Harney Lawn and Irrigation

About Harney Lawn and Irrigation

Out here the sky does most of the talking. Burns sits in the wide bowl of the Harney Basin, where the Silvies River comes down out of the Blue Mountains and spreads itself thin across the hay ground, and a lawn is something you make on purpose — sagebrush and alkali flat all around, the long blue back of Steens Mountain riding the southern horizon. Harney Lawn and Irrigation works the mowing and the water both: sprinkler lines set and repaired, spring startups once the frost finally lets go of the ground, blowouts before the first hard freeze locks the basin down for good. There is a particular satisfaction in a strip of green in high desert country, trimmed close and edged clean along the walk, holding its line while the wind combs the sage behind it. On a late June evening the light comes in long and gold off the rimrock, the heads tick on one after another, and the whole yard smells like cut grass and wet dust. That is the work — keeping a green place green, in a country that would rather it weren't.