"Communal watercourses called acequias, some of which date to the 1600s, connect people to their land, neighbors and ancestors. But as the channels dry up, farmers consider more efficient irrigation."

"For 200 years, the earthen water canal has nourished the land where Peggy Boney's farm now sits. It sustains the alfalfa pastures for her cattle and the corn and pumpkins she puts on her kitchen table for supper.

Much of her life has revolved around these acequias, primitive but ingenious irrigation channels invented by the Moors and built in New Mexico by the Spanish.

As a girl, she enjoyed dangling her feet in the acequia maintained by her father. At night, as she lay in bed, he would bid her, "Good night, God bless you," and she would fall asleep to the gentle ripple of the water, the acequia's ancient song."

Cindy Carcamo reports (with photography and video) for the Los Angeles Times September 17, 2013. [2]