Bad Drawing Day

Yesterday I was adding new drawings to our lake map books. There have been changes to lake BM locations over the past few years; new residents deny us access, headwalls abutting lakes get destroyed due to road widening, etc. The purpose of these drawings is to guide personnel unfamiliar with the BM locations to the BMs. The first lake I visited has a winding sidewalk from the curved street out to the boat dock. I got out my curve template to make a nice street curve. I had to draw a tangent piece from that curve to the nearest intersection. The curve and the tangent didn't line up just right. I used be a lot better than that! I got out my "snake" (flexible scaled ruler) to draw the sidewalk. That worked out pretty well. When I got down to the boat dock, or what was the boat dock, it had been removed and a new one was being built. The BM was a nail and disc in the old boat dock.

The second lake should have been as simple as adding a 15' x 20' concrete slab around a drain well box and drainage manhole. I should've thought of that before I decided to make a new drawing. There's an auto repair business next to the lake. I blew the size perspective on that one! The lake BM, in this case, is a piece of channel iron with a county sign attached to it. The lake is drying up due to seasonal changes, so my edge of water line is just a guess in relation to the BM. After I was done drawing I looked at the old drawing; it was much better than mine. Now I'm getting down in the dumps!

My third lake was in a very nice residential area. The property has a winding concrete driveway and a covered boat dock. They have a boat launch too. The lake BM is a nail and disc next to a ladder on the boat dock. I was determined to get this drawing right! I paced about 150' from the edge of pavement of the road to the beginning of the boat dock. I guessed 50' or more to the end of it. I counted the squares in 1 block of the field book. There are 10 squares in each block. I figured each square would equal 4', so that would be 40' per block times 7 blocks (280'). I thought that might be a bit small, so I went with 2' per square or 20' per block. My drawing was going pretty well except when I got down to the boat dock and I realized I needed more drawing space! By then it was time to head in.

Not a good way to end the work week. Last weekend I told my daughter I would be making drawings, and she told me I should use her Wacom tablet. I told her these had to be done in a field book. Some people are like artists when drawing in a field book; I'm not one of them!

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