(AF) I've been ROBBED! ! !

 Not sure where to even start on this one. A few months back, an elderly relative got a letter from the city stating that she had to tear her storage building down or be heavily fined. Another family member had been supposed to do some repairs on it, kept putting it off, and it finally started looking bad and the city took action. I took some time off from packing/moving, along with a cousin, and got everything in the building gone through, sorted and out of it. Cousin spent a lot more time on it than I did, even, but I was able to get quite a few days in.

For helping, I was given several boxes of things out of the building, including several boxes of some very old, unique, vintage canning jars. I had never even seen that kind before. Most of them were tall and skinny . . . some 1 1/2 pints and I think some were 3/4 pints. Some were square and some had a very pretty cut glass design in them. I was so excited and eager to can things in them this next spring and summer after Dave and I finally get to plant and work a garden together.

Since I have been in a messy move, everything has been topsy turvy, scattered, and the flooding in my house has grown drastically worse, I was told I could leave them there in her shop building (along with the other odds and ends items she gave me) until I finished moving from my house, then I could come pick them up. Sounded good to me.

Fast forward to December. She called me one day, asking if I had picked up the jars and stuff. I said no, I haven't had the time, and I don't have a key to it so I couldn't have if I had wanted to. She said that the jars and stuff were all missing, every last one of them! Someone had stolen them! Cousin, who had put the stuff in the shop building, came by to look and verify that nothing was any longer setting where she had put them. Everything else in the building seemed to be fine, but all of my stuff was gone. Well.... DANG IT!

It didn't look like the door nor lock had been tampered with, so someone had to have used a key to get in. She got someone that knew a lot about locks to check and no, no one had tampered with the lock. No sign of forced entry. At first there were two possibilities, then it was narrowed down to just one, with no doubt. This is so very heart breaking . . even more so because the likely thief is a close family member. He is strong and fully able bodied . . . could have been giving me a hand with some of this moving, or at least Dave a hand with the heavy stuff  . . . but instead, while I was tied up moving, slipped over to where some of my unique valuables were temporarily stored, most of which were vintage and some even antique, tools, too. This brings up so many emotions and can't even describe the all.

Yesterday, opportunity arose to confront the thief and ask him about it. Of course he denied it, and even gave a very childish, 2-year old style story that further proved that he had been the one that did it. He just made it even more obvious that he was the one. There is zero doubt. Plus, other stuff in the shop building that belonged to his buddy . . . stuff that was worth much more (many, many times over) what my stuff was worth, was all still there, totally untouched. So, the very person that could have given us a very, helpful hand, robbed me blind while I was busy packing and moving. This hurts to my very core! This person has stolen many things from me in the past and I have been staying away from him, but I guess that wasn't enough.

So, what would someone like that do with all of those jars? We were coming up on Christmas time, he is an alcoholic and for Christmas gifts, sometimes makes up some kind of special alcoholic drink that is poured up into pretty mason jars and given for gifts. That is what I am guessing my jars were used for. Did I get any kind of a gift from this person? Nope . . . I just got robbed, by an able bodied family member, instead.

Thank you for reading my post. Have a great day! .

(AF) Attempted Break In!

 As some of you know, over at Anna's Farm, I tried to do a Home Loan Modification, followed all of their advice and steps, but was foreclosed on, instead. Last Tuesday morning was supposed to be the "lockout".

Besides Dave and I are having major issues with arthritis and a few other things that have slowed moving down drastically, it has also been an extremely wet year and rain and flooding has often made it impossible for long periods of time to get a trailer in to my property to load. The days leading up to last Tuesday was no exception. Fairly recently, Dave had had another hospital stay which nearly ended in having his foot amputated, meds finally somewhat cleared it up, but left him with an extremely tender, painful foot. After he has been on it for just a little while, the pain gets very extreme. Then we had a record breaking rain just before the lockout date - somewhere around 15 inches of rain in just a couple of days.

I frantically tried to get one more time extension. I begged, pleaded, reasoned, etc. but no such luck. I had requested a new date of February 1st. Everything under the sun has gotten in our way and we still have mountains of my belongings and business supplies to move. I was having no such luck. Then, 30 minutes before the close of the business day, the day before the scheduled lockout, I got a call saying that they would give me one more week. Not enough, especially since it would take more than half of that time to be able to get back into my yard from all of the flooding, but definitely a blessing because I could get a little more out. Oh, how we wish we could have gotten some help we needed with all of this! I never knew that getting people to help you while you were in crisis mode would be so hard, so impossible. We are very grateful, though, for the help we have received.

So, the next day (the day the lockout had been scheduled), I get up and get back to packing. As I often have these last days, I packed on through the night. Naturally, as night and the cold set in, I brought all of the dogs in to warm up (and to warm me up with their added body heat since I am out of firewood). Somewhere in the still and quiet of the middle of the night, someone came up to my gate and started making a whooping, hollering noise, no doubt that someone was checking to see if the dogs were still on the property. The dogs were inside with me, heard the noise and went nuts barking. It isn't likely, though, that they could have heard them inside of the house, all the way down at the front gate.

I continued to pack on until just before daylight. I finally laid down for a bit on my mattress in the front room where it was warmest (I managed to get a bit of heat going from burning some old, worn out cardboard boxes) and the dogs all snuggled in around me to take a brief nap before I got back to packing. But just as I was about to drift off to sleep, yet was still fully awake, there was a "tap, tap, tap" at the window above my head! I sat up, looked out the window and they disappeared. I looked around and the dogs were all still soundly asleep all around me. They had not heard it. I had toyed with the idea of opening up the door and letting all of them out, but we were all just too tired to get up. If there is a next time, I be will sure and do just that, though.

