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Thread: Bandits

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2018
    Location
    N CA
    Posts
    1,279

    Bandits

    Not really, but it seems so. The attached photo is of my 4’ black walnut. It’s twin in shown above the roof like. Both trees are identical circ 2’ off the ground, 13’2.” When I bought this place in ‘08 in anticipation of chasing the kids who tried to move away, I didn’t buy the house. I bought the trees. There are twin Peridot (non-grafted) 30” English Walnuts out front along the driveway, a 3’ white pine just out the front windows, a 42” Sequoia 80’ from the house and this beautiful monster black walnut 14’ off the corner of the house. The twin, which has been all pruned up is 12’ off the corner of the shed next to the house. I have a photo of the place from ‘46 that shows that tree projecting large limbs way past the front of the house. There are other blacks on the place and the fig is shown in the lower corner of the photo. Without the trees I don’t think I could buy enough AC to cool this house. They are magnificent and I really just like being the temporary care-taker.
    But there is this guy whom I call the bandit, who drops by every couple years trying to get them. A couple years ago, when I was still traveling for work he got my wife to let him in the gate and he scared the hell out of her. they are old, they are going to fall, you will be liable. She is nothing if not steady, but he got to her and it became, for a while, an issue and after 47 yrs with her, she and I don’t need any more issues. We can find plenty of our own. I hired a really good tree guy to come out and trim things up and do, I think it is an ultra-sound on the bole of the trees. Solid wood all the way through. I phoned the bandit guy and discouraged him from showing up again I was a peddler in my business and I appreciate persistence, if you are straight & true, but he showed up again the other day wearing a mask, which I thought appropriate. “I have a customer in Italy who will give you $5000 for those trees.” No! “I meant $5000 for each.” Bigger no! “How about the one over on the property line?” I finally advised him that living on this property without those trees would be like living on an anvil with the sun pounding us. I managed to get rid of him. It was pretty animated.
    I look at those trees and imagine the wood that could come out of them, but I can’t bring myself to consider that. I posted this in here because you are the “wood” guys and you can’t help but appreciate magnificent trees and some of them just need to be left alone. I dig up all the shoots every year off the nuts that sprout after the squirrels do their thing with them and gift them to people who will plant them. There was a guy back in the mid-1850’s named Felix Gillette who came west and planted trees, mostly fruit, across CA and up through the NW. These walnuts could be his. Tree Stories!
    Attached Images Attached Images

  2. #2
    Good for you. If they are healthy, let them be.
    And set the dog on the bandit.
    "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

    “If you want to know what a man's like, take a good look at how he treats his inferiors, not his equals.”

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Apr 2017
    Location
    Michigan
    Posts
    2,758
    I don't see much clear lumber there, but there are some spectacular slabs. Still I'm dubious about $5,000 each. You'd want to cash the check before cutting. Could be a scam.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    E TN, near Knoxville
    Posts
    12,298
    Sounded fishy to me too. If I sold a tree like that (and I wouldn’t unless desperate) I’d want cash before it was felled. Don’t forget it might be worthless inside.

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