Usually, your gut instinct is right, so when someone steals from you, you might have a sense of who did it.

So, what would you do if someone stole your hard-earned hay, and you had a pretty good idea who it was?

Would you call the police and report them?

Or would you confront them directly?

In today’s story, a farmer finds himself in this very situation.

Here’s how it all played out.

Payday for Hayday

My father was kind of a part-time farmer, meaning he came home from his 9-5 job and went on working the land we owned…

but as he got older, he got rid of the livestock (sheep) and just made hay in the summer (we have a few meadows, they need to be tended) and sells it… (he’s now in his mid-seventies, still going)

He is also a hunter.

Where I live, we have very strict weapon control, so if you want to hunt, you have to work hard for it and prove that you are a responsible person who can be trusted with a weapon and will not do harm to the animal.

(meaning killing the prey with the first shot in the right place so that it wouldn’t suffer).

About 20 years ago, it was time for haymaking.

He was out all week turning the hay, driving from one meadow to the others, and finally, the day came to press the hay into bales.

He got them all in our barn, but for one meadow, he left the bales there overnight to collect them the next day.

When he woke up in the morning, his hay was gone.

He’d done that for a lot of years and never had anything happen.

This year was different.

When he got to the meadow the next day, the bales were gone.

He was mad… the monetary loss was assessable, but all the work he put in bugged him.

He thought about who could have done it.

For all the bales, the thief must have had a trailer for a tractor, and he could not have driven too far.

My father thought about it, and the only person he could think of who was stealing the hay was Joe.

Joe was a nice guy, but you had to be careful around him.

He did odd jobs for cash (solid work, good quality), but he was also known for minor criminal activities like thefts (often from farmers and hunters), small scams, and poaching.

He preferred the fast money before hard work.

Joe wasn’t there, but some puppies greeted him.

So my dad drove to Joe’s property a little outside the town and got out of the car.

Joe was nowhere to be found, but a litter of about 8-week-old Weimaraner puppies ran towards my father.

Weimaraners are a hunting dog breed, and Joe had 2 female Weimaraners who he would breed.

Of course, he didn’t have papers for them, and no sane dog breeder club would have taken Joe because he wouldn’t care about all the regulations and the costs.

For those who don’t know the breed, Weimaraners are top hunting dogs.

They are very pretty but very expensive, so even without papers, they would make good money with the litter.

Joe took care of them and got them to the vet when needed, but if you wanted to have a dog with a family tree, this backyard breeder was not the person.

The dad decided he wanted a puppy for payment.

He was also very strict; for him, they were tools and not family members.

So my Dad took a good look at the puppies and picked one up when Joe got there.

My father looked at him and told him, “I like this dog. I’m taking her. What do you want for it?”

Joe smiled and told him the price.

My father put the dog on the passenger seat, turned to Joe, and said: “You can deduct the dog from my hay, or we can call the police.”

Joe went pale and said, “Oh, that was your hay?”

My Father had been dead right with his gut feeling about who the culprit was.

He said nothing more, got into the car and drove off.

The dog was more worth than the hay, but Joe never asked for the rest of the money.

He was just happy my dad didn’t call the police.

They later found out why Joe was so complicit.

What we didn’t know at that time was that Joe was out on probation and would have gone back to prison for this.

But we know that if Joe knew that the hay was my father’s, he would have never touched it.

My father was one of a few who always treated him fairly and respectfully, as he did with everyone.

The hay incident was never mentioned again between them, and even after that, my father kept his relationship with Joe (but never left him alone on our property; he knew how to handle Joe)

That’s how we got a new dog. who we had her for 16 years (for a Weimaraner, a biblical age)

It was really lucky that he found out who had stolen the hay.

Let’s see what the folks over at Reddit had to say about this situation.

The father does seem like a great person.

Seems like this person would’ve taken a puppy as payment, too.

This person also owned a Weimaraner.

Dogs can be very expensive, especially purebreds.

What a perfect way to settle things!

The farmer got to recover his losses, and the dog found a loving home, so it’s definitely a win-win situation!

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.