Obviously, someone had been watching closely for my lockout date, didn't realize I had gotten a last minute extension, and the night of what they thought was my final day, they were swooping in to pilfer through the remainder of my belongings! Yep, the vultures were already moving in! They were just checking first to see if anyone might still be here. Good grief, what heartless, immoral idiots! How do people like this live with themselves?!?!!

So, that final day is almost here, I have much, much left to move that isn't going to make it out by that date, which is breaking my heart, and you see what is going to happen. I am supposed to be able to set something up with the realtor that will be handling the sale of this house, to come back in (by appointment) to get the rest of my stuff (supposedly - she has already lied to me on this issue), but the scum bag vultures (neighbors) are planning on swooping in and stealing what they want before I can finish moving it. Ugh!

Today, I will be doing a full video of the entire contents left in the house so that if anything is missing before I can get it out, I will have proof of what was left. What a nightmare this has been!

Thank you for stopping in and thank you for your continued support! Have a nice day!

(AF) What will happen to my belongings?

Oh, my, we have really gotten slack on our blog writing! As many of you know, we have been trying to work through all the hurdles to get my farm (Anna's) moved. We are in our last 3 days of moving and after we get settled in a bit, we hope to get back to keeping up with this blog on a much more regular basis. It will be much easier when we are finally on the same property.

For anyone that wants to catch up a little bit with what we have been up to with the moving, you can visit my Facebook page, here.
Over there, someone asked, "What will happen to your belongings that you can't get moved out before the deadline?" That is a good question!

I was told by several different entities involved that I could work something out with the realtor so that I could come back in (by appointment) to come get the rest of my belongings. I told them that nothing would be left, that the moment I pull out of here, the neighbors will break in and steal everything of value. I got anywhere from, "No they won't because we will lock it up tight." to "Oh, well." I don't believe any of it because I have already caught them in lies on the topic, and someone tried to break into my house a few days ago. What usually happens is it is all either trashed and/or auctioned off. No, not legal, but they do it and you are screwed.  But the following is what I expect will happen. Please be patient a moment while I give you a bit of background.

When I first moved to this property, I thought it was odd that one neighbor was constantly coming home with trailer loads filled with what looked like someone moving in . . . entire house contents. Everyone in the area constantly commented on how many people he was moving onto his property.  We never saw anyone move out. All we ever saw leave was trailer loads of scrap metal. Even more oddly, it was almost always in the middle of the night that the household content loads came in!

One day I also saw a Sheriff's car pull up to his house... not just a regular deputy, but a more official one. Then I got to noticing that this official came to the neighbor's house often in the mornings. Turns out, they are good friends and that sheriff department official was just taking his coffee breaks at the guy's house.


I also got to noticing strange smelling fires often came from that house, often after dark (burning is not allowed here after dark). I and the critters often got sick from being downwind of the fumes, especially the ones that smelled like paint or burning tires. Eventually, I finally put things together and figured out that the guy wasn't moving people in (as I was told), but bringing in entire household contents to burn off so he could sell the metal out of it. I also often wondered how he came home with so many entire house contents, sometimes several a week!

Time went on, this nasty routine continued, and I spent a lot of money on meds and a lot of sick days.  But one night, really late at night, his fire got way too out of hand, started burning over into my yard and I called the fire department. Funny thing . . . two of my friends at the time, drove one of the fire trucks and they were told to stay down at the road (these people have a very long driveway) and they would call them to come up if they were needed. My friends thought that was very odd because that hadn't happened before.

The fires temporarily stopped but eventually, they started back up, stinkier than ever! I called over and told them that if they didn't put the fire out, I would call the fire department again, along with the sheriff, because what they were doing was illegal and I was tired of getting sick. We went a few rounds of this and I finally told them that the next time I was calling the EPA instead. The fires stopped, for the most part, but the neighbor, needless to say, was furious with me! And THAT, is a small part of my being constantly harassed by that neighbor.  He wants me out of here so he can go back to his illegal burning and scrapping.

As I said, I often wondered how the guy got ahold of so many entire household contents. I think I finally have this figured out. Make note, this is just my thoughts and opinions from putting all the pieces together. This is not an accusation, but what I think is going on. I think that the neighbor - friends with someone high up in the Muskogee County Sheriff's department - is getting a tip every time a lockout is served on a foreclosure, a tip from someone in the Muskogee Sheriff Department. I think that as soon as that final lock out date arrives, this guy swoops in, loads it all up, unloads it in the secret dump yard behind his home, then burns it off to sell the scrap metal. I think an investigation needs to be opened up on this. Here is a brief video clip of the hidden junk yard, hidden deep in the woods.  (sorry, I can't get the video dragged down to this spot, for some reason)

So, to answer the question, I think that this secret junk yard is where the plan is for my belongings to end up. I also think that this is why 2 weeks of my moving time were robbed from me, the less time I have to move, the more of my belongings will be left behind. (The court records show that the order for the lockout was granted and sent over to the Sheriff's department on November 25th, yet it was held onto and not served me until December 10th). I will be watching to see if my belongings end up here. If so, I will jump on opening up an investigation.