You might have heard the one about the thief stealing wheelbarrows, but have you ever heard of the thief who stole the gate?
What about the one who returned it a week later?
That’s exactly what happened at Muddy Valley Farm, a small hobby farm located near Victoria, when a heavy tubular steel gate was swiped from the entrance.
Jodi Harding, one of the farm’s owners, wrote in a blog post that the theft occurred on January 17th.
“All that was left behind was the plastic netting (carefully folded and set aside) that had been zip tied along its base to keep chickens and ducks from wandering onto the busy road, and a couple broken chain links,” Harding wrote.
The theft was reported to police and carried in local media, while the farmers scavenged a new gate from elsewhere on the property.
New locks, chains, and a dead truck battery during a trip to ask around about the stolen gate added up to considerable expenses, Harding says.
The story had a happy, if surreal, ending however, when she went out to the field early Saturday morning and discovered the gate had been returned.
“The rust spots were just where they were supposed to be, but the metal cash box (which we hadn’t used for years since we stopped selling manure) was missing,” Harding wrote. “I didn’t care, our prodigal gate was home!”
She says police told her at the time of the report that they have never heard of an incident like this before.
Despite the expenses the farm incurred during the week-long absence of the missing gate, Harding says she sees the incident as a redemption story.
“Unknown persons came to our farm, did a bad deed, saw how it affected us, regretted their actions, and then righted their wrong; redeeming themselves in our eyes and, I believe, in the eyes of the universe too,” she wrote.
“I don’t know who took our gate, and I likely never will, and it doesn’t matter.”
