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Show the alkali flats, a stratum older than Old Lake Bonneville, the ghost of a great lake vanished ages ago. Father installed a big Fairbanks-Morse windmill to use at last our almost endless south wind, a way to get back some good from the force that sucked wetness from the soil. We converted some of it into energy to help us frustrate it a trifle for the failures it had heaped on us. Just inside the southern barrier of our tamarix windbreak to be, Father had a reservoir constructed, earth banks coated thickly with cement. No mere puddling now! The windmill whirling before the wind's might filled the reservoir. Next day if we wished we released the accumulated water to irrigate the tamarix row and the garden plots. Along the south line, where we ran our "main canal," the tamarix grgw thick and tall, six feet, eight feet higher. We swam frequently in the reservoir. El Vera, who had left Salt Lake City for a job in Denver, came home for her vacations in summer. One time she proudly showed us a masterful side-stroke she had learned from an expert. I learned it too, after a fashion.. But in racing with her I'd fall back on my frantic breast stroke and frog kick I had taught myself in the railroad grade ponds. We obtained some small trout from the Springville hatchery. I brought them home on the railroad, putting a milkcan of water containing the minnow-sized fishes in the baggage coach. But as soon as we poured them out into the reservoir, word mysteriously got around. Long-shanked water birds I'd never seen before in our valley swooped down and gobbled up all the trout in short order. |