Several years ago I was performing a survey and all day long there was a friendly goat that followed us around the job. I had my trusty field book with all the written down points and a pretty sketch of what we had done that day. After locating some corners I sat down on the ground to enter the information into my SMI/HP48calculator to calculate the remaining corners. No sooner than I sat down, here comes the goat. It was just curious, so I thought, as it had been all day about the survey we were performing. As I'm entering the data, the goat is standing right next to me watching. I paused for a second to pet it and it reached its head out and took a BITE of my field book! As luck would have it though, I always used a field book upsidedown, as I am left handed and it is much easier to write with the support of the field book than to try and write in it without any support. The goat?ÿjust stood there chomping away at the part of the page he stole without a care in the world. I too continued on with my business but watched the goat out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't afford to lose another bite of field book to the goat. Has anyone else had anything like this happen to them?
I don't know. But, it gets my goat.
?ÿ
About 20 years ago, I was working on a boundary survey for a lady that had at least 100 goats. Funny part number 1, every goat had a name and she yelled at them constantly. Funny part number 2, at one point I was in a fenced in area with about 20 goats, looking for corners, while my party chief was leaning against the fence with a copy if a record survey map telling me how far to pace etc. A goat walked up and grabbed the map, and a brief tug of war ensued, which the goat won. The party chief yelled at me to go tackle that goat and get the map back, but I was laughing too hard to do anything. We wound up having to go back to town to get another copy, and I got an ass chewing the whole way about it being my fault we were wasting time. I think he was really just mad that I thought it was so funny.
I was bitten in the calf by a horse once.?ÿ I was locating the vehicle tracks leading to the barn and he leaned over the fence and chomped.?ÿ I gave him a dirty look and kept my distance.?ÿ
Now I have nostalgia for my teenage years as a summer field tech... (aka slave labor)
One of the funniest stories I ever heard was about a former employee of mine.
He was an ex-marine (actually once a marine - always a marine).?ÿ He served in World War II and the Korean war.
He was short and reminded me of the grandfather on Family Guy.?ÿ Anyway, He was crossing a fence and the fieldbook
came out of his pocket.?ÿ A dog grabbed it and he spent over an hour chasing it down but got it back.?ÿ We all need more devoted employees like that.
It still makes me smile to think of it.?ÿ I bet he was pi$$ed!
?ÿ
In 1973 I had a crew working North of Gillette, Wyoming almost at the Montana State Line surveying some buried telephone cable routes. Back in that time period everything was measured on the slope, horizontal distance not required. We used 300' steel tapes, which at that time were about $150 including the reel, for years, but due to having too many tapes snapped when making too sharp a change in direction and when pulling against a sagebrush or some other feature and breaking the chain, I started buying 300' fiberglass ribbon tapes that cost maybe $25 or $30. Anyhow, one evening I got a call from the crew saying they needed a new tape. The crew chief?ÿsaid that when chaining through a pasture that had a bunch of cattle in it, he said the tape drag?ÿdidn't feel right when pulling it,?ÿso he, being the?ÿhead chainman, turned around to look back on the line just in time to see the remains of a piece of the tape zip into the cows mouth. The cow had ate about 5' out of the middle of the tape at the 142' to 147' portion. ?ÿThe rear chainman never saw it, as he also was the one packing and setting?ÿthe lath and stakes. They were on the last section of the survey, so I told them to just use the 142' section to finish up the survey.?ÿ?ÿ
Over twenty years ago we were running a control traverse and had set a backsight outside a horse corral.
We had the instrument set up on a high knob about 2,000 feet away.?ÿ I was the I man and when backsighting noticed
that the backsight glass was not pointed towards me.?ÿ When we arrived at the BS we noticed that not only was it mis-aimed
but it was way out of level and almost ready to fall over!?ÿ We determined the culprit to be the large draft horse in the corral, as
the BS was within his reach, I don't know if it tasted good or not.?ÿ
Four words, Birds on GNSS Receivers.
... what gives with the following? (saw in the window of a supplement store the other day):
Apparently it is for what you might deduce it is for.
Distant past and a newcomer that came to work with us set up his new Topcon in a back yard that had a goat chained to a stake. He was new to goats.
Came back to office with a somewhat upset Topcon. The goat had wrapped the chain around the legs and walked off taking the lot with it.?ÿ
Horses! Setup backsight on roadside near a paddock fence. Went to first station and looked at the backsight just as a horse reached over the fence and clamped his chompers over the target. He didn't like the taste and let go. Thankfully no damage.
Hadn't seen the horses when arrived at job. Must have been way across other side of paddock.?ÿ