stood near the tree line.
A banner hung between two utility poles.
CEDAR RIDGE HARVEST WEEKEND.
Beneath it were smaller words promising a corn maze, hayrides, cider tasting, pumpkin decorating, live music, and a “VIP sunset experience.”
I didn’t recognize the event.
I definitely recognized the land.
My name is Jack Mercer.
I was forty-two years old, and Mercer Farm had been in my family for eighty-seven years.
Six hundred and twelve acres outside Millbrook, Missouri.
Corn on the north fields.Maize farming guide
Soybeans along the creek bottom.
Cattle pastures west of the house.
A machine barn built by my father.
A white farmhouse my grandfather had enlarged one room at a time whenever the family could afford lumber.
Nothing fancy.
Nothing decorative.
Nothing that looked like the kind of place where women wearing designer boots should be directing strangers to valet parking.
But that Thursday afternoon, my farm looked like someone
had rented it for a corporate festival.
I had been gone nine days.
My mother had undergone knee replacement surgery in Kansas City, and I had stayed with her through the first week of recovery.
My hired hand, Tyler Grant, had been working the soybean fields on the western side of the property.
The north cornfield was ready for harvest, but moisture levels had been slightly high before I left.Farm harvesting equipment
I had planned to check it when I returned.
Apparently, while I was gone, somebody else had made plans for it too.
The woman with the vest walked toward me.
“You need to move your truck now.”
I stepped out.
She stopped when she saw my work boots and dusty jeans.
Maybe I didn’t look like the festival crowd she had been expecting.
“I live here,” I said.
Her smile disappeared.
She studied the farmhouse.
Then me.
“Oh.”
“Who hired
you?”
“I’m volunteering.”
“For whom?”
“The HOA.”Manage Rentals
That was when I understood.
Cedar Ridge Estates sat east of my property.
Two hundred and forty-one houses built around a private golf course, artificial lake, clubhouse, and enough ornamental stone walls to defend a medieval kingdom.
