We had ordered another 60 bales of Lucerne hay as a precaution. Weather is unpredictable as far as we are concerned and if the dry spell lasts until after December there won't be a blade of grass on our 25 acres. The additional bales will now drought proof our three cattle until well into next year and if we don't use it will keep.
We received a call yesterday to say the Lucerne was baled and we could pick it up. I arrived there at 7 am this morning to get the loading done in the cool of the day. First I sounded out the farmer who we have known for a long time if it was possible to purchase the hay but store in his hay shed so that our eggs were not all in the same basket i.e. if our hayshed burnt down at least we would still have half the hay intact.
Yes he had done this in the past but the problem was people. They would come to buy hay and if unsupervised would help themselves to whatever stack was in reach despite the stack being labelled as "SOLD". Worse still if the property was unattended some people had helped themselves and not paid. His only solution was to lock the gate which he will do once he has finished baling.
So I took our hay home. May as well have it burn as stolen.
So much for the old good neighbours and community. This is not the first story about the inability of locals to use an honesty box. The local hardware store doesn't allow customers to enter their back storage sheds unsupervised and the store itself has CCTV cameras everywhere. They just got sick of losing stock. A local roadside vegetable stall used CCTV to catch a local stocking up on vegetables and not paying. So the few dishonest people set the tone for behaviours.
Is the world changing or has it always been like this? Or are there just too many of us and these little incidents become more frequent?
No comments:
Post a Comment