet long and 75 feet high. The ranchers floated an explosive charge down the flume with a fuse timed to go off in the middle of the flume. That at least temporarily halted the water.

 

[Kingfisher]

So when are you going to fix that ditch?

 

[hurleyjd]

I remember growing up my Dad would say I don't care if you are a ditch digger just be the best ditch digger there is. It didn't sink in. After all who digs ditches? Now I realize that when he was a kid they were probably still digging ditches by hand. These pictures are of the Oxman ditch. It runs west to east for well over a mile on our property. And it goes several miles each side of our property. About 5 feet deep and about 12 to 15 feet wide at the top. Dug by hand over 100 years ago. It was dug to take irrigation water to fields previously not reached with irrigation water. These men were not afraid to work. It washed out some time in the mid 1920's and never worked after that.

Do you think that they might have used a Fresno Scraper pulled by horses in a lot of that construction.

 

[greybeard]

Are you near Willow Creek or Willow River Dave?
Frank C. Oxman...Clarence H. Oxman....

https://books.google.com/books?id=tBYLAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA521&ots=DwSH68KE9J&dq=The%20Oxman%20Ditch&pg=PA521#v=onepage&q=The%20Oxman%20Ditch&f=false

 

[Dave]

Are you near Willow Creek or Willow River Dave?
Frank C. Oxman...Clarence H. Oxman....

https://books.google.com/books?id=tBYLAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA521&ots=DwSH68KE9J&dq=The%20Oxman%20Ditch&pg=PA521#v=onepage&q=The%20Oxman%20Ditch&f=false

Willow Creek is about 30 or 40 miles southeast of me as the crow flies. Nothing between me and there but a couple two track roads that are not passable this time of the year. Frank Oxman is the one listed in a book I have. There is a Oxman Lane that some of my neighbors live on. An old place a few miles to the northwest that some lifetime people here refer to as the Oxman place. Frank was a big time cattle buyer from the area back in the early 1900's.

So when are you going to fix that ditch?

Never. The water from that ditch never would have been used on my place. There is a ditch at the base of the hill. The Banks ditch. It runs water and is where I get my irrigation water for that side of the valley.