In a "Past Life" I had 12 horses and and various other animals. I had a home in the middle of a large tract of pasture with a large barn and various other buildings. This was enclosed with a study fence with a front and rear gate. Both gates opened on a travel road.
I had a large printed signs at each gate "PLEASE CLOSE GATE-HORSES IN FIELD".
Vistors would open the gate, drive in and keep going to the house leaving the gate open.
While rounding up the escaped animals, the visitor (s) would state, "Gee, I am sorry, I forgot".The same visitor (s) would do this over and over each visit. I finally started locking the gates.
I decided that some people have a mental block on closing gates/doors.

I feel your pain. People will throw trash out their car window in your pasture. They will run over your irrigation pipe. They will spin their tires and rut-up your field roads. These same folks would (pass) a brick if you threw a hamburger wrapper on their lawn, or drove across their lawn and created ruts. In short, most people do not know how to respect private property.

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Georgia On My Mind

I had that same problem with a friend who likes to fish in our pond. He knew I kept the gate closed so my dogs (when they were still here) could not get to the highway. Nice guy - wouldn't do it deliberately, I'm sure, but I guess since they were not his dogs, he just couldn't keep it to mind to be bothered.

I had a friend that would come into my home and leave the front door open. One day I asked him "were you born in a barn?" He replied in his thick southern accent, "yep, my daddy built it on a hill, the door closed by itself."

Happens in the burbs also. We have 1/2 acre in suburban Philly and keep our gate closed so our dog can have the run of the place. UPS guy left the gate open (in spite of the sign on your way out that says "PLEASE CLOSE GATE") and the dog ran out in the street and got hit by an SUV - good news - the dog lived - bad news - $1500 vet bill.

As an ex. horse owner I feel your pain and hope none of yours got injured while on their trip to the other side of the fence...

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Jorge

It's a misdemeanor to not close gates here.

People just don't understand the potential for property loss or traffic accidents.

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This...is my BOOMSTICK

Jimmy,

Our gates have one simple warnin...


Peligro
(Fuego Vivo Delante)

Danger
(Live Fire Ahead)


Su Amigo,
Dave

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"IN GOD WE TRUST"

Unfortunately I don't believe the mental block stops there.If common sense and respect for others and their property were money I think most of the country would be bankrupt.A leading reason for "NO TRESPASSING"and "POSTED"signs.Cynical?Maybe but sadly true I believe.

Sounds like you need a bumper gate, Jimmy.

Somewhere in my upbringing I was taught to leave farm and ranch gates as I found them after passage through. The reasoning being that the farmer/rancher probably wanted them open/closed for a reason.

I've generally carried this reasoning over to gates at smaller properties and also to doors.

Does this sound fair to y'all?

On a place with 45,000 acres, there's a lot of gates. Typical response from gate violators is.. "Oh, gee, I didn't realize anybody owned this land"

Years back I and another guard were manning a guard station where people came in one door and out the other. A guy walked through and didnt close the door, it was cold wet and windy. My buddy told him, close the door! Ya born in a barn? The old gruff called back, "Yeah I was! And every time I see a *** like you I get homesick!"

Same way here, and I'm not much of a farm boy. i spent a lot of time hunting when I lived in Eastern Washington, and learned to be respectful of the land owners. Closing the gate, or asking if it should be closed if it's found open is just being polite.

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Even older, even crankier....

Went hunting and fishing with my dad, and he carefully closed every gate we went through that was closed when we got there. He didn't say anything, but he gave me the "this is important to remember" look every time. I still remember it, and dad's been gone since '99.

ECS

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CPT, Armor (Ret)
Luke 22:36

I lead jeep ride every year. We travel across BLM land that has been fenced and is used for cattle. Out in the desert, closing a gate that needs to be left open might meant he cattle can't get to water. Opening a gate and leaving it that way might mean the cattle are spread all over the place. Might take days or weeks to get them back.

We've been doing this for a long time now, decades. The recent problem is eco-freaks, aka Greenies, purposefully change the position of the gates. They don't like it that a cattleman can use the land by paying rent per cattle unit. They don't even like cattle (they're veggies.) Worse, we're not allowed to shoot the mountain bikers that do the damage. Basically what they've done is inject their own political feelings into vandalism.

Because I don't live there, I don't get the chance to meet the cattlemen. But a friend who dose live there talks to them from time to time (sometimes the holder of the lease changes). So now we do know that one of 5 gates needs to always be closed.

We had a minor confrontation about 5 years ago. We got to that last gate and it was open. I was the tailgunner that day, so I got out and closed it. About a mile ahead we came to the intersection (Dead Horse Point Road) and there were a couple of hostile bikers. They demanded to know why we'd closed the gate. They'd opened it and left it that way on purpose. So one of our group tried to be kind of polite and told the guy "we closed it to keep the cattle in". The biker then said he'd left it open so his friends who were following wouldn't have to go to the trouble. Besides, he didn't see any cattle. Then I recalled seeing a few bikers about 5 miles back, having a rest off to one side.

To them, leaving a gate open was no big thing. So we can easily guess they're city folks. They come to the desert to play. At least they don't litter. And we're not allowed to shoot them.

Normally a meeting where someone starts to become confrontational can get tense fast. Your're 10 or 15 miles from any kind of habitation or store of any kind. The greenies don't mind getting in your face. That's bad form with a line of 30 jeeps. Nearly everyone would like to get out and have an old fashioned tussle. Worse for them, its not a line of jeeps, its an armed convoy. I don't know for a fact that every jeep has a gun inside, I only know about mine and my friends, but then I'm pretty sure some have more than one gun, and lots of tire irons.

