Dan the Sprinkler Man

About Dan the Sprinkler Man

North Platte sits right where the North and South Platte Rivers come together, and Dan the Sprinkler Man spends the growing season reading water across the town's lawns before switching, every winter, to reading snow instead. The neighborhoods nearest that river confluence tend to hold damp, heavier ground, and it freezes differently than the drier lots further from the water — something a crew that already knows every yard's irrigation lines has a real head start on. Lincoln County's cold snaps can arrive fast off the plains, and a driveway that was bare at noon can be drifted solid by the next morning, so routes get run early and often during a hard stretch of weather. The same care that goes into capping a sprinkler system for winter goes into clearing the walk beside it — nothing forgotten, nothing left half-done. It's quiet, exacting work, matched to a town shaped by the meeting of two rivers.