From the damp wine cellar I climbed, with the last dusty box of pay cards. There must have been thousands of them. The previous manager did not always pay on time, or ever.

Each card had a strange name. Rajabu, Goodness, Lemeck, a thumbprint and a week's worth of unpaid wages. The pay rate was such a pittance, and yet he could not pay them? They would work hard all week, then go home with no money, for even food, on payday.

I figured that to begin an honest and genuine relationship with the workers, to show our good intent, we should be paying them these long overdue wages. Now that we were in charge of paying the workers, I told them that we would add a few old cards to their current pay. They appreciated that.

We had no idea who the people were who were enmeshed in the farm operation, but one character seemed to pop up everywhere. Joseph.

Joseph was a thug. He ran a mattress store by the market and was known to make friends with local businesses, then take them to court for whatever reason, when the relationship eventually soured. The previous manager did not get that memo I guess because half of the ostriches and all our cows and goats were under his care.

I was suspicious ever since he came to ask to use our grinding machine at night for his corn. Early days, before we got the story about him, so we agreed. The next morning I went into the kitchen to make coffee, no coffee pot. Turn on the radio, gone. When I saw the freezer left open and ostrich meat missing, I knew it was him.

The previous day, I had put down dirt beneath the windows to plant herbs. Now, in that spot was a perfect foot print and a few kernels of corn. I put a bucket over it and we called the police for the very first time. There would be many other calls.

They came, with Joseph, and saw the evidence that obviously someone had climbed into the window, losing a few kernels, perhaps falling from rolled pants. The police explained that there was not enough evidence, even with the matching shoe of Joseph's little henchman.

At that moment I knew that the police were on his side.

The next day, I walked to our barn that Joseph occupied for some reason and I began to separate our cows and sheep from his herd. I had a young boy and cord. We would check each animal. If it had our markings, I would cut a piece of cord and the boy would bring the animal to our paddock.

The police then arrived, saying that I was waving a machete around to steal the animals from Joseph.

A police report confirmed this. Now we knew this guy was trouble, and he still had about fifteen hundred of our ostriches at his own farm.