There’s an old song from the 40’s that I hear on XM radio and it’s about a guy who loves a rather robust lady and so when he’s lovin’ on her he’s a “huggin’ and a chalkin” around her and runs into a guy coming around the other side.

Today I got an Email from the son of the folks who own the lot next door where I gaze at cow’s blissfully grazing each day. They’re going to build a wall around the property and had a surveyor come out a few days ago to mark the boundaries. First of all there have been two fellows chopping and clearing the lot as I mentioned before, so they’ve pretty much whacked it all down and it’s drying, I assume waiting for a big fire which will trigger an asthma attack sending me into seclusion elsewhere until it burns itself out. You can’t just close the house up, this is Mexico, houses here need to “breathe” and breathe they do through every window, door and pour.

The Email asked if I could check the markers and see if they were parallel to my walls as he didn’t think the markers were right the other day. Being bored and seeing this as a challenge I immediately headed for the gate and sure enough – another adventure into Mexicanism (sure it’s a real word, trust me) was about to materialize.

I hiked out front first and found the surveyor’s marker. Now, NOB they typically use a humongous nail driven into the ground with a florescent orange streamer tied to it for visibility at the corners of a property. Allow me note; this is the mark of 666, the devil incarnate as it means something is going to happen (and it’s NEVER good) either the vacant lot next to you, that has been a treasure distancing you from the fool neighbors, has been sold and someone is going to build a monstrosity on it devaluing your property or if there is an existing house it’s being sold to someone whose taste is all in their mouth and will no doubt paint it puce with pink highlights – again devaluing your single largest possession. To put it on a bumper sticker; “surveyor flags are the black plague of modern times”.

Anyway I’m looking for the typical surveyor marker and I come upon a broken plastic flower pot with a piece of steel rebar driven through its heart – apparently that’s a Mexican surveyor’s marker. Sighting as best I could it looked a bit short, but then where I estimated it should be is in a brush thicket where no self respecting surveyor would ever venture – apparently. I took a pic and headed for the other end of the property.

At that end I found a piece of rebar with a bent end about 4’ tall sticking up where I estimated a “marker” should be. Now let it be noted at this point there are cows grazing around here and they don’t know a marker from zip and wouldn’t think twice about bumping or kicking it over - inadvertently of course erasing the surveyor’s work - I took a pic.

After sending the note and pics to the owner I remembered a treasure from my Father that did manage to make the trip here with me, a 50’s antique leather wrapped retractable steel tape that has faithfully measured many a project for him (and he passed in 1957) and for me these many years and miles since. So, I headed down with two screwdrivers and the tape in hand to do some serious measuring. Screwdrivers? – yes, be patient.

I had just taken a shower and invoked house rule #2 which clearly states that when it reaches 68 degrees you change into shorts so I slipped on my deck shoes and headed out. I started at the lake end and stuck one of the screw drivers through the metal catch hook on the end and started reeling out the tape toward the other end. When I got to 50’ I stuck the other screwdriver into the ground, walked back and pulled the first one. Then I’d drag the tape another 50’, hook it to the marker and repeat.

At this point several things came into play, first of all I’m in shorts with bare legs (not pretty, but hey?) and the brush they cut is just laying on the ground and some of it has thorns the size of shingle nails, so I dodging and carefully high stepping trying to keep the other marker in sight so I’m going straight. Also, as I mentioned, cows graze here and I was dodging meadow muffins which always seemed to be exactly where I needed to go to keep a straight line and at about the 175’ mark I encountered Bosse, one of the foremost muffin makers, who had been watching all this with a wary eye. I considered measuring around her, but that would have thrown off the accuracy of this exercise so I fell back on some childhood skills, I resorted to herding her out of my way (always knew my NE heritage would come in handy).

So there I was huggin’ and a chalkin’ after running into Bosse (I know it’s a thin connection, give me some slack) onward through the bramble thickets, around the meadow muffins etc. heading for the other stake, sticking a screwdriver in the ground, pull and measure and repeat and it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t been counting how many 50’ segments I’d covered? So, I stepped it off back to the starting point and figured it was 200’ and headed back to finish.

The end result was 254.3 ft as near as I could measure and with only minor scratches on the legs I headed back to send the finding to the owner to check against his records. They would like to acquire the next lot as well, but can’t find who owns it. That’s not unusual here as things work differently. NOB if you don’t pay your taxes the county seizes the property and sells it at auction. Here if you don’t pay taxes it just sits there and eventually if someone else buys it they have to clear the back taxes, but in the mean time it’s just sort of a mystery.

In any case it’s going to be interesting as the current marker, or where I think it should be, both will block off a path where some vehicles have driven and may cut the cows off from grazing onto the lot to the North of me.

But, I’ll bet Dad would be amazed to know his tape measure is in Mexico I’ll also bet, he’d be proud.