I had a :eek: moment yesterday.
Saturday, I took several loads of junk to the dump. A lot of it was scrap metal, and as soon as I got it in the dumpster, an couple of old guys pulled just about everything out and loaded it in their truck. Fine, I don’t care that trash pickers are claiming this stuff for their own. I’ll save them some time, and they can load up all of the crap straight from my derelict barns.
They saw what I had, and their eyes got very big. They agreed to haul it all off, tearing the buildings down in the process to get the tin roofing. Cool, I thought, because that saves me a lot of work that I wasn’t sure how to do without earthmoving equipment.
So, yesterday they got one barn down and stripped. While they were at it, Reggie the farmer who rents a good barn from me, stops by to tell my wife that the guys doing the work were bad news, and have records for drug dealing and burglary. :eek: :eek: :eek: Holy shit.
OK, I says, I know how to handle this. The sheriff is a member of my fire department, and we had a meeting last night. I cornered him, and asked for a biiiig favor. The trash pickers are welcome to the metals, and they’re doing valuable work for me by tearing down the two barns. However, if he or a deputy could just happen to stop by when they’re there working, and just mention to them that if anything comes up missing from this place, he’s going to look for them first, that I’d be forever grateful. He said sure.
The sheriff knew who I was talking about, and reassured me that they’ve all got records and have done time for dealing, but that none have been implicated in any burglaries or theft, and he’s the one to know about that. Kewl, sort of. I locked up my mowers and bicycle anyway…
Bibs, I get my formal training in January, when the county wide fire association runs a school for all of the departments. I’ll have NFPA Firefighter I certification as an outcome. Until then, I get paired with an old hand who’ll give me OJT.