“Theft of our Christmas tree last night…a real massacre! The thieves took the time to cut down the tree and freshen it up by cutting off the top and the lowest crown of branches. It should not have fit into their vehicle given its size. Such an act will not bring luck to the perpetrators.” plague Elisabeth Delande on social networks.
“I discovered it on Sunday November 24 by going to this orchard take care of my animals” where the stolen tree was planted, probably during the night, remembers Patrick Delande. Passionate abouttreesthis Songeonnais native can only deplore this act ofincivility punishable by law. “A real massacre!” he castigates. “I am passionate about trees and animals. We have around forty collection trees, they attract birds. If I cut one down, I replant another one immediately behind it.”
“Following the storm of October 2022, I lost large trees including one cypress which I agreed to have cut by a pruner because it threatened to collapse at the neighbor’s house. I then cleaned everything so I could replant some.”
A tree over 20 years old
Being against the cutting of trees for Christmasthe father of the family used to buy a fir tree with roots for the Christmas holidays when his children were little. He kept it in a container to use it again the following Christmases before planting it in his garden. A ritual that he repeated for 4 to 5 years in a row before planting the tree and buying a new tree.
So much so that in all, he only bought 3 fir trees for the Christmas parties. “The one that was stolen was over 20 years old and 5 meters tall. It takes time for it to grow! I have another one about ten years old which is about 2.50 meters high.“
Flight out of sight
Located in its orchard on the side of the road, without fence, at the entrance to the town of Let’s think side Ernemont-Boutaventthe Songeonnais intended to decorate it given its height for the pleasure of passers-by. An estate isolated from any neighborhood, without video surveillance camera, separated from their home by a hedge of tuyas and another orchard, the criminals only had to cross a 3 meter embankment to reach the foot of the tree and commit their offense in complete tranquility.
One thing is certain, to commit their “crime“, they had a hard time to see”the traces left” at the base of trunktestifies the owner according to which “they visibly had difficulty cutting the trunk of 15-20 centimeters in diameter, probably with a saw in hand, to do it several times because we see that they took the time to try to cut a first crown that they ended up leaving behind. They even cut off the top of the meter-high tree” abandoned on the ground, along with branches, as a…thank you?
“It’s annoying but there are much worse than that” puts Patrick Delande into perspective. “We reported it to the Songeons police. They have enough to do and no time to waste on this kind of little problem. To file a complaint, you had to go to the Marseille-en-Beauvaisis gendarmerie with photos.” testifies the couple, who abandoned the idea of filing a complaint: “It’s no use.“
A “scourge”
An incivility which does not surprise the owner, aware of not being an isolated case, even in his commune where flowering efforts regularly suffer damagejust like individuals who see their window boxes vandalized.
Owner in his youth of a drink on which were planted a hundredspruces : “Every year, I found severed heads at the time of Christmas parties. Those who grow them to cut them for sale must wait at least 10 years before they reach a size suitable for sale.“
Like a presentiment: “I was considering putting auto-trigger cameras“, having suffered, 2 or 3 years previously, the same type of misdeed in the same place on his property: “yuccas pulled out“.
“It’s a lack of education. When we were little, our teacher gave us moral lessons about the people who cut the tops off the fir trees.” recalls Patrick Delande with a bit of nostalgia.
