Surveying in Wiscon...
 
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Surveying in Wisconsin

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(@paden-cash)
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I just returned to Oklahoma from a whirlwind ten days up in the frozen tundra. Not too far north actually..Milwaukee, Oxford and Beaver Dam mostly. Had some family emergencies with Money Penny's clan.

I would like to take my hat off to any of yous guys that work up there. Cold as hell, eh? It was ten below with a 30 mph NW wind. Not too much snow, only about eight inches. Trouble is the snow doesn't leave until March or April. I simply could not work in those conditions. Back down in Milwaukee it was a balmy -1, but the wind off the lake was still deadly. I think it made up to 10 yesterday before I left. A real heat wave. The compass on my Jeep froze and it stayed pointed 'SW' until I was south of Rockford, Illinois. There were also some other parts of me that froze and quit working that I won't talk about.....

I don't know how you guys work out in that stuff. Watching tv it was only worse further north and west, like up in Minnesota.

Color me "glad to be back"...

 
Posted : January 21, 2016 3:57 pm
(@holy-cow)
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My granddad's Missouri born and raised sister met up with Mr. Wonderful about 1900 and ended up living in The Swiss Cheese Capital of the USA, otherwise known as Monroe, Wisconsin. Her husband worked for Ray Cheese after his family's cheese business sold out. I remember when I was a pre-schooler that my dad and granddad drove to Wisconsin to the funeral for Aunt Agnes. They brought home a wheel of swiss cheese. Dad called it "rathole cheese". I wouldn't eat it. No way. No how. I could envision rats gnawing the little tunnels in it.

 
Posted : January 21, 2016 4:56 pm
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Holy Cow, post: 354353, member: 50 wrote: ...They brought home a wheel of swiss cheese...

Even though we were on family business, I still managed to hit my favorite hunting spots for my haul of cheese and sausage. Those tidy Visconsonites have the process down pat. Everybody either works for a cheese company...or knows someone that does.

I could die a Lipitor pickled fool if I lived up there....

As for the holes in Swiss....you especially will be surprised what has been determined to make these "rat holes". And it is NOT the carbon dioxide gas given off in the maturation process as has been generally reported...read on:

What REALLY makes the holes in Swiss cheese

 
Posted : January 21, 2016 6:28 pm
(@holy-cow)
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Rat poop. That explains it all.

 
Posted : January 21, 2016 6:56 pm
(@a-harris)
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I'm seeing twinkling stars to the NW and it is wet so that means about 25deg in the morning and some ice after all this rain today.

Sounds like a day in the office.

I keep an eye out for deals on deer sausage and bulk cheese. There a few home trained meat processors that keep me supplied.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 12:04 am
(@hillsidesurveyor)
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This year hasn't been that bad really. Only recently we had the bitter cold spell, but December was unusually warm. Also in our neck of the woods we got a nice 8" snow fall before the ground got a good chance to freeze, keeping the ground well insulated. It is surprising how a little snow cover will keep the ground from freezing. Digging for corners in frozen ground is by far the worst thing about winter for me. One can always dress for the cold, but spending a half a day digging for a corner a foot below the surface is miserable.

My hats off to you Oklahoma surveyors in the summer, that must be unbearable.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 6:24 am
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hillsidesurveyor, post: 354418, member: 7292 wrote: This year hasn't been that bad really. Only recently we had the bitter cold spell, but December was unusually warm. Also in our neck of the woods we got a nice 8" snow fall before the ground got a good chance to freeze, keeping the ground well insulated. It is surprising how a little snow cover will keep the ground from freezing. Digging for corners in frozen ground is by far the worst thing about winter for me. One can always dress for the cold, but spending a half a day digging for a corner a foot below the surface is miserable.

My hats off to you Oklahoma surveyors in the summer, that must be unbearable.

I guess it's a balance with the temps. We usually suspend outdoor activities when the temp tops 105å¡ or so, but that doesn't make 104å¡ feel any better. There are so many variables like humidity or wind. I definitely prefer summer heat to below zero temps for working. At least the water you need to drink is liquid at higher temps!

