No August, September, October Photos?

My crew locating the pipe below that is about to be overtaken by the large Pine next to it.

A PRM in a spot not privy to the latest plat of the subdivision, 55' East of where it ought to be...

A

Love these photo submissions. We don't have any trees that look like your trees. Then again, it probably never drops to -15F in your neighborhood.

A few weeks back, this here cat came out into the road in order to check out what was in the hole.

Oh I posted an August thread, and I think even a September thread. They get lost if they are not pinned to the top.

Not much interest I guess?

I don't know how to pin the threads.

I just like it when friendly pets come over to visit while their owners are away at work.

A couple year back, two very aggressive dogs (German Shepard and a large Rottweiler) came down to the unfenced property line to let me know I better leave now or else. They were foaming at the mouth and I thought I was going to finally have to use my swing blade for something other than chopping limbs.

I held my ground and let Rott smell my pants leg. Shep acted like he was going to go ahead and try and bite me. That big Rottweiler turned around and showed the Shepard who was boss. The German Shepard turned around and went straight home.

The Rottweiler spent the entire afternoon following me around like my best friend. I thought it was kind of neat that he obviously protected me from the German Shepard. When I went back several days later, he came up to me wagging his tail.

The oddest animal that has wanted to help me was Dotty the elephant.

I reckon we should just have a photos thread - no monthly deadlines or competition, just photos, stories and comments. Seems to work on other forums.

Did you at least hand the cat a mirror to shine light down into the hole? I love animals, especially friendly ones, they just need to be helpful. hehe.

Looks to me like it was eyeballing that soft dirt with the hole already dug...

Let's see if I can make a photo show up here. This will be my August/ September/ Octob...what month were we aiming for here?

I agree , that would be best and they wouldn't get lost

"The oddest animal that has wanted to help me was Dotty the elephant."

That's it? yer just gonna leave us hangin with no elobaration?!?! 😉

I knew a gal named Dotty once who was nearly as big as an elephant. Did you know her, too?

Well it was a better story that way.

In a small mountain town in Northern California, there was a small drive up burger joint called Dotty's.
They had a single elephant named Dotty Akili that lived in a barn next to the restaurant. Dotty's still has the best burgers, shakes, malts, and ice cream cones around. In order to understand the story correctly, you need to go back in time 36 years.........

When I was a boy, some Friday nights after work, my parents would tell us to grab our sleeping bags - we were going for a weekend trip. My older brother and I would lay our sleeping bags out in the back of the truck bed and secretly stash handfuls of throwing rocks. We would spend the first 30 minutes of the drive throwing rocks at road signs as we drove down the highway. For the remaining hour and a half, we would lay on our backs staring at the stars in the cool night air and race the moon down the river canyon on the way to our grandparents house.

After spending a couple days visiting with my grandparents, we would head home. The drive home was a little different because it was usually very hot. We would stop at a swimming hole to cool off. The ammo for the ride home, many times, was apples that had fallen off the old orchard trees. All of the old miner's cabin sites along the river still had fruit trees surviving. Apples were much more satisfying to throw. Even if you missed, many times the apple would explode on the cut bank of the road. We would pretend they were hand grenades. You would twist off the apple stem with your teeth and count to three before throwing.

Once we got closer to town, we would start dropping hints about Dotty's. We might tap on the back window of the truck and gesture that we were licking an ice cream cone....or maybe we would press our hands together like we were praying. It was a very fine line between asking one too many times and getting what we wanted.

Dotty's was located near the intersection of a county road and the state highway. As we pulled up to the intersection, we would quietly wait and listen to the sounds of the truck to see if dad was accelerating or letting off the gas to pull into the parking lot. When we were lucky, he would pull in and we would get an ice cream cone and walk over and try and sneak a peak at Akili the elephant (we called her Dotty). You couldn't get close enough to touch her, but just seeing an elephant was cool enough.

This was a common occurrence during the summer months. In the winter when the snow fell, Akili was moved to a warmer climate. Every spring she was brought back.

Flash forward 15 years, I am now 20 years old and earning my keep by surveying. I got a call from a local surveyor needing some help staking out a development right next door to Dotty's. As we staked the roads, I could not help myself from watching Akili watch me. There was only a cattle fence separating us and she could have probably just stepped over it if she had wanted to.

The time came when I needed to locate the fences. That old elephant followed me along the fence and stuck her trunk out over the fence to check out the rod as I took shots along the fence. I think I probably took more shots than needed, just because it was so cool.

In 1998, the elephant died. Even without an elephant, Dotty's has still held a special attraction for my kids. They played the same games and dropped hints about stopping and getting an ice cream cone. I didn't always stop...sometimes just because if it was too easy, it would not be special.

Before my Grandmother died, I drove her over the mountain into the winding river canyon to attend my younger brother's wedding. On the way back, we stopped by Dotty's. They were closed, and as I helped my grandmother around the back of the building to use the restroom, we noticed that the back door was open and people were inside cleaning. The owner stepped out and talked with my grandmother. We told her we were hoping to get an ice cream, but didn't get there soon enough. She looked over her shoulder both ways and quietly asked how many cones we wanted. We told her 5 cones and she told us to wait there. She came back with the ice cream and wouldn't take payment, but made us promise to not tell her husband.

Akili's Facebook page

Thanks that was great!

Someone painted a mural in tribute of Akili.
Unfortunately times are changing and a General Dollar store is under construction right next door to the barn. This has been a very hotly debated topic, as most of the community despises the corporate box stores being in their valley. The city council actually tried to pass a code preventing this particular business from coming into their town. Beautiful small town - can't stop progress, but you can sure as hell try.

Working under the watchful eye of my German Shepard

Here's a few from a couple of years ago when I travelled from home in the Orkney Islands to mainland Scotland to check the GPS against one of the national fundamental bench marks,

The Pentland Firth, a short ferry crossing. Tidal currents shown are tenths of a knot so that's up to 12 knots in place! It connects the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea and is the shortest route for shipping heading from North America to Scandinavia.

Setup on the fundamental bench mark

FBM close up, it goes down through the peat onto the bedrock

Coastal landscape, the light house in the background is at the top right hand corner of Scotland on the map

The ferry, ready to sail from John O'Groats on mainland Scotland across to the Orkney Islands, it's a summer only service,

Pentland Skerries, wild uninhabited islands in mid channel, the light house used to have three keepers until it was automated in the 1980's

Here is a ~1.5m Brown Snake I almost tripped over while placing control for a UAV survey;
This snake is considered the world's second most venomous land snake, so naturally I took a few steps closer to get a better picture!

One of 2 I saw that day.

Ok, lets see who can guess where this is. I'll post one more, that gives it away, later.
Nate