Staking and marking
This morning, a couple of gentlemen from the engineering firm came out to my lot with much high-tech equipment. They located the lot pins, and located the corners of the house and the property offset points, marking all such spots with lathes, topped with colored flags.
While they were still occupied with this task, a calf in the farm pasture that is behind my property noticed the flag on the lathe marking the lot pin, and decided to eat it. I watched, incredulously, as it devoured two of four ribbons (which were some sort of synthetic material, by the way). Then, as it began to stretch its neck and tongue toward the ribbons again, I decided to chase it away. I stalked toward it, waving my pad of paper at it, and telling it to shoo, and that the stick was mine. As I approached the animal, I realized that even though it was just a half-grown calf, it was still a large animal - easily twice my weight - and that it was just staring at me. So I decided to tell it to go away from a short distance - not getting too close. After I did that, I just walked away as if I expected to be obeyed. It stared dumbly at me for a while, and then lost interest, and went back to grazing on grass. The flags were still there an hour later when the job was done, and I went back home.
