I know what careful observation looks like. I know what systematic documentation looks like and I know that before you take any action, you establish that your hypothesis is correct. My hypothesis, Gary Hutchins had been harvesting my fruit over the fence for years and the 47 peaches had been taken by Gary on the night of July 14th. I needed evidence. I bought a trail camera, the kind hunters use, that takes photos automatically when triggered by motion.
I mounted it on the back fence post at an angle that covered the peach tree and the fence line. It cost me $62. I considered it an investment. I also talked to my neighbor on the other side, a woman named Frances Odom, who is 81 years old, sharp as a tack, and has the particular observational powers of someone who has lived in a neighborhood long enough to notice everything. Frances has a kitchen window that looks directly over our shared fence into my yard from a slight elevation because her lot is graded higher than mine.
I knocked on Frances' door and I said, "Frances, can I ask you something?" She said, "Ask." I said, "Have you ever seen Gary Hutchins in my yard or near my fence line?" Frances said, "Not in your yard, over your fence, several times." I said, "Over my fence, how?"
She said, "He has one of those lightweight aluminum step ladders. He sets it up against his side of the fence, steps up, reaches over. He did it with your strawberries, he did it with your tomatoes, and I saw him do it twice with those peaches." She paused. She said, "I should have told you sooner.
I'm sorry, Ellen. I thought he must have some arrangement with you." I said, "There is no arrangement." She said, "I see." She said, "What are you going to do?"
I said, "I'm going to be very patient and very deliberate." She said, "Good. That's usually best." Three weeks after mounting the trail camera, I had photographs. Clear, timestamped photographs of Gary Hutchins on a step ladder leaning over my fence at 11:20 p.m. on a Tuesday night harvesting peaches from my tree with a grocery bag.
I sat at my kitchen table and looked at those photographs for a long time. Then I pulled up my browser and I typed hottest peppers in the world. The pepper plan. Carolina Reaper, developed by a breeder named Ed Currie in South Carolina, certified by Guinness World Records as the hottest pepper on Earth. Scoville heat units, approximately 2.2 million.
For context, a jalapeno runs between 2,000 and 8,000 Scoville units. A habanero, which most people consider seriously hot, tops out around 350,000. The Carolina Reaper is roughly six times hotter than a habanero. People who eat them on camera for entertainment generally spend the following 20 to 40 minutes in visible agony. They are red, deeply, richly, beautifully red when ripe.