Zero balance, no more checks to write. The farm is officially all ours now. We are giddy with excitement! I look at this picture and I'm instantly transported from this noisy, obnoxious rat-race of a city to a place where you hear nothing but cows and the wind in the corn.
One day...
So I suppose it's some kind of strange synchronicity that Mary Ann over at Calamity Acres posted about a story she had read over at This Old House Too about an old farmer in Vermont named Romaine Tenney.
I hadn't heard this story before and it touched me so much that I cried after I read it. This man who loved his community, his family, his old farmstead where he was born, his land - he loved it all so much that he died for it. I know the way I feel about our acreage and I'm sure it doesn't even come close to the depth of feeling that he had about his. If you have a moment, please read the story of Romaine Tenney and how he lost his life because of "progress".
Here in Kansas City, they have bulldozed 100+ year old houses to build freeways. The University of Missouri-Kansas City used eminent domain in the late 1990's to buy up entire neighborhoods for a research center that they never built (read about it here). In Merriam, Kansas, they forced a used car dealer out with eminent domain so that the BMW dealership could expand and increase the city's tax coffers. And they bulldozed 150 houses and farms to clear way for Nascar's new Kansas Speedway, a ruling that the Kansas Supreme Court upheld as "public purpose". (Source: here). Now is that a lawful use of eminent domain!? I think not.
God bless you, Romaine Tenney. The world needs more people like you in it. Having read your story, I will never forget it.
The story affected me the same way... I cried for the poor man, and for the farm that is gone now.
ReplyDeleteI just saw your last post... I'm going to the Food Expo again, but I did not know about Christine's compost thing, so I'm going to go read about it... Thanks for the info.
Oh gosh... and CONGRATS ON PAYING OFF THE FARM!!!
ReplyDeleteCongrats on having your farm free and clear!! I read the story of Mr. Tenney, it made me tear up. It has never seemed right to me that someone's home and land can be taken from them in the name of progress. Not right at all.
ReplyDeleteThanks to the Supreme Court's decision in Kelo vs. New London, "public purpose" is the new standard, rather than "public use" as had previously been the case. Add that decision to the erosion of civil liberties from the "War on (some) Drugs," Obamacare, and the current all-out assault from the fascists in DC on the 2nd Amendment, and it's hard to remember we once even had a Bill of Rights.
ReplyDeleteIt's gonna take a revolution to set things right, I fear.
Congratulations!!!! This is such an inspiration!
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, taking anything away from anyone who has worked for it and put their heart and soul into is absolutely disgusting...especially in the name of "progress"! Progress is just a perspective, it's not the ultimate truth.
Hello... you have a new blog reader here, will be watching for future stories!!!! sue
ReplyDeleteAwwww...man...I kept telling myself I would not cry. That was so sad, what happened to Mr. Tenney...it reminds me though of my deep love of old houses...how I feel about this one and how horrible it would be if I had lived and loved a place for so long and lost it. I was actually teaching Emily about eminent domain the other day. You know a law is ridiculous when a six-year-old thinks its crazy and wrong.
ReplyDeleteI just read the story about Romaine Tenney myself. Then I read the Fifth Amendment, which contains the "Eminent Domain" clause. All it says is that the government can't take your land for public use unless you get fair compensation. Period. No definition of why the government would have any reason or need to do this. Now, of course, "Eminent Domain" is totally abused and, of course, all in the name of money and greed. The story just about tore my heart out.
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