A week or so back I received a phone call out of the blue from our good buddy and long time poster Nate Dearyan from Caddo Gap, Arkansas. He was checking up on me to see how I am recovering from my injuries when the bull decided to prove he was meaner than I am. What he told me first was that he was sitting under a shade tree giving away puppies and kittens with his children. When a fellow has more children than fingers to count them on, I understand how he might want to clear out a few. The added incentive of also getting a free kitten or puppy seemed to be a sure fire deal. Then he explained that he was keeping the kids and only giving away kittens and puppies.
In Nate's part of the world, elevation changes and large, leafy trees are everywhere. Roads only go where someone decided a hundred years ago that they were necessary. Now, Nate loves his Javad equipment because it works so much better than traditional methods that his surveyor father used for decades. Finding good spots to set up a base is essential. He found what appeared to be an ideal location for a certain job and set about erecting it on a house roof. The house appeared to be unoccupied and had a sign in the yard stating it was under management by some firm from out of state. He then went on about doing the survey quite some distance from the house. A few hours later his wife called him to ask about where he had placed his base. It seems the Sheriff had called. Nate rather quickly shut down operations and headed to the site with his base. There he met up with some very unfriendly people tossing around threats of various sorts, including legal ones, such as trespassing and damage to property. I hope he fills us in on how this all turns out.
I often read Nate's contributing posts and the puppies and kittens sound like a feel-good story, but, I'm asking myself why a well seasoned professional land surveyor would decide that it's a good idea to set a base up on the roof of a privately owned home, abandoned or not, with a sign existing for the management company, and think that it was a good idea.
The decision to set the base on the roof of a house that likely could have had an aged out roof could potentially lead to a free new roof at Nate's expense. Trespassing and other issues could come into financial play as well.