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Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Oh, power pole, power pole wherefore art thou?

Someone took our telephone pole.
Lifted it, liberated it, loosed it from its bonds, somehow removed it without our knowledge.
A whole great big power pole, vanished into thin air like a puff of creosote smoke. We have been puzzling about the who and how since we noticed it was missing from the old calf pasture, now grown up to trees and honeysuckle, right in front of the house. The Power Company gave it to us when they replaced all the poles around here a few years back. It was pretty inaccessible, lying up on the hill across a ditch, quite some distance from a well-traveled highway and right in front of the house. Certainly we probably should have hooked a tractor on and dragged it up behind the barn, but who the heck would expect somebody to steal something as big as a telephone pole? It had to have been cut up with a chainsaw or heavy equipment brought in to move it. The thing was huge and it was maybe 150 feet from the front door!

How the heck did he do it neither challenged by us nor questioned by someone going by?
We have FIVE dogs, including Wally, who lives in a kennel and keeps us informed of what is going on even down on the bike path. How did we not hear them…or them not hear him? Probably came at milking time and got lucky that everyone was over at the barn at once. I guess we will never know the exact how, although we have a pretty good idea of the who. If by chance he reads this, yeah, we figured it out and you know just how we know. It must be hell to have that kind of reputation, but we hope you enjoy the pole.

This is all kind of funny to speculate upon, except that we did want to use the darned thing. Imagine going to all that trouble to take something that could be replaced by a couple of trees you could cut down right in your own woods. It boggles the mind.

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's amazing how much effort some people will go to attempting to steal someone else's property. I'm only surprised that it happened in a rural setting like yours.

threecollie said...

What shocked us is that they actually stole a telephone pole. Not a small item!

Anonymous said...

Hey thanks for posting on my blog, I appreciate it. Nice blog you got here. I can't believe someone would steal a telephone pole, I've never even heard of anything like that!

threecollie said...

liviai-thank you for the return visit. I really liked your blog. Love to read about gardening stuff and it is just too early to do much up here.

Anonymous said...

I guess being a city person, I don't understand why anyone whould steal it. Aren't these poles treated so you can't burn them. If it was cut up, what use would it be, and how much time and energy must have been involved to do this. Don't power poles have metal tags in them, identifying their location? What a strange story.

threecollie said...

Hi Karen, thanks for stopping by. You are right. The poles are treated, but they make great structural supports for pole buildings, partly because they are treated, ao they don't rot, and they are very straight. They are tagged too, but we have no idea what was on ours in that respect and I am sure the thief would have taken the tags right out. It must have been a heck of an undertaking to steal the thing. It was quite long and could have been cut in half or even quarters for a small building or for corner posts for a pen.

Wil said...

Around here, if it isn't nailed down with a guard dog attached...

I once caught 3 "gentlemen" liberating the battery from my pick-up truck. The fact that they'd driven by me standing in the doorway with a shotgun and a german shepherd never penetrated their booze-thickened skulls. In the amount of time it took me to call the SO and alert my wife, they'd removed one cable and were working on the other. I discharged two shots over their heads and got their attention. It took the deputies about 20 minutes to get there. Sadly, that was too long for their bladders to hold their contents ... seems the sight of my wife holding an AK-47 scared the piss out of them. Who knew?

threecollie said...

Now that is the way to do business. I like your wife already!
Here in NY we have to be awful careful about having a gun when accosting people. This is a absurdly liberal state and you are supposed to just stand there and let them do whatever they want to. And smile. However, I do have a remarkably realistic BB pistol. Which I am carrying stuck in my pocket now. lol

Deanna said...

Mom has had a weed whacker in her covered pickup bed for 2 years now. She wishes someone would steal that! But a telephone pole? Incredible!

Anonymous said...

Two or three years ago, someone stole a low bed trailer that we hauled our Cat on. We reported it to the state police but they said we might as well forget it.

The rest of the story...a year after the theft one thief got mad at the other thief and turned him in. We got the trailer back and $500 from the idiot who thought 'cause he was being honest we'd shake his hand and say thanks.

threecollie said...

That is quite a story!

KarbonKountyMoos said...

Damn aliens! They probably are in their space ship still calculating how we earthlings get power from those poles.

threecollie said...

Aliens! I never thought of them. I'll bet that's it too.