I was on the way home Sunday afternoon. Already on the big bridge over the Big River. That's its name. Big River. Literally. Anyhoo...I'd already signaled my left turn. I saw an oncoming red pickup truck. It wasn't exactly oncoming. It was facing me, parked on the slim shoulder of the county lettered highway.
As I was preparing to turn, the red pickup started moving. Towards me. Veerrry slowly. Pulled onto the road, and signaled a right turn onto my county blacktop road.
Well. I had to yield to oncoming traffic. I assumed he was going to be there any second. I didn't know he was going to creep along at idle speed. Anyhoo...as he turned, and I followed, I KNEW why he had been pulled off the side of the road.
HE WAS STEALING!
That's right! He stole a cedar log! MoDOT has been trimming trees along there for weeks. They first cut them down. Then the next day they come and trim the cedars they've cut, grinding up the small limbs in their traveling woodchipper. They leave the logs, stacked by size, for later pickup. I suppose the Missouri Department of Transportation has a use for such logs. Fence posts, maybe. Or they give them to the Department of Corrections so the inmates can each have one to whittle into a toothpick. If MoDOT didn't want them, they'd have chipped them.
Now Red Pickup Man had TAKEN one! It must have been pretty heavy to hoist into his truck bed. You can't see it very well, unless you can zoom in. It's pretty hard to open the camera app on my hand-me-down Genius phone when I'm driving! So the photo is all akimbo like something in a spy movie!
I asked Hick if taking such a log was against the law.
"YEAH! You know that place where I used to dig up my yucca plants? When I lived at the apartments, and then when we moved out here? NOW they have signs saying STATE PROPERTY, and that people who take stuff will be prosecuted!"
Oh, well. It's not like I was going to report this guy. If his license plate was readable, I was planning to block it out. I just wanted to show Hick the nerve of this cedar-stealer!
Yucca Yanker, meet Log Looter.
Against the law maybe, but still probably not going to hurt the state economy.
ReplyDeleteMy "everyone is an angel" mom would have said, "He probably just didn't know.
It's one thing if you stop and saw down a cedar tree. Totally different if you take one that's already been trimmed into a log and stacked by size. Maybe he takes one every day! It wouldn't surprise me if the state pays someone to count logs...
DeleteDo you suppose he's a carver? You just never know what's next. Lock your doors.
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh! Like we need ANOTHER kind of criminal activity out here!
DeleteSome people will do anything for a little firewood.
ReplyDeleteIf he wanted firewood, I think he would have taken more. And probably not have taken cedar, because it pops out embers, due to the resin. A good way to catch your carpet on fire if you don't have a screen across your fireplace.
DeleteI can see that log with no trouble at all. I wonder if that is the only one he has taken? and why?
ReplyDeleteMaybe he's taking one a day! To get them quickly, and not be noticed. Cedar makes good fence posts. It smells good. It's pretty to make crafty things from. Cedar shake shingles are common, though this isn't a very big log for that. Maybe he's stockpiling them to sell.
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