I started writing this post back in late July after I read a news account of a woman in Michigan who is facing fines and up to 93 days in jail for having the unmitigated audacity to grow a vegetable garden in her front yard, but I never got back to it until today. Well, if you haven't already heard the story, a woman in Michigan elected to grow a front yard vegetable garden and is now in trouble with the local municipality. The NERVE!! How dare she plant food to feed her family (& even supply her neighbors with the surplus) on her own property!! Imagine the gall of this woman, thinking that she has the right to grow vegetables without the permission of the local authorities. I mean, didn't our founding fathers fight a revolution with the British Empire and found this nation to ensure that such atrocities could not occur? She should be taken to the center of town and locked up in the stocks, or maybe burned as a witch. She is clearly a truly hardened criminal. If you're detecting my sarcasm, to paraphrase David Spade's character Richard from the classic comedy Tommy Boy, "I should hope so because I am laying it on pretty thick."
What is going on here?!?! Growing vegetables is a misdemeanor offense punishable by jailtime?!?!? Land of the free my buttocks! It sounds like the municipality received a complaint from a neighbor who didn't like having to look at a yard with vegetable instead of a manicured lawn. A single complaint! Now admittedly, I don't have all the facts, but on the surface, this sure looks like a clear case of government overreach. The photos of her garden that accompany the story show a very neat, well-kept garden. But this fact is really besides the point anyway. It's her property! If this single bitchy neighbor has a problem with her garden, then he/she should put up a stockade fence, or simply avert his eyes in a different direction. It's not like she has a rusty, hulking, truck chasis up on blocks... it's vegetables for God's sake!! I hope she doesn't back down... and she sure sounds like she is determined to fight this all the way. This is the kind of insanity that makes my hair turn white and raises my blood pressure when I read about it. Check out the story here:
Vegetable Garden Brings Criminal Charges in Oak Park, Michigan - ABC News
I am looking for an update to the story. I'll post it if I come across anything.
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