Sprinklers and Irrigation

Of course, you know we had to spend at least a little time studying sprinklers and irrigation systems. We studied some of the irrigation methods throughout history (Egypt and the Nile, the "hanging gardens" of Babylon, etc.) and we read several sections from this book:

which, I should point out, was a great labor of love on my part, since it was very technical and had lots of pages like this in it:

But I knew the boys (especially Seb) would love it, and they did. Side benefit: I now know why our backyard sprinkler system works so poorly (guess we shouldn't have gone with the cheapest bid). Huh, if only I'd read this book a couple years ago!

We did some soil analysis (an exercise from the sprinkler book) and found that our soil here is mostly clay with a bunch of rocks in it. Not ideal, as we knew. But the topsoil we brought in is pretty good (for our herb gardens etc.); I just wish we had more of it.