As a kid I walked to school in Buena Vista, CO, at times 15 and 20 below. But there was no wind and the sun was shining. At those temps the humidity was way down there, too. Standing behind a gun in OK at 20å¡, with 70% humidity and looking into a 25 mph north wind will kill a normal human.

I don't know about other surveyors, but I usually like the ground to freeze hard, for a while anyway. Yeah it makes digging up pins a real challenge, but it kills the bugs. Every couple of years we will have a winter here in So. OK that doesn't freeze the ground. The bugs are a bitch the next summer and root plants and bulbs don't know how to act...

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 6:42 am
(@ontarget1)
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It's the best time of the year to topo in the woods with the snow back ground you can see a lot further. Even better if you get the rod. And the swamps freeze over so you can get through them without getting wet or malaria.
Although I have had bad luck doing the happy dance around the tripod with those danged big boots on. Knocked everything over once. Boy was the boss (me) honked off when the gun had to go in for repairs.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 8:01 am
(@jim-in-az)
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ontarget1, post: 354436, member: 9989 wrote: It's the best time of the year to topo in the woods with the snow back ground you can see a lot further. Even better if you get the rod. And the swamps freeze over so you can get through them without getting wet or malaria.
Although I have had bad luck doing the happy dance around the tripod with those danged big boots on. Knocked everything over once. Boy was the boss (me) honked off when the gun had to go in for repairs.

"It's the best time of the year to topo in the woods..."

EXCEPT when the snow is falling out of the trees and down your neck! That causes a different kind of dancing...

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 8:15 am
(@tommy-young)
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Back a few years ago, on the old board, Phil Reed posted one time in the summer that he sent the crews home one day, because man wasn't meant to work outside when it was 83 degrees.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 8:20 am
(@daniel-ralph)
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That's why I left 30 some years ago. Yesterday, it rained about an inch or two. But I didn't have to shovel it. Or work in it for that matter.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 9:16 am
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Daniel Ralph, post: 354448, member: 8817 wrote: That's why I left 30 some years ago

I left Nebraska some 26 years ago and never looked back...

Nebraska is a nice place to be from...:snarky:

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 10:20 am
(@holy-cow)
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Speaking of Nebraska. A fellow from there is currently interviewing to become the Superintendent of Schools where Mrs. Cow teaches. His home county is 24 miles by 24 miles with a 2010 Census report of 886 population for the entire county. His current school district takes in the entire county and there are 104 students total in grades K-12. That's almost urban compared to the next three or four counties to west of that.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 10:34 am
(@dougie)
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My kids went to La Platte Elementary 99 students K thru grade 6...

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 11:26 am
(@paden-cash)
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Saw a Chevy Suburban rolling through the drifts last week up north. Emblazed on the side was "SCHOOL BUS". Musta been one of those heavily populated districts you guys are talking about.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 12:03 pm
(@david-livingstone)
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I'm not licensed in Wisc. but we have people that work in the company that are. Its nice, 99% of the section corners are monumented with coordinates on them. I can only dream about that for Illinois.

I have a sister that moved near her daughter near the Eau Claire area. I like joking with her about them having perma frost up there and they are just getting past the time of year where they only have two hours of daylight.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 2:21 pm
(@nate-the-surveyor)
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I had a girlfriend in Grantsburg wis.
I personally loved the dry cold. I learned to ski up there, north of the twin cities.
There's a wet cold and dry cold the wet cold seems to chill me about ten times as bad.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 3:21 pm
(@eapls2708)
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My 2nd winter surveying, we were trying to stake the alignment for e new NG pipeline across a wide open field. The temperature not counting wind chill was -23 F and there was a pretty brisk breeze blowing that day. The chief put me on the transit which meant that he got to drive around on the snowmobile and pound wood. The idea of trying to pound lath through crusty snow and into rock hard frozen ground may sound like the raw end of the job until you consider that the pounding and moving means you are at least doing something to keep your circulation going.

