Someone just stole all my

ORANGES (plus all my neighbors oranges). Boy am I p***ed. I go out to check them every morning to see if they are tree ripe. I don't pick them while they still have any green showing. Every orange within reach is gone. I didn't have too many, maybe enough for a half gallon of juice, but my neighbor's tree was loaded with honeybells - bushels of them. Grrrrrr! Sometimes I hate people. A neighbor told me that the previous weekend some other trees in the neighborhood were stripped. This is way, way too many oranges for someone to eat or juice. They must be selling them at fruit markets.

Can't do a damn thing about it either. Even my dog didn't hear them - which is really a shock. I did report it, but a pickup truck load of oranges is small on the scale of priorities.

End of rant. Thanks for listening.

My grandmother had a pear tree that used to break limbs with fruit in a wet summer. I never understood why people stole them because my granny would've given them if asked.

that really sucks. And it is pretty much winter too.

Hopefully, more will grow back before it is too late.

oranges only bear fruit once a year. In another week or so they would have been at peak, extremely sweet and juicy. You just cannot get them that sweet unless they are allowed to ripen on the tree. If you've never tasted a fresh one, you've never tasted one.

Next year I think I'm going to tie noisemakers to the tree. If anyone sets them off I'll have my six-shooter loaded with "blanks" to scare the pants off them.

I was living in a little town outside of Chicago in the 60s.
One street was lined with very old, magnificent walnut trees.
One morning residents arose to find 4 or 5 trees just...GONE.
Walnut lumber was (is?) rare and very expensive.

The cops eventually caught the timber rustlers. They were using chainsaws with something like double motorcycle mufflers. Gotta give 'em credit for ingenuity, I guess.
Sorry about your fruit.

Yes, walnut is expensive still, and still very rare.

In my old house, I gave my neighbors fruit by the bucket. I just moved here in March and my trees had not been taken care of so they did not have much fruit. I've spent the entire year fertilizing, spraying, pruning, etc., to make them healthy. Ugghh. I don't want to think about the work I did, just so someone could steal my oranges.

...you just want to paint a grenade orange and hang it in the tree with the other oranges.

I hear you. I can handle the big screwings in life (e.g., the promotion of the lazy but politically savy co-worker over me), but it's the little, stupid things - like when my car window was shattered for the $2.25 in change I left on the dashboard - that really burn me up.

Why do people do this kind of crap?

motion detector--squirts 'em with water. The one at this page is pricey but shop around--I've seen them for half the price listed here:

http://www.biconet.com/critter/sprinkler.html


Cher

detector. I'd get that sprayer soaker thing, but you know darn well either I or my husband or neighbor would get zapped by it. I'm thinking of a motion detector with lights and a buzzer.

My parents have a tangerine tree in their back yard. The only theives are the birds, squirrels and other wildlife. That tree bears more fruit than her, my dad and their friends (and me) can eat.

Some people just need to be shot. <And I'm a non-violent person most times...>

I would be heart-broken if my satsumas were stolen.

Drove out a while ago and found two kids taking tangerines from my next door neighbors tree. I doubt they took all the oranges because they would have needed a pickup truck.

Anyway, when we saw the kids, they ran and hid in bushes. If they hadn't hidden I would have asked them if they had permission, and let it go, but since they hid (and all the oranges were stolen), we read them the riot act. They argued a bit so I told them to go home and stop picking the fruit or I'd call the cops on them. About 8 and 10 years old. Well, their Mother with the kids (they don't live here -its an over 55 community), stopped and gave me heck for giving the kids heck. She told me there was no harm in taking them because some were falling on the ground and rotting, like that makes it okay. Said something about who was god going to reward, the kids who took some oranges, or some "other" meaning me, I guess. Spoke to another neighbor about it. The people who kids and mother visit live across the street down 2 houses. Said they are RELIGIOUS NUTS!!! Whatever happened to "Thou shall not steal" I wonder.

I never allowed my kids to come home with another kid's toy. They were made to take anything that didn't belong to them back immediately. They couldn't even wait to do it in the morning. Now I have some religious fundy telling me it's okay for the kids to steal oranges!! I KNOW they voted for *. I just know it. It's the mentality.

I lived in a mixed community before here with lots of kids. No one ever stole anything from me there. I gave away tons on fruit to all my neighbors. I'm a bit enraged today.