It was from the county. Code Enforcement Division. There was a seal at the top and a case number and a lot of words that all meant the same thing.
A complaint has been received regarding the property at 1147 Ridge Road. An inspection will be conducted on Thursday, August 14. Please be advised that unmaintained agricultural use in a residential zone may constitute a public nuisance under County Ordinance 14-207.
I read it twice. Then I looked out the kitchen window.
Out past the back porch, past the clothesline, past the old red shed, was my father’s garden.
Half an acre. Nine rows of green beans, climbing up strings he tied by hand every May. Three hundred tomato plants, staked and caged, heavy with fruit. Potatoes. Squash. Onions. Beets. Carrots. Cucumbers sprawling over a wire fence. Two long rows of sweet corn, taller than me, rustling in the morning wind. A patch of strawberries along the edge that my mother planted thirty years ago.
