Lawns Are the "Emperor's New Clothes"

I got this comment from a brave individual that went by the name "Anonymous" on the piece I wrote a while back about the situation with Julie Bass in Oak Park, MI:

well, at least she can now be famous for going against policies set years ago. The man was doing his job and now may get fired for enforcing policy set by others. I guess we all have forgotten this. Is it worth this , when it could have been planted in the backyard? Animals come and steal food from gardens and can get killed crossing the street. Homeless individuals or hungry children pass by and may want to take the food if it is within view each day. Food spoils and smells from gardens . This is silly, kind of like the Emperors New Clothes. Everyone wants to act as though this is ok, but would you want her next to your home with food almost in your front door? be honest. It is sort of tacky and rebellious to some degree. She has a back yard.

 I responded there, but I am kind of feeling like a slacker tonight (plus I have a bunch of beans that need processing and interesting novels to read...not sure which is going to win out there), so I figured I'd repost here, just for giggles:

Are you serious? First off, it is HER property that she OWNS so who are you to tell her what she can do on her property if it isn't hurting anyone or anything. She has her reasons for not planting it in her backyard and it is not your place to judge those reasons. Animals go for ornamental plants as well, so that argument is out. And, honestly, yes, I would LOVE my neighbors to have a vegetable garden in their front yard rather than a tacky monoculture of boring, useless, resource draining, unsustainable green grass. It IS okay!

 And then, silly me, hit "post", forgetting that I had left out some key rebuttal points (I seriously suck at debates.  This could be part of why.  And I'm entirely non-confrontational and a bit of a wuss in real life, well, unless someone really pisses me off, but that's another story) so I left another comment:

And having done some research on this in covering this story, I should mention too that Rulkowski had a hand in forming this vague ordinance that never would hold up in court should it actually make it there because of the sloppy wording. He can't just pass the buck to someone else when he loses his job, as he should. If they didn't want veggies in the front yard, the ordinance should explicitly say that!

 Obviously, the comment wasn't left by a regular reader, or they would know that I too have a front yard garden (and side yard, and back yard)!  

Just to reiterate, in my book:

GOOD: 

Photo courtesy of Julie Bass

 GOOD:

Photo courtesy of me.  This is my front yard.

 BAD:

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia

I thought the comparison to the "Emperor's New Clothes" was especially silly.  After all, which yard is wearing nothing?  Honestly, which would you rather have in your neighbor's yard?

The War on Gardens Continues

When Julie Bass's lawyer went to the courthouse to file a motion regarding the case against her "renegade" front yard gardening activities, he was informed that the charges against her for the garden had been dropped.  Yay!  Right?  Wrong.  Now, they've slapped her with some trumped up charges for dog licenses that she's already paid and she still has a hearing on July 26, but now for the dog license misdemeanor charge (did I mention that there is no unlicensed dog at her house now and the only way that they would even know there ever was unlicensed dogs on her property was if Oak Park a-holes were looking for something to charge her with since her dogs are well taken care of and don't run loose in the neighborhood?).  Not only that, but since Julie never had her day in court or was officially cleared of "wrongdoing" (seriously, is a garden ever "wrongdoing?"), they can bring the charges back up once the media spotlight has cleared back up.  Tricky bastards, aren't they?  Let's not make it that easy on them, shall we?  We've been doing a great job with the calls and emails (not so much with the death threats and such though.  That's too much and I wouldn't be surprised if that's part of why they are being such...looking for a nice word....bureaucrats.  Okay, I couldn't come up with an actual nice word, but that one is at least allowed on television), so let's keep the pressure on until they are leaving the Bass family alone for good!  For your convenience, here is the contact info for key players in this nonsense:

Mayor:
Gerald E. Naftaly 248.691.7410      gnaftaly@att.net

City Council:  all phone calls go to 248.691.7410
Angela Diggs Jackson   adjack@comcast.net
Paul Levine   paul4oakpark@yahoo.com
Emily Duplessis   duplessis2@aol.com

Oakland County Prosecutor:

Jessica R. Cooper   248-858-0656  info@oaklandprosecutor.org

Meanwhile, up in Canada, a man is currently facing the prospect of six months in jail for his lovely organic mini-farm on his 2.5 acres!  Dirk Becker of Lantzville, British Columbia has been cited with violating a bylaw against property owners letting their land become "unsightly" and has been ordered to "remove the piles of soil and manure from the property".  Again, the whole thing is rather ridiculous, to put it nicely, and you can click here to see how insane it is, including seeing pictures of before he took ownership of a property that was basically a gravel pit and the gorgeous farm he turned it into that apparently city officials find "unsightly."  Either they have vocabulary issues on par with Kevin Rulkowski's definition of "suitable" or they have something against plant matter!  Now, I'm not too familiar with how the Canadian political system works, but I did find a general office number for the District of Lantzville (250-390-4006) and a general email being listed as district@lantzville.ca, so we might want to give them a heads up that food growing is a good thing and plants are far more beautiful than a barren wasteland, eh?  (I'm from Michigan, so I can do the whole "eh?" thing too.  It isn't a Canada joke, really...although that is kind of funny)

As this insane war on gardens continues, it reiterates the point I made a couple weeks ago that there should be a recognized Right to Garden everywhere.  I listed the contact info, or at least how to find the contact info for US Congress people on my original Right to Garden post, so if you wanted to pursue making this a federal law in the United States, that would be a good place to get started. Canadians, since this seems to be a problem for you too, you might want to get in touch with your government as well!