There I was, standing at the instrument, looking into the wind, wishing I could still feel my toes while wiping away all the tears the wind was causing and trying to focus through them long enough to give the chief line. He was about 300 or 400 feet from the gun and the wind precluded being able to hear one another at that distance. Our cheapskate employer wouldn't provide radios, so all communication was by hand signals.

I was having an awful time just trying to keep my eye open and dry at the scope long enough to motion him onto line. I'd motion him one way or the other, then give the time out sign, step back and wipe my eye. I wasn't having much success and already had a good crust of ice on my cheek from just below my eye down into the scraggly whiskers on my chin.

After the routine of looking for a second or two, stepping away for a few seconds to clear my eye before stepping back, and then doing it all again 2 or 3 times, the chief was losing patience. I don't know if he was waving to me with any particular finger up higher than the rest, but the hopping around and waving of arms sent his message clearly enough. So I determined to fight through it and keep my eye at the scope as long as necessary to get him on line. (It would have helped if he would have moved the lath a tenth or two in the direction that I gave a quick flip of my hand, and move it to a much greater degree when I kept my hand out in a continuous wave in a particular direction instead of vice versa)

I could feel the ice thickening on my cheek. Luckily I could still feel my cheek - at that temp, in that wind and that ice building up, it felt about the same as if someone had laid a red-hot knife blade across it - but at least it wasn't frost bit. I wasn't so sure about my feet anymore. I still couldn't see a darn thing, but I gave him directions based upon the last place I saw him somewhat clearly and my estimate of his rate of movement at that time.

Then it happened. The weirdest site I've ever seen on a crystal clear day. Everything fogged and the world sort of whited out in an instant and I was unable to blink. My eye had frozen open!

Whipping off my glove and cupping my hand over my frozen eye, I used my working eye to make a beeline for the truck. A couple minutes later, I heard the snow machine pull up and then the chief hollering demanding what the heck I was doing. I told him about my eye and the ice still on my face below it, and I suppose the redness of the now just thawed eye attested to the truth of my story. I told him we could continue if he wanted to run the gun. He gave me a couple more minutes to ensure that there was no apparent lasting damage to my eye. When he stepped up to the gun, he gave it about 30 seconds before he gave the sign to pack it up for the day.

 
Posted : January 22, 2016 10:11 pm
(@deleted-user)
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eapls2708, post: 354575, member: 589 wrote: My 2nd winter surveying, we were trying to stake the alignment for e new NG pipeline across a wide open field. The temperature not counting wind chill was -23 F and there was a pretty brisk breeze blowing that day. The chief put me on the transit which meant that he got to drive around on the snowmobile and pound wood. The idea of trying to pound lath through crusty snow and into rock hard frozen ground may sound like the raw end of the job until you consider that the pounding and moving means you are at least doing something to keep your circulation going.

There I was, standing at the instrument, looking into the wind, wishing I could still feel my toes while wiping away all the tears the wind was causing and trying to focus through them long enough to give the chief line. He was about 300 or 400 feet from the gun and the wind precluded being able to hear one another at that distance. Our cheapskate employer wouldn't provide radios, so all communication was by hand signals.

I was having an awful time just trying to keep my eye open and dry at the scope long enough to motion him onto line. I'd motion him one way or the other, then give the time out sign, step back and wipe my eye. I wasn't having much success and already had a good crust of ice on my cheek from just below my eye down into the scraggly whiskers on my chin.

After the routine of looking for a second or two, stepping away for a few seconds to clear my eye before stepping back, and then doing it all again 2 or 3 times, the chief was losing patience. I don't know if he was waving to me with any particular finger up higher than the rest, but the hopping around and waving of arms sent his message clearly enough. So I determined to fight through it and keep my eye at the scope as long as necessary to get him on line. (It would have helped if he would have moved the lath a tenth or two in the direction that I gave a quick flip of my hand, and move it to a much greater degree when I kept my hand out in a continuous wave in a particular direction instead of vice versa)

I could feel the ice thickening on my cheek. Luckily I could still feel my cheek - at that temp, in that wind and that ice building up, it felt about the same as if someone had laid a red-hot knife blade across it - but at least it wasn't frost bit. I wasn't so sure about my feet anymore. I still couldn't see a darn thing, but I gave him directions based upon the last place I saw him somewhat clearly and my estimate of his rate of movement at that time.

