Posted on 10/18/2019 12:26:51 PM PDT by Red Badger
HARTLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. -- It's a place where thousands of families go every year to celebrate fall. Now, Spicer Orchards northwest of Detroit, Michigan is dealing with a crime like no other in its more than 50-year history. Someone stole more than 22,000 apples off acres of trees under the cover of darkness.
After running the orchard for more than 50 years, the Spicer family has learned that you only pick apples when they are perfectly ripe. As harvest time nears, they check the apples every few days.
On Sunday, October 6, the apples in the farm’s supplemental orchard on Silver Lake Road in Linden were not quite yet ripe. Then, on Wednesday, October 9, they checked again.
“There was nothing there,” said Ryan Spicer, the grandson of Alan Spicer, the farm’s founder.
“We were predicting about 7,000 pounds of apples to be harvested over the next week period,” said Matthew Spicer, the son of the farm’s founder.
Ryan Spicer says his grandpa called the Genesee County Sheriff’s Office. They are investigating who took an estimated 22,000 apples worth as much as $14,400.
Since neighbors didn’t see anything, they believe someone harvested the crop in the middle of the night.
“It would have had to be three or four trucks,” said Matthew.
“At least a crew of nine,” added Ryan.
“It would have to be somebody who would not have to distinguish between ripe and not ripe apples. Because they took them both,” said Matthew.
They know they were not eaten by deer, as there are no apples knocked on the ground. The orchard was methodically cleaned out by hand.
Spicer Orchards, which was founded in 1968, has never experienced a theft like this, but it is not the only farm recently targeted. Someone stole about 400 pumpkins from MacCallum’s Orchard in St Clair County’s Grant Township. Plus someone stole about 50,000 apples from Williams Orchard in Indiana last month.
Investigators are not sure there is any link.
“Think about how much time and effort that farmer puts into his crop, and when he doesn’t have a crop, how many times does that have to happen then he cant do what he does,” said Ryan.
“It takes us all year to grow apples and every single one of them is very important to us,” said Matthew.
Spicer Orchards has installed trail cameras in its orchards to try to deter more thefts.
This story was originally published by Kim Russell at WXYZ.
:: Bama, or any canning company ::
Not sure but, ! Roll Tide!
Check the local imported farm labor
Pie, pie for now !
Leni
Bama is a southern canning company!........
Someone stole a bunch of pumpkins up there not long ago.
Legally..........With over 620,000 licensed hunters, it's unrealistic to expect all of them to follow the law..........LOL!
People sell fruit on the side of the road all the time. Heck, here in Florida they sell fishing poles and crafts from the back of trucks.
Could be but usually a cidery wants a specific type of cider apple.
He doesn't know what he's talking about and it's obvious he didn't pursue the story other than what was posted...........
The theft occurred over a 4 day period when it was not being monitored and all the apples were ripe enough for harvesting..........
Uncle Ted is HOT! on this one.
Bait encourages prion exchange but, you can construct a “false scrape” to attract them.
Both bait and scrapes encourage saliva exchange; one is illegal the other isn’t.
Were there actually 620,000 (+/-) licenses sold this year? Odds of success have changed and what of private property baiting? Or, will the Sheriff of Nottingham (CO) say, “These are the King’s deer.”?
It’s be a shame if the rival farm’s nice barn went up in smoke
Stick to something you might actually know something about such as palmetto bugs and iguana infestations in Florida...........Sheesh!
I put up deer cams.
Turned out the thieves stripping my fruit trees were little old ladies, with the help of their meth-head offspring.
They were running a jam-cannery down at the senior citizens’ home & selling the products at the church bazaar.
Which was what I had intended to do.
That’s why the thieves took both
LOL!
He was the town drunk and was always involved in fights and his ex-wife and daughter left him and refused any contact with him.
I don't know what he did for a living in that area since there was no industry, maybe odd jobs. But he was a notorious poacher of deer. To his credit tho, those deer were never sold but put food on his table.
I have a mounted set of spike horns that he gave to my dad that have a bullet hole right in the middle of them. Obviously it was shot while Uncle Al was shining one night.............LOL!
My fondest memories of Uncle Al was when my dad and I would stop by his house either on the way to northern Michigan or heading back to Detroit. He would always have something cool waiting for me to see. Either a birds nest in his refrigerator or a live giant snapping turtle stored in an oil barrel waiting for Uncle Al to butcher it.
Uncle Al was found dead in the snow bank next to his mail box with a bottle of liquor in his hand...........
:: found dead in the snow bank next to his mail box with a bottle of liquor in his hand ::
We all have aspirations before our expiration.
RIP, Uncle Al. One cool dude.
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