Lost and Found

[Spike188]

Saturday started off great.

On June 1 I planted 15 white spruce saplings

using a deep square hole method in very sandy soil.

The trees holes were filled with water the day of planting and again a week later. It has been wet enough that they haven't needed any assistance since. Weeds and tall grass was starting to take over the pits so weeding was all that was planed. They have surprisingly doubled in size.

At 10 am I received a boil water order for the church well. The system has a time based UV system. Between the plumber that installed it and the purchaser, the UV system was incorrect for rural applications. It was 2 pm before the water issue was resolved enough to head home. When leaving church I noticed tire tracks in the grass leading to the tractor shed and random plywood laying outside. A quick peek at the building confirmed the worst suspicions.

The tractor was missing.

. Police arrived at 4 and took photos and dusted for prints. The thieves had pried the board and batten off of the backside of the shed

and found the tractor. At six the police released the shed back to us and recommended that we remove other lawn equipment, ladders, salt spreader, and ladders out of the shed. The key to the tractor was still laying on an upper barn beam so how the thieves move and loaded it is a mystery. The loader had been removed form the tractor by us for the summer and was left behind. A neighbor brought his front end loader over to help take stuff out of the shed. Around 7pm his son-in-law showed up and said he saw a 1025 sitting someplace odd but forgot where. His son piped up it is parked at the back of a restaurant parking lot in a very small town 4 miles away.

I head straight to the parking lot, It was ours. Police showed up about 9 pm and dusted it for prints while I went home, unloaded the contents of the building off of my pickup and borrowed a trailer. I arrived home at 11:30 pm exhausted. Supper was a bag of chocolate covered raisins while waiting for the police to arrive at the found tractor.

[Timj]

Busy day, for sure. At least the tractor was not lost. that's pretty gutsy, stealing from the church with the Big Guy watching. Be interesting to know the rest of the story.

[JSinMO]

What a long aggravating day. You have to roll with what comes up, but when it’s one unexpected thing after another,

Thank goodness you happened to notice the shed, the tractor may have been gone permanently if you hadn’t. Things like this just don’t make sense. Why steal it then leave it like that? Was it kids with a key that would work in it? Did they leave it there with plans to move it later? Probably never get answers, hopefully they will catch them.
Do you think it was damaged at all? I’m hoping not.

I was talking to couple of guys I know a few towns over. Someone broke into the towns equipment shed and cleaned them out. The police did arrest them and recover a side by side UTV but it was basically destroyed.
They reinforced the building and security but if someone really wants to get in you probably won’t stop them. They figure if they make a thief have to work to get in they’ll move on.

I’m really sorry that happened and I hope the church can secure a place to keep maintenance stuff.

That was a full day for sure, but I’m thankful you all got some positives. The church has some water, you got the tractor back, and the trees are growing!

[Spike188]

Police said there were 2 churches hit on Friday night. About 1 month ago churches in the region started getting hit. The shed had been unlocked for over 10 years so we drove pipe into the ground at each end of the door and re-positioned the hasp. We never expected siding being ripped off to gain access.

The method of theives here is to move equipment a short distance, like in this case, and drop it where there is no video surveillance. A few days later they will hire a roll off to move it to another location sometimes to a dealers lot for a few more days. If there is a tracking device on it, the owner will track and recover. Given time, another towing company will move it to the thieves location.

[RoamingGnome]

Hope they catch them... Glad you were able to find the tractor in one piece...

[Eugen]

I'm quite speechless. Glad at least you found the tractor.

[Chad]

Wow, what a day! Glad it was recovered, and hopefully there will be consequences if the thieves are caught. And hopefully no damage to the tractor.

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[Harry]

My church at their cemetery had a shed with a zero turn inside and a string trimmer. Shed was proken into and equipment stolen. Never was recovered and thieves were never caught. Insurance paid for part if the cost if the stolen equipment. I’m sure they will pay at judgment day. Harry

[Seabee]

That sucks for sure with that happening! Glad it was recovered!

Bill