The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Community => Coffee Lounge => Topic started by: Roxy on March 30, 2011, 12:45:51 pm
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The other afternoon, I could see a van stop at the side of the lane. Then a man got out, with spade, and big compost bags. He did not walk to the gate, but climbed the dry stone wall. Thought he was going to the pile of rotted horse manure, but no, he started digging into the pile of tree bark heaped up. The leccy firm cut some trees down, and asked if I wanted the bark, so left it for me.
Now, I am generous, and gardeners are welcome to manure, but even so, I would expect them to ask first, surely thats good manners, rather than helping themselves. I marched over the lane, through the gate, and got right behind the gentleman, who had already filled one large sack of bark, and was on the second. He jumped a mile when I said "Excuse me, what are you doing?" Rather sarcastically he said he was taking the bark. I replied that it was mine, he said it had been left by the leccy people ......yes, but they gave it to me, I said, and its in my field, so technically you are stealing. I then asked if it was ok then for me to go in his garden and help myself to a few of his veg plants, or some compost??? He was no apologetic in any way, and said would tip it back from the bag. Being generous, I told him to take the bag he had filled and leave - which he did, back over the wall.
I pointed out that had he asked, I would probably have let him have some of the bark, but seeing as he had helped himdself, then no. He said as he left that he did not know who the field belonged to. Hmm ....he had made no effort to go to the house alongside my field, and then would have told him.
I wonder how many other fields he had been in that afternoon!!!
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Well done you!
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Good for you, the cheeky git :o
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Weird isn't it ??? One rule for the country and one for the town. Same with dumping rubbish - some folk will drive miles to dump their junk in someone's field. Watch he doesn't come back when you're not looking.
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Ah, I know exactly where he lives, and of course I know his van. I would have no qualms about visiting his garden and looking for my bark. Its not right that people think they have a right to help themselves - in this case the fact that the electric people left the bark is not relevant - it was my tree in the first place, in my field. Whats more, had the owner of the house next door been in, he was in full view of their front garden!! I would not dream of doing such a thing .......for one thing its wrong, and for another I would be scared of meeting a woman like me, whilst doing it!!!
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Cheek of some people!! can't believe he climbed your fence as well!! well done you Roxy, you stood your ground.
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Go girl...................well done you, stand up for yourself....................but you didnt use the right expression
GET ORF MY LAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;D
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GET ORF MY LAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
;D finally someone else with the same sence of humour.
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I think I was quite polite for me. Red coloured hair and a temper to match-when I lose it, I lose it ;D Some years ago, a new neighbour let her large St Bernard in our field, and it got hold of our goose, and broke its foot. That woman got the most horrible outburst from me - and the worst of it was, she had to watch our lame goose hobble past every day, reminding her.
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Same with dumping rubbish - some folk will drive miles to dump their junk in someone's field.
We had a place where lots of rubbish got dumped regularly, so I started watching. One day I was shifting some sheep and happened to notice the roof of a Range Rover as it slowed and stopped at the dump/layby. As I was behind a dyke and was lower than the road, I was able to approach unseen till I was in talking distance of the dumper.
I appeared over the dyke and asked the well-dressed chappie with a black bag of rubbish in one hand, and another en route to the ground from his other hand, what he was doing. He got a huge fright. Without giving him a chance to answer, I started writing down his reg number, and told him to get the stuff back in the car if he didn't want to be reported to the police.
He immediately put the two bags back into his car and made to leave. "And the rest", I said, pointing to another half dozen bags and a piece of rotting carpet which I knew had nothing to do with him as it had been there for days. He protested, but I prevailed upon him.
He cleared the other stuff into his car and drove away. ;D :D
My employer had problems with European people wandering through her woodland and filling several carrier bags each with edible mushrooms...chanterelle in particular...which they were probably selling on. She found out that if she considered the mushrooms a crop of her land, they had no right to take them. In fairness to the people, since she challenged them, they appear not to have returned.
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Good one! :)
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Well done, Aengus!
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Brilliant!! Oooh, wonder what the man did with all that rubbish. Hopefully there was something grotesque in there with a dreadful smell that filled his car ......
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Being cynical, I bet he dumped it in the next lay-by ::) But how wonderful to creep up on him like that - priceless ;D ;D
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The problem with mushrooms, blackberries , slows etc, they are classified by law as a wild crop for anyone to harvest. and technicaly there is no such law as 'trespass', it has to be 'trespass and damage', just bending a blade of grass can be constrewed as the 'damage'.
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I like the way you surprised him .............
Many years ago as a lad we had been scrumping and were lying in the ditch enjoying the 'fruits' of our labour.
Looking out across the grass in front of us we saw a lady and one of the boys said " hey look at that old woman
over there" at which point through the hedge from behind us came the farmers wife ( who we hadn't seen ) as she said
"I'll give you look at that old woman" we scarpered sharp style. There has been many a time in the last
fifty odd years that I've had a chuckle at the memory of it and I now wish to apologise publicly for nicking the apples
but I hope that the enjoyment the tale has given me and others counts as recompense.
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I used to keep a muck heap by the side of the gate at my last field. I noticed one night the street lamp above the gate was broken and the next morning I found out why! Someone had helped themselves to the muck heap and wanted to do it in the dark so they knew they were stealing!
More fool them though as in the dark they lost their fork, a good one, and a mans silver watch placed on the wall to keep it clean. The man who owned the field got himself a new watch and I goy myself an expensive poo fork.
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My old Uncle told me that as a young lad him and his friends often pinched apples from an old mans orchard on the way home from school. He said as well as the apples, they enjoyed outrunning the irate owner. He must have reported the matter to the local bobby, because the next time they tried it, they ran headlong into the policeman.
