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What part of the job is your least favorite?
holy-cow replied 8 years, 1 month ago 38 Members · 79 Replies
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Monte, post: 384277, member: 11913 wrote: Walking across a cotton field
Make that a safflower field, for me.
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Try a corn field in August. There is no air even on a breezy day.
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Crossing over loose barbed-wire fences. I grew up on a farm and I still detest doing this.
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Holy Cow, post: 384551, member: 50 wrote: Try a corn field in August. There is no air even on a breezy day.
down here july works just fine- or, i should say, i’m glad last week is over.
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munt21, post: 384595, member: 8359 wrote: Crossing over loose barbed-wire fences. I grew up on a farm and I still detest doing this.
I forgot about barbed wire. I try to look nice in the field, but it seems barbed wire has a bead on every new shirt or pair of pants I own. The worst is when someone rebuilds a fence and leaves pieces of old wire laying around. It always flips up and rips across the shin.
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Climbing fences is easily the part I dislike the most. I’d rather plow through the poison oak than climb a fence.
At least I can step over most barbed wire fences…that’s the joke on our crew, since I’m tall I get to say, “why don’t you just step over the fence, here like this.”
And tweakers, don’t get me started. Forest work is really cool…no one else around.
Mapping for Fire Investigators has its advantages, they have badges and guns so no one bothers us. I don’t like people talking to me when I’m trying to concentrate on the machine currently the focus of my attention. They distract me then I lose my rhythm and train of thought and make mistakes. Especially when running the Leica scanners it is important to get the targets correct because it is a royal pain in the nether regions to fix it in Cyclone…their work flow must’ve been dreamed up by drunk Swiss engineers at the local strip club.
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Dave Karoly, post: 384630, member: 94 wrote: I’d rather plow through the poison oak than climb a fence.
I’ll take fences all day long over poison oak. Though I don’t like dropping down the other side of a 6-foot board fence and *then* finding out about the dog.
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I’d say that the proliferation of 8-foot-tall game fences in parts of rural Texas that used to be just enclosed with 5-strand post and wire fence is what takes all the fun out of rural surveying. More than one trip over is too many, particularly when it’s 100å¡F or more and it’s never just one trip over.
The close second is the new wire fence that was built about 2 ft. off the ragged old wire fence it was intended to replace, but without removing the older one.
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i actually enjoy hopping fences- all kinds. figure when i quit enjoy that part it’s time to hang it up. similar to how i feel about rope swings.
in fact, i get excited driving by jails, airports, and businesses with excessive pride in their ability to keep interlopers out. can always spot the holes in their defenses.
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munt21, post: 384595, member: 8359 wrote: Crossing over loose barbed-wire fences. I grew up on a farm and I still detest doing this.
Buy a t post stepper.
I love em -
Manzanita fields make for a tough go at it. Almost either have to belly crawl through or saw your way through.
But, I really don’t like snow brush. Grows up around the 4,000′ elev and a bit higher. Its some type of oak brush that grows in long stems that lay down on the ground and in layers that push down on the layers underneath. When you cut a patch of it the underneath layer springs up and its like you never cut anything. You cut that layer and then the 3rd layer springs up. It takes a bit of animalistic saw work to get through it. And then, in August it gets this oak pollen dust that is a very coarse pollen. Thick clouds of it floating around when you’re in it. Coarse pollen you feel in your sinus and throat.
As to the spring up action, I still have vivid memories of the day I cut a layer of it, then grabbed ahold of the layer and flung it up and off to the downhill side. At that very instant, the spring loaded underlayer sprung up. One fairly large stem of which happened to be centered squarely between my 2 legs. I’ve taken my share of hard blows in my life and that one stands out as one of the more memorable. -
Nate The Surveyor, post: 384661, member: 291 wrote: Buy a t post stepper.
I love emJust ordered one, never knew they existed. Thanks, Nate!
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clearcut, post: 384665, member: 297 wrote: But, I really don’t like snow brush.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had to deal with it, but my recollection is that it’s a lot easier to cut from the uphill side. Trying to cut it from the downhill side is really frustrating.
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Mountain laurel. It’s evergreen so it sucks the whole year long! Only good thing about it is that is grows in the steeper parts of WV so you can see over it sometimes. But you still have to crawl through it and cutting through it is a nightmare. When a client tells me the job is in Clay County, I cringe because it’s steep and and probably plenty of Laurel to boot. You don’t fight the Laurel it just whoops your butt. It’s like being blind sided with a mule kick. You ain’t coming out of it on the winning end after one of those. Man I hate the stuff. But still better than construction surveying.
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John Giles, post: 384693, member: 57 wrote: Mountain laurel. It’s evergreen so it sucks the whole year long! Only good thing about it is that is grows in the steeper parts of WV so you can see over it sometimes. But you still have to crawl through it and cutting through it is a nightmare. When a client tells me the job is in Clay County, I cringe because it’s steep and and probably plenty of Laurel to boot. You don’t fight the Laurel it just whoops your butt. It’s like being blind sided with a mule kick. You ain’t coming out of it on the winning end after one of those. Man I hate the stuff. But still better than construction surveying.
I hated trying to cut line through that stuff. Unless your brush hook was sharp and you hit it at just the right angle all it would do is bounce around after you took a swipe at it.
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John Giles, post: 384693, member: 57 wrote: Mountain laurel. It’s evergreen so it sucks the whole year long! Only good thing about it is that is grows in the steeper parts of WV so you can see over it sometimes. But you still have to crawl through it and cutting through it is a nightmare. When a client tells me the job is in Clay County, I cringe because it’s steep and and probably plenty of Laurel to boot. You don’t fight the Laurel it just whoops your butt. It’s like being blind sided with a mule kick. You ain’t coming out of it on the winning end after one of those. Man I hate the stuff. But still better than construction surveying.
I can attest to that here in VA.
I once did a tower site on the side of a mountain covered with mountain laurel over 6ft tall. I had never seen it so tall, my experience up until then was about waist high. I would say that was one of the worst jobs I have done. Cutting through laurel is not easy especially on a 2 or 3 to 1 slope.
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I don’t know what you all are talking about.
From the Arborday Foundation’s website:“With its intriguing blooms and evergreen leaves, the mountain-laurel is one of America‰Ûªs most loved native shrubs. Clusters of striking flowers appear in May and June and range in color from white to pink-rose to deep rose. Regardless of hue, however, they all have unique purple . “
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My least favorite task would be chopping through frost looking for pins…. especially when the magnetic tone I just dug up turns out to be a random piece of metal.
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