Some time between Thanksgiving (PA Bear Season) and the Monday after (PA Buck season) a very large, and very dead Oak multi-trunk dropped one of the trunks in front of our cabin in the mountains.
You can see that one of the other trunks is still standing.
While we (a small group of hunters who own that impressive looking cabin there behind the tree) were in camp an older guy stopped by and asked if he could have the tree. As unlikely as it might seem, wood is our primary source of heat in this cabin (that's called irony), we told him we would be using it all for future heating seasons.
The week after buck season, we were all gone, and he stopped back and fired up his chainsaw and started cutting it. Fortunately, our neighbor hadn't cleared his camp yet, and walked down and told the guy he knew he did not have permission to take the wood. So, he left.
But, he was persistent, and came back another week later, and cut and loaded a pick-up load of the tree, by rolling the rounds up a plank into his truck.. As luck would have it, another neighbor who lived in the vicinity year round recognized the truck when it drove past, and called us to confirm there was not permission. So, a day or so later, our permanent neighbor heard a saw, walked down to our camp, reminded the guy again, that he did not have permission and snapped a picture of him, his truck, and his license plate.
With that information, he called us, and we called the state police barracks in the county where our camp is. As luck would have it one of the troopers had a camp near ours, and agreed to make a couple drive-bys. Wouldn't you know it, but our intrepid thief was back and the trooper spotted him, hit the lights and rolled in our driveway. After a couple feeble attempts to convince the trooper he had permission, he was arrested.
None of us had actually been there in quite a while, but we got a subpeona for a hearing for the guy for 8:30 a.m. this morning. So, one of our members with a Bobcat and bucket grapple and I went up to our cabin Monday to saw up the rest of our tree and move it around back where it wouldn't be such an attractive nuisance.
When we got there we found an estimated cord or more missing from the trunk that fell, and in the process our thief sawed the other trunk down and had started on it. This is what was left when we arrived:
You can see the log on the right has had quite a bit removed. I sawed Tuesday morning to cut the remaining logs into Bobcat sized grapple chunks to move around behind the camp. We didn't want to cut them small enough for another thief to grab them, but we wanted them out of sight.
This is an edited video of of me making the first cut, and my buddy attempting to pick and move them.
I say attempting, because, the ground was very wet, and all he actually managed to do was rut up our "lawn" pretty bad. Then he asked me to cut my Bobcat sized logs in half again. So, my buddy gave up, having moved exactly none behind the cabin, loaded his Bobcat back on his trailer, and pulled out his Stihl 029, also with a 24" bar, and tackled another pair of cuts on the smaller log. Here is a still shot of him throwing chips with his nice old 029.
Circle back to the original story, our thief was arrested for a variety of offenses, but the Trooper told us that since we didn't have "No Trespassing" signs up, he couldn't get him on on that charge.
So, the President, Vice President (me), and the Secretary of our club completed our Executive Retreat with a new sign, and a group picture with our security team.
Flash forward to this morning, we met with the Trooper, our Neighbor (who was also subpeona'd) at the District Magistrate for a preliminary hearing. The accused arrived with his lawyer and they met with the DA, Trooper, and the Magistrate. The clever DA had measured the distance from the sawed end to the final sawdust pile, took the length and diameter to a local sawmill and got an estimate of what the oak log would have been worth, and listed that as the compensation that we should consider. With all the evidence, the accused caved, accepted a plea bargain, and paid us double the mill log rate (double for penalty). We never even got out of the waiting room. We still have plenty of wood, he cut down the big second trunk for us, and he has now funded our year of electric and insurance (our only cash expenses). For the price of a PA State Forest firewood cutting permit, this gentleman could have filled his truck to his hearts content. Instead, he is out about 15 times that amount. Since we were not ever actually part of the plea bargaining, I don't really know if he got out of a record, but it was a lesson hard learned.
You can see that one of the other trunks is still standing.
While we (a small group of hunters who own that impressive looking cabin there behind the tree) were in camp an older guy stopped by and asked if he could have the tree. As unlikely as it might seem, wood is our primary source of heat in this cabin (that's called irony), we told him we would be using it all for future heating seasons.
The week after buck season, we were all gone, and he stopped back and fired up his chainsaw and started cutting it. Fortunately, our neighbor hadn't cleared his camp yet, and walked down and told the guy he knew he did not have permission to take the wood. So, he left.
But, he was persistent, and came back another week later, and cut and loaded a pick-up load of the tree, by rolling the rounds up a plank into his truck.. As luck would have it, another neighbor who lived in the vicinity year round recognized the truck when it drove past, and called us to confirm there was not permission. So, a day or so later, our permanent neighbor heard a saw, walked down to our camp, reminded the guy again, that he did not have permission and snapped a picture of him, his truck, and his license plate.
With that information, he called us, and we called the state police barracks in the county where our camp is. As luck would have it one of the troopers had a camp near ours, and agreed to make a couple drive-bys. Wouldn't you know it, but our intrepid thief was back and the trooper spotted him, hit the lights and rolled in our driveway. After a couple feeble attempts to convince the trooper he had permission, he was arrested.
None of us had actually been there in quite a while, but we got a subpeona for a hearing for the guy for 8:30 a.m. this morning. So, one of our members with a Bobcat and bucket grapple and I went up to our cabin Monday to saw up the rest of our tree and move it around back where it wouldn't be such an attractive nuisance.
When we got there we found an estimated cord or more missing from the trunk that fell, and in the process our thief sawed the other trunk down and had started on it. This is what was left when we arrived:
You can see the log on the right has had quite a bit removed. I sawed Tuesday morning to cut the remaining logs into Bobcat sized grapple chunks to move around behind the camp. We didn't want to cut them small enough for another thief to grab them, but we wanted them out of sight.
This is an edited video of of me making the first cut, and my buddy attempting to pick and move them.
I say attempting, because, the ground was very wet, and all he actually managed to do was rut up our "lawn" pretty bad. Then he asked me to cut my Bobcat sized logs in half again. So, my buddy gave up, having moved exactly none behind the cabin, loaded his Bobcat back on his trailer, and pulled out his Stihl 029, also with a 24" bar, and tackled another pair of cuts on the smaller log. Here is a still shot of him throwing chips with his nice old 029.
Circle back to the original story, our thief was arrested for a variety of offenses, but the Trooper told us that since we didn't have "No Trespassing" signs up, he couldn't get him on on that charge.
So, the President, Vice President (me), and the Secretary of our club completed our Executive Retreat with a new sign, and a group picture with our security team.
Flash forward to this morning, we met with the Trooper, our Neighbor (who was also subpeona'd) at the District Magistrate for a preliminary hearing. The accused arrived with his lawyer and they met with the DA, Trooper, and the Magistrate. The clever DA had measured the distance from the sawed end to the final sawdust pile, took the length and diameter to a local sawmill and got an estimate of what the oak log would have been worth, and listed that as the compensation that we should consider. With all the evidence, the accused caved, accepted a plea bargain, and paid us double the mill log rate (double for penalty). We never even got out of the waiting room. We still have plenty of wood, he cut down the big second trunk for us, and he has now funded our year of electric and insurance (our only cash expenses). For the price of a PA State Forest firewood cutting permit, this gentleman could have filled his truck to his hearts content. Instead, he is out about 15 times that amount. Since we were not ever actually part of the plea bargaining, I don't really know if he got out of a record, but it was a lesson hard learned.
