-Foraging Around, Lancaster Fanning, Saturday, July 13,2002
186
Growing Hay Is Now Against The Law?
(Continued from Page 1)
and internal adversaries.
Last week an appeals court
of the United States of Ameri
ca has found that our pledge
of allegiance is offensive and
unconstitutional. Fortunately
and reassuringly, there is a
groundswell of incredulous
disbelief that this occurred
and a national sense that the
ruling will not be allowed to
stand.
Environmental law is being
used as a vehicle to comman
deer private property without
just compensation. The exam
ples are numerous, the farmer
who lost his farm because of
some endangered field rat, or
the farming community that
lost their crops for a number
of seasons because they could
not irrigate due to the poten
tial damage to a fish habitat.
Soon even your pickup truck
may be a thing of the past,
thanks to environmental con
cerns. The list could continue
for pages.
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Here in Pennsylvania we
often see these infringements
as a faraway problem. Most
times it is some one else’s
headache. Not any more.
On July 1, Lynn Township,
Lehigh County, informed me
and my family, by letter, that
a 12-acre field of timothy that
has not yet been mowed for
hay violates township ordi
nances. The body of the letter
follows:
Dear Ms. Pergosky,
It has been brought to our
attention that you are in vi
olation of Township Ordi
nance # 86-2, Otherwise
known as the “weed control
ordinance of the Township
of Lynn”. This ordinance re
quires that the property
owners do not allow vegeta
tion to exceed a height of
12” and must mow by June
Ist and August 15th annual
ly*
Failure to mow this vege
tation, weeds and grass,
could result in fines and
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tecifications
penalties being levied by
Lynn Township.
Please attend to this mat
ter and have your property
mowed within IS days of re
ceipt of this notice to avoid
prosecution.
Sincerely, (signed by ad
ministrator.)
This letter sent a cold chill
through my body on one of
the hottest days of the year.
If this field of timothy hay
violates the ordinance, so does
each and every other field that
I harvest for hay. So does the
growing of com, wheat, oats,
soybeans, and virtually all
other crops.
Does this ordinance put me
out of business?
What about my neighbors ibe benefit other agendas,
are they too in violation of inhibit our display of a
this ordinance? Locally we are belief in God on whose prind
a large agricultural commu- pies this nation was founded,
nity. Our nonfarm neighbors All this is disguised as protec
have joined up in a loud and tion of a vaguely defined, or
self rightous cry for farmland unidentified, potentially in
preservation. However, absent jured, third party, in need of
from their refrain are con- protection from good, hard-
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cents about farmer preserva
tion.
I have written the township
asking them to clarify their
position, hoping that I have
misread their notice of viola
tion. To be fair, they haven’t
had time yet to respond, but I
think the notice is clear.
Our various bodies of gov
ernment have grown into a
position which allows them to
tell us when to mow our grass,
take our property rights for
manUdu
working, and honest individu
als.
I grew up believing that the
United States of America was
the best place in the world in
which to live. I still believe
that. With freedom comes a
responsibility to protect the
rights and freedoms guaran
teed to us by our venerable
constitution. Many have given
the ultimate sacrifice of their
lives, protecting freedoms we
as a nation have been enjoying
for the past 226 years. We
need not rise up in arms but in
voice to decry the injustices to
ourselves and our neighbors.
This is what I believe is meant
when we used to be able to
say: ONE NATION UNDER
GOD, INDIVISIBLE, WITH
LIBERTY AND JUSTICE
FOR ALL.
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