If the bikers were armed, I have no idea where they'd hide it. Them trick pants made out of silk hides nothing (I know, its spandex.)

So were kind of at a stand off. Jeepers hate bikers and bikers hate jeepers. Hikers hate us all. And the land owners hate most of us, just for good measure. The land users, like the cattlemen have a huge investment in both time and money, so they don't like anyone who messes with their cattle or gates.

Leave the gate how you found it.

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Dick Burg

My neighbors didn't bother with the gate - they climbed my fence to fish in my pond without permission. They were adult-sized but obviously with no mental or moral development.

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VIVERE MILITARE EST

Jeeze-this is one of the original man rules-I thought everyone knew this.

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Forum consigliere

My Grandpa used to take me fishin' on other people's property when I was a kid.

I'm a city boy & know that "If it's open, leave it open. If it's closed, make dog gam sure ya close it behind ya."

Oh... and always offer the property owner some feesh!

Which raise's the toilet seat dilemma for those married folks.

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Still Running Against the Wind

Nope, two bathrooms. Besides, real men take a leak outdoors when they can. Her bathroom the seat remains down. The guest bathroom, aka Grandpa's, it stays up! Anyone who doesn't like it is welcome to use Grandma's. One of my DILs has stated its rude to leave the seat up. Oh well, I've been called worse.

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Dick Burg

Don't know if you noticed or not but this country is bankrupt...financially and other ways too.

As far as the gates go, if it's open leave it. If it's closed, close it back.

Hey, toilet seats belong UP! An optional position is down, but that is strictly optional.

(Now I do feel a twinge of sympathy for my sister who, one dark and stormy night, apparently fell in, but I figure it is all to the best as the experience has made her a cautious person, and prudence is a virtue, man or woman..)

One winter on the farm next to us the corn had been picked and a city boy with a 4 wheel drive wanted some fun so he started cutting circles and got stuck. He called a local wrecker and the wrecker man called the farmer and the farmer called the law. The city boy said he didn't think anybody owned the land so he didn't think anybody would care. He ended up paying to have the field repaired. I guess he thought that since there were not 4 houses to the acre it was public land. Larry

Yeah,sadly I have noticed.Financially and otherwise.They tend to go hand in hand.

Back in high school I was squirrel hunting on my neighbors farm (private, fenced land) and noticed someone on the opposite side of a small valley from me. Next thing you know there are BBs whistling through the tree above me.

Brought my Remington 1100 up and put 5 rounds as fast as I could pull the trigger back across the valley (way high of course) - man you should have seen that dude run!

My dad used to like to pheasant hunt. He had a method to gain permission from the farmers that had worked for him for a long time. We'd just take a weekend well before hunting season started and drive up. Stopped at all the farms and asked permission, politely. We always got it. After asking for 30 or so years, they knew him and he knew them. Then of course we'd always drop off a rabbit or two at the farm house. That helped.

When I got old enough to go along, he's always make sure it was OK. First few years I was the dog, no gun, just out trying to point them. By the time I got old enough in his opinion, then I was allowed to take a gun. That amused his farmers.

Sometimes the farmer got tired of workin' and decided he'd come along. That was fine. They even opened up some additional fields of his neighbors. We did it for fun, but nearly walked our legs off.

One year we were hunting a stubble field. We'd seen other hunters and they didn't have permission. And sure enough, we got peppered. The landowner was with us and he got downright nasty with them. Something about his land, his daddy's land, and his grandfather before that. And he wasn't gonna be run off by some city folks. Dad wasn't takin' part, but I was thinkin' this would end up with a shootin'. It didn't, the trespassers hauled out. Kind of ruined the day.

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Dick Burg

The gate people are the same folk that come to your house and cannot walk past a light switch without turning it on...then walk into the next room never to return.

Cattle guards would do the job - Biden didn't understand them - when he heard that they had to cut govt. employees and there were thousands of cattle guards in the SW, he demanded they need a retraining program before any cuts were made.

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TOMBECK

I leave things the way I found them,except sometimes I pick up other people's trash.

Where I live there are a lot of renters and their offspring. They have no clue or respect for private property. My fence means nothing unless the dogs are out. Then they gripe about my dogs. ON MY PROPERTY.

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Dum vivo cano

Dogs are one thing, but I have a very curious mule. If you trespass, you are likely to have some hot breath on the back of your neck. The only person he has hurt in 20 years is me, a broken ankle and 2 broken ribs. But I rarely have repeat unwelcome visitors in the horse pasture.

Is the mule for rent?

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Dum vivo cano

Just like the tractor, he comes with the operator.

Some say the mule is smarter.......

On our hunting property we have some thru-traffic to a neighboring hunting ranch. Those hunters are always leaving the gates open. I now carry a heavy chain and lock with me - if I find a gate open that is supposed to remain closed, I padlock it closed. That has really made some of them mad. We keep telling them that gates that are open, are open for a reason, and closed for a reason. It just doesn't sink in. City folks. What's so hard about "leave a gate exactly as you found it?'

"Self government won't work without self discipline" - Paul Harvey

A good many of our young people have not been taught discipline in the past couple of generations. They want what they want and they want it now. A closed gate is just an incoveniance and when left open, momma and daddy will handle the consequences.

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- Change it back -

This is the reason why hunters are no longer allowed on my uncles ranch. They would never close the gates.