As well as a slap round the head from the policeman, my uncle got a good hiding from his mum as well. He said he lost the urge to steal apples after that.
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My old Uncle told me that as a young lad him and his friends often pinched apples from an old mans orchard on the way home from school. He said as well as the apples, they enjoyed outrunning the irate owner. He must have reported the matter to the local bobby, because the next time they tried it, they ran headlong into the policeman.
As well as a slap round the head from the policeman, my uncle got a good hiding from his mum as well. He said he lost the urge to steal apples after that.
Now THAT is what is missing in today's society! When my kids were little they knew that if they were bad at school and got a row from a teacher they'd get worse when they got home. Nowadays the parents sue! ::)
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That was exactly my Uncles view.....but can you imagine if a policeman hit a 10 year old child, and if the parent did the same for that matter!!!
But, it obviously did some good in those days, and I doubt my Uncle or his mum would have dreamt of sueing anyone.
Its laughable though, that a crime like that was seen as worthy of a police visit, when you think what kids get up to today.
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I had an old mobile caravan down the field for several years and was furious when folk came while I was out and ripped it apart for the aluminium and other metal, but left everything else lying dangerously in a field with animals - nails lying upward etc >:( One of them (I think) had been to the house to ask for the scrap and offered me cash for it which I'd accepted (tho not received) on the basis they'd uplift the whole thing on a trailer and take it away, but I discovered because I had agreed they could have it, the most I could sue for was the amount I had agreed on and their taking less of the caravan was not illegal so I was left with a dangerous heap of wood, metal, ceramic and wire, broken glass from the windows etc to clear up and carry on a barrow one piece at a time by myself :(
The silver lining was that I discovered a nearly new large breaking tool - mallet one side and axehead the other - so I decided it was my due payment for the part they'd taken and at least it motivated me to get the rest cleared up I suppose ::) It would probably have been lying there for months otherwise as I'd have felt obliged to leave it for collection for a reasonable period having agreed to the sale ::)
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When we first came here a man used to jog through our neighbours fields then into ours. One day I caught him coming out of our boiler house, he had used the toilet which we kept as it saved taking muddy boots of and coming into the house. When challenged he said I can go wherever I like. I started giving the dogs the run of the place and we never had him on our land again.
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.....but can you imagine if a policeman hit a 10 year old child, and if the parent did the same for that matter!!
Our village bobby reduced me to tears in the street for not having proper lights on my bike, I had a back one and was holding a torch on the handlebars for the front one ........... I was sixteen at the time.
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My father used to have fishing rights on a bit of the Monnow - great coarse fishing (he used to rear the wee fish at home in our garden ponds and take them down to the river in a water-filled dustbin in the passenger footwell of the car!) and some trout.
They'd been having trouble with poachers. No-one minded the odd local taking a couple of trout home for tea, but this was poaching on a grander scale, presumeably selling to the restaurant trade. Plus they were using electric shock to stun the fish, and leaving hundreds of Dad's painstakingly reared and transported coarse fish floating belly-up.
A stakeout was set up, the water bailiff having determined when and how the looters struck. The police, with the bailiff's help, caught three of four of the thugs, but the fourth managed to get away on foot in the darkness. On the way to the police station with the three in the back of the police car, the driver thought how odd to find a solitary hitchhiker out in the sticks so late at night ... sure enough, the fourth hoodlum only flagged down the police car for a lift! He got one... ;) ;D
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our neighbour was caught stealing 2 hanging baskets from our polytunnel!!!!!
now that's cheeky :o
Mx
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How did they get caught stealing the baskets?
I lived on the south coast and we had to pay for shingle to go on the beach to stop the town from dissapearing into the sea. Every year tractors came with it and moved it around to help stop the erosion. Big signs were up telling people not to help themselves to it with warnings of prosecution. My children were dipping their toes in the sea and I sat down to watch them. A family were near by and the woman kept producing plastic bags which the family tried to secretly fill. I asked if they would like me to pinch the shingle from their drive, in he same way and would they like help from the police to carry it to their car. Very quickly they scarpered, but I bet they came back.
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my OH saw her from the bathroom window.....(it was 6am in the morning!)
luckily our land back onto our house.........she jumped over the fence
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my OH saw her from the bathroom window.....(it was 6am in the morning!)
luckily our land back onto our house.........she jumped over the fence
what did you do?
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well he challenged her. we had had some bother with them and access rights (they have pedestrian ones but think they have vehicular; and are 2 faced; saying to us they love what we have done etc with the animals and to others how we have ruined the village!!!!
well not informed police, but shouldn't have any probs now!!!!!!! hopefully :)
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Good for you. You could always set a cattle prod ;D
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Cheeky being nice!!
I had a nice present on the New Year of 2000, I was on call for Social Services and in the morning opened my front door to find a flowering rose in a pot that had obviousely been taken from the garage up the road!!!!
Cheeky being not so nice!!
This house seems to be haunted by living ex owners and a few years ago, my hubby went out to have a smoke in our garden at 9.45 when he bumped into two women, he was so shocked and said "what are you doing in my garden" they said they used to live here!!!!! they were mad with my hubby and did say a few things and added that they still had a key for the front door but due to him being rude they would not give him it!!!!! I must add, the keys to the house are Huge Jail type keys and we only have one set, also, that lady had to unlock our catch and bolt on our back gate to get into the garden and our dogs were asleep inside that night.....the cheek of some people..sadly she died as I would have loved to have had a chat about the house history as its over 300 years old.
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The big estate here has miles of wall around it built in the local hard-to-get bricks. Late one night driving alongside this wall I saw a white van parked on the verge with two blokes shovelling in bricks like men possessed. They'd picked a spot, one of several, where some drunk had knocked a hole in the wall, brought a big hammer and were helping themselves.