This year has found me several times in the company of bees, lots of bees, hundreds of bees and thousands of bees. For land surveyors, interactions eventually bring us face to face with nature in unexpected ways. This is an aspect of the profession that brings joy to my life and occasionally fear, and sometimes it might make me run.
In spring, I was performing field work to prepare an as-built survey plan in order to prove to the township that the owner had kept to the design plan. My eyes are always looking for the many items I will want to show on my plan. At this particular property, I was standing on their new rear flagstone patio and heard a machine of some sort and I could not connect the sound with any of my memories. The first choice was pool equipment doing something odd, but this lot had no pool. Then I imagined a huge fan running on the next level down and it must be out of sight. Walking around to where I thought the noise was produced, it was obvious there was nothing there. Then I stood and listened and looked up.