Irrigation for a Workshop

IRRIGATION SCHEDULE — WORKSHOP, GROUND FLOOR
Kept by E. Marsh, cobbler. Posted by the door. Do not take down.

Read it the way you'd read a watering plan for a field: every zone gets
what it needs, on the day it needs it, for no longer than that. Water
runs off if you give it more than the ground can hold. Under-water and
the zone goes hard and will not take the next watering at all. The whole
trade is in the interval. Keep the interval.

Pressure at the tap reads low before nine. Do the far zones first.


ZONE 1 — THE LEFT BENCH (last, awl, the good light)
  Interval ......... every day
  Duration ......... 40 minutes, morning
  Method ........... sit at it, work one pair through start to finish
  Seasonal ......... do not skip. Skipping Zone 1 dries the rest.
  Note ............. this zone holds water well. It always has.

ZONE 2 — THE FRONT WINDOW¹
  Interval ......... every day
  Duration ......... 10 minutes, light
  Method ........... clean the glass, turn the two display pairs a
                     quarter so the toes face the street
  Seasonal ......... water lighter in winter. It sulks in winter.
  Note ............. the window is shallow soil. It shows everything.

ZONE 3 — THE STOCKROOM SHELVES
  Interval ......... every 3 days
  Duration ......... 25 minutes
  Method ........... count leather, count thread, count nails by the
                     handful not the box
  Seasonal ......... skip the first week of August (the supplier shuts)
  Note ............. runoff here is fine. Let it run.

ZONE 4 — THE KETTLE CORNER²
  Interval ......... twice daily
  Duration ......... as long as it takes the kettle
  Method ........... fill for two. Pour for two. Drink one.
  Seasonal ......... no change. This zone gets watered all year.
  Note ............. do not reduce to a single cup. The schedule was
                     written for the corner as it is.

ZONE 5 — THE BACK STEP
  Interval ......... every 6 days
  Duration ......... 15 minutes
  Method ........... sweep it, sit on it, let the customers find you
                     out there if they come
  Seasonal ......... skip in heavy rain (obvious)
  Note ............. low priority. Has survived neglect before.

ZONE 6 — THE SECOND BENCH³
  Interval ......... none
  Duration ......... none
  Method ........... none required
  Seasonal ......... skip in all seasons
  Note ............. this zone is dry. It has been dry since the spring.
                     It needs no water and takes none. Walk past it.
                     Water Zone 1 instead. Always Zone 1 instead.⁴

ZONE 7 — THE LEDGER⁵
  Interval ......... weekly, Fridays
  Duration ......... 30 minutes
  Method ........... enter the week's repairs. Add the column twice.
  Seasonal ......... no skipping. The figures must stay current.
  Note ............. a dry ledger is the first thing a creditor sees.

ZONE 8 — THE DOOR AND THE SIGN
  Interval ......... daily, on opening
  Duration ......... 1 minute
  Method ........... turn the card to OPEN. At dusk, turn it back.
  Seasonal ......... no change.
  Note ............. small zone. Forget it and the whole field looks
                     abandoned from the road, which it is not.⁶


GENERAL NOTES ON THE SYSTEM

Total watering load is heavier than it looks. That is intended. A
workshop is not kept alive by its busiest zone but by the number of
zones still on the schedule at all. Lose a zone and the schedule gets
easier, and an easier schedule is a warning.⁷

If you are reading this and I am not here, keep to the intervals. They
were set carefully. They were set by someone who thought about it.

— E. Marsh


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¹ She liked the window. Said a cobbler who hides his work in the back is
  ashamed of it, and I was not ashamed of it, so I moved the bench up.
  Ten minutes is enough. The glass does not need me. I need the glass.

² It was always two cups. I am not going to write down why two. A man
  can fill a kettle for two and call it a habit and leave it at that.

³ I am putting the truth in the small print because the small print is
  where I can stand to put it. The schedule above is correct. Everything
  above this line is true and would keep a workshop alive. None of it is
  what I sat down to write.

⁴ This is the zone. The second bench was hers. She sat the far side of
  it so the morning light crossed both our hands. She has not sat there
  since the spring and she is not going to, and the schedule says skip
  it, skip it, water Zone 1 instead — and I have. I have skipped it
  faithfully. Forty minutes at the left bench every single morning,
  competent, on time, the awl going in and out, and the whole forty
  minutes is just me not looking three feet to the left. You can build a
  schedule precise enough to walk a man past the one dry place in his
  own life eight times a day. I did. It works. That is the trouble. It
  works.

⁵ The figures really are current. I checked them twice this morning so
  there would be one thing in here I did not have to feel anything about.

⁶ It is not abandoned. I want that on the record, in the body of the
  document, in the competent part: the workshop is open, the sign turns,
  the trade goes on. Only one zone is dry. Only the one. A field can
  carry a dry zone for years. I have read that it can.

⁷ So I am not going to take Zone 6 off the schedule. It needs no water
  and it gets none and the honest thing would be to delete the entry —
  but I am leaving it. A zone you have stopped watering is still a zone.
  The day I shorten this list is the day the workshop is smaller than it
  was, and I would rather keep watering everything around the dry place
  forever than admit the field got smaller. Keep to the intervals. Do
  not delete Zone 6. That is the only instruction here I actually