Pipe Down

Merrill is looking for critters. Critters, especially night critters, like to curl up for an afternoon snooze in the midst of a pile of irrigation pipe.

We will pick up these pipes, one by one, and load them onto a pipe trailer. Then we drive to the field and unload, stringing the pipe down the field edge, where it will carry a drink to thirsty soybeans.

As we load pipe, the girls do a critter check. Some critters don't matter much when you're irrigating--this one will just scamper away.

Possums don't matter a whole lot, either. The girls found a possom in one pipe; they just set the pipe aside and continued to load.

The next pipe with a possum sleeping inside got loaded onto the trailer....."We'll shake him out before we put the pipe together."

One person drives, pulling the pipe trailer ahead twelve rows at a time. Then she stops while the other two heft a pipe off the trailer, lock it into the lengthening metal snake, walk the span of the fresh-laid pipe, and repeat.

Time came to deal with the possum pipe. I climbed up on the trailer, to hoist the top of the 30-foot length of pipe into the air. Erica stood below, stabilizing the down end. The higher we tilted, the more tightly the critter pressed against the inside of his hideout, holding his position as we angled the pipe into the sky. At length, with the pipe nearly vertical, gravity overcame static friction, and we heard his sharp little claws sliding and screeching their way down the inside of the pipe.

What looks a lot like possum silhouetted in a dark pipe can sometimes turn into skunk when it drops out at your feet. I started shouting; Erica started running. The pipe, without its south-end stabilizer, careened wildly and cratered into the soybeans, missing the retreating skunk.

Even with the inherent risks, evicting Pepe Le Pew is the best choice. You can either chase him out before you hook the row of pipe together, as we did, or wait and let the water flush him down to the end cap the first time you turn on the juice. He will turn on his juice as he drowns, caught in the long tunnel, and you will have to deal with his putrid carcass when you pick up pipe two hot summer months down the road.

Isn't he odorable?