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| Bad Moon Rising |
Or, Curses! Foiled again!
As you may know, we sold the cows last year and changed our focus to making hay. Hay is not nearly as much fun as cows, but there is at least some potential to be able to pay the taxes and such at the end of the year.
In fact, it has been pretty good to us so far. The boss makes good hay and has had a lot of repeat customers.
Anyhow, big loads we sell out of the barnyard, but thanks to the driveway being more of a guideline than a rule, if people only want a few bales he takes it down to the bottom by the road and loads them there.
Yesterday he loaded out hay pretty much all day. Last load was just a little one to a new customer, so he put it in the skid steer bucket and took it down to wait.
First an Amishman pulled up and offered him a little more than half what we are selling it for and was quite put out not to get a discount.
Then, just as he was pulling away, some guys in a green pickup truck pulled a 180, spun into the driveway, jumped out of the truck, and headed for the skid steer.
Now, the boss is a man of average height and he piles the hay pretty high on the bucket. It's a white Bobcat and he was wearing a white tee shirt..... So I guess you couldn't see him all that well.
Anyhow, those good old boys walked right up to the hay before he said quietly, "Can I help you fellows?"
I guess they didn't even leave tracks getting back into that truck and peeling away.
We lost a few bales earlier this winter when the boss tried leaving a few at the bottom while he went up for more. I wonder if he found the culprits......
Anyhow, we had a real good laugh at their expense.
I've heard of cattle rustling but hay? Do you think they would have tried to steal the bobcat if they could get a trailer there quickly? I guess I have an idealized view of the country as someplace you can safely leave everything unattended. Not like the urban area where I live where anything you leave out will be gone in the morning. Or you wake up to a note from the police reminding you not to leave out stuff that attracts theives to the neighborhood.
ReplyDeleteTruly. Like Denny, I'm amazed that you have to be wary of situations like that. Guess there's no escaping the 'uglies' of human nature - even when it comes to stealing bales of hay.
ReplyDeleteLast year someone went in my son in laws shed in the night and took two tractors and almost every small tool that was loose, also a trailer to haul the tractors. My daughter saw them driving through town the next
ReplyDeleteDay pulling the trailer with the tractors on it. She was able to call the law and they recovered them but lost all the small tools. People are to lazy to work and think they have the right to those that try to have something. Farmers work so hard to make a living and often lose so much. Glad the boss saved his hay.
That's funny! I wish I could have seen the looks on their faces. Glad he was there and nothing was lost.
ReplyDeleteDenny, sadly, although it is perhaps less violent out here in the sticks, people are people. Anything that is not guarded will be taken. We even had an old telephone pole...a BIG telephone pole...stolen right in front of the house. We know who took it...a farmer from another town...but we were milking and didn't catch him. It was okay though because we heard later that he cut it too short for what he needed and spoiled it.
ReplyDeleteCathy, he had hay stolen twice before we took to having me or Liz stay down there to guard it while he went back for more when we were loading it all out down there because of the snow. People are....just people I guess. And we are on a main state road and right handy.
ellie, wow! I am so glad your d-i-l saw them! How terrible! And no matter how good your insurance is, you only seem to get pennies on the dollar. We used to have a miserable old goat show up here when the boss was at a certain annual auction. He'd sneak up the other driveway and take whatever wasn't nailed down. I actually saw him a couple of times, but we could never catch him or prove it was him. He was brazen enough to have taken large equipment from some other farmers; we got off light. Thankfully he doesn't get around much any more. There is always someone...
Ann, oh for a video camera!! We could have made money with that one.