Then it happened. The weirdest site I've ever seen on a crystal clear day. Everything fogged and the world sort of whited out in an instant and I was unable to blink. My eye had frozen open!

Whipping off my glove and cupping my hand over my frozen eye, I used my working eye to make a beeline for the truck. A couple minutes later, I heard the snow machine pull up and then the chief hollering demanding what the heck I was doing. I told him about my eye and the ice still on my face below it, and I suppose the redness of the now just thawed eye attested to the truth of my story. I told him we could continue if he wanted to run the gun. He gave me a couple more minutes to ensure that there was no apparent lasting damage to my eye. When he stepped up to the gun, he gave it about 30 seconds before he gave the sign to pack it up for the day.

Wow, That is an incredible survey story!
I can‰Ûªt imagine working in those conditions.
I can relate a story on the lighter side. Once I was taking an Amtrak train trip around in the winter. One of those train passes were you could pick up an extra stop. So I was going to NYC from New Orleans via Chicago. In Chicago, we were going to stay with friends of my wife at the time that I never met. They lived south of the city in Blue Island and they recommended that we get off in Gary so they did not have to deal with Chicago traffic downtown. Nice and comfy and warm on the train but it was -5å¡ outside with a powerful north wind off the lake. As the train was stopping for our stop, I decided that a nice hot cocoa would be nice if we had to wait. With cup (no lid) of cocoa in hand, I stepped on the platform and the hawk aka wind blew the hot cocoa out of the cup and all over my face but most in the beard and cheeks. I reached for my neckerchief immediately and went to dry my face but the cocoa had already frozen to ice. I looked like the human fudge sickle so to speak‰Û?and of course our ride friends immediately walked up to greet us with a very wary look in my direction.

 
Posted : January 23, 2016 7:15 am
(@paden-cash)
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Robert Hill, post: 354595, member: 378 wrote: Wow, That is an incredible survey story!
I can‰Ûªt imagine working in those conditions.
I can relate a story on the lighter side. Once I was taking an Amtrak train trip around in the winter. One of those train passes were you could pick up an extra stop. So I was going to NYC from New Orleans via Chicago. In Chicago, we were going to stay with friends of my wife at the time that I never met. They lived south of the city in Blue Island and they recommended that we get off in Gary so they did not have to deal with Chicago traffic downtown. Nice and comfy and warm on the train but it was -5å¡ outside with a powerful north wind off the lake. As the train was stopping for our stop, I decided that a nice hot cocoa would be nice if we had to wait. With cup (no lid) of cocoa in hand, I stepped on the platform and the hawk aka wind blew the hot cocoa out of the cup and all over my face but most in the beard and cheeks. I reached for my neckerchief immediately and went to dry my face but the cocoa had already frozen to ice. I looked like the human fudge sickle so to speak‰Û?and of course our ride friends immediately walked up to greet us with a very wary look in my direction.

One particularly bad winter (77'-'78) the temps and wind were brutal; highs in the single digits with 20mph wind. We were taking cross sections for a new development and I was the gunner; frequent breaks were required. We never tried to start the engine in the van, breaks were too short. But just getting out of the wind was enough.

I had my brand spanking new stainless steel Stanley thermos (Christmas present) full of hot coffee. Rather than use the steel cup, I had an old ceramic coffee cup that stayed on the dash and probably said something dumb on it. I poured it full of hot coffee and had enough time to raise it to my lips....and the handle sheared off the cup, probably from the temp differential. I had a steaming cup of coffee in my lap.

After we exited the truck it "dried" in a matter of seconds. Wound up with two fingers on my left hand with frostnip that day. They took a month to heal. To this day those two fingers are the first ones that start hurting when they're cold.

 
Posted : January 23, 2016 7:28 am
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