Mother of 6 Threatened With Jail Time for Front Yard Garden

There are other words for it than "ridiculous", but I really do make an effort to keep this a fairly family friendly blog and keep the cussing out of it, but this time, it really would be warranted.  That lady, Julie Bass, over in Oak Park, MI that I've been going on and on about has been informed by the city idiots that they are planning on taking this case all the way, so she is facing possible jail time of 93 days for growing vegetables in her own front yard!

For those that haven't been following this story, Oak Park has an ordinance that states that front yards must contain "suitable plant material" and, apparently, the official Oak Park dictionary, or at least what they are using to prosecute from, defines "suitable" as "common" so they are saying that this

is not "suitable" because most people have the economic and environmental drain of boring green grass on their lawns, rather than something practical, educational, healthy, and tasty on their lawns like the Bass family does.  Well, they didn't put it exactly that way, but that's what they are claiming.

A possible 93 days in jail for this:

 and this

 and this

 Do you even see any weeds here?  If you are a weed sympathizer, then maybe I can see an issue, since, clearly, they've all been brutally torn out by the roots and cast away somewhere else not visible in these pictures.  But, if you're looking for a lawn to prosecute, I think maybe they need to be looking elsewhere!  Like maybe a lawn that contains the illegal kind of weed!  There is no crime happening here, yet, for some reason, they want to play the bad guys and pick on a family just trying to eat healthy cheaply!

*sigh*  What is this once great nation coming to?

Fortunately, all our rights haven't eroded away yet.  We can still write emails, make phone calls, and send letters (or dictionaries, since it sounds like they need one in Oak Park!) to the city officials responsible for this mess (note: the mess is not in Julie Bass's well maintained garden in her front lawn.  It is clearly in their brains and, for now, legal documents).  Maybe send them pictures of your front yard garden.  If you don't have a front yard garden, maybe now would be a good time to plant one.  Or borrow mine as an example.  Or google "front yard gardens" and see what all pops up and send them some of those pictures!

For your convenience, here is the cast of troublemakers, er, city officials, and their contact information:

City Planner:
Kevin Rulkowski
248.691.7450 
krulkowski@ci.oak-park.mi.us     

City Manager (Mr. Rulkowski's boss):
Rick Fox
248.691.7406 
rfox@ci.oak-park.mi.us
     
Mayor:
Gerald E. Naftaly
248.691.7410      
gnaftaly@att.net


Mayor Pro Tem:
Michael M. Seligson
248.691.7410
mmseligson@comcast.net

City Council:
all phone calls go to 248.691.7410

Angela Diggs Jackson
adjack@comcast.net

Paul Levine
paul4oakpark@yahoo.com

Emily Duplessis
duplessis2@aol.com

All snail mail goes to the person you are mailing it to
c/o City of Oak Park
13600 Oak Park Blvd
Oak Park, MI 48237

If you are going to send emails, you can make it easiest on yourself by addressing it to Mr. Rulkowski, since he seems to be the evil mastermind main person that Julie Bass has been having to deal with and he's the moron guy that was quoted on the news as not knowing what "suitable" meant and then just "cc"ing the rest of the addresses.

Now let's let them know that they need to drop this stupid case...and then I'll be able to go back to mostly blogging about happy things like yummy recipes and what's growing in my own yard, front and back!

(Oh, and it probably wouldn't hurt to drop a line to your US Representative and Senators, letting them know about the current situation and that you think there should be a federal Right to Garden protection law on the books to help keep things like this from happening in the future!)

Focus on the Front Yard--a Trailer Park Homestead update

With the hulabaloo (sounds nicer than "nonsensical misdemeanor", doesn't it) about Julie Bass's front yard vegetable garden in Oak Park, MI, I thought it would be suitable (wait, if the Oak Park city officials are using an "obsolete" definition of "suitable", does that mean that the city officials of Oak Park are obsolete and need to go, either by being fired or voted out, depending on their positions?)  to explore what I have growing in my front yard.  Not the herbs and flowers that I'm growing for food or medicinal purposes, since I doubt Oak Park city pricks, er, I mean city officials, would have a problem with those, just the fruits and vegetables.  Since this is just a tiny trailer park lot and not a full on yard, the "front yard" is defined (by me) as the area from the road up to the front door of the trailer.  As you can see from the view from my front door, looking out toward the street:

That yellowness is my 6 year old looking for carrots for a snack

And from the street, looking up toward the house:

this is not a large area!  Yet, in that area, I am growing the following:

cucumbers (in 3 different locations in the front yard),

watermelon,

zucchini,

cantaloupe,

green peppers (3 plants, spread out over 2 different areas),

carrots,

tomatoes (about a dozen plants, spread out over several areas),

several raspberry bushes, a blackberry bush,

3 blueberry bushes,

broccoli (in 2 different places in the front yard, about 8 plants total),

rutabaga (so tiny because they are part of the fall planting),

pumpkin,

snap peas (although they are looking pretty awful.  I'll probably pull these this week to make room for more fall plantings of...something),

lettuce,

ground cherries,

and a few strawberries.

So, as you can see, front yard gardening isn't strange, weird, or "unsuitable" as plant material...and you can grow a lot in a little space if you get creative about it.  I hope I didn't take too big of a risk showing you this, since, as Julie Bass pointed out to me on her blog the other day, "i hope the oak park code enforcers don’t drive out to webberville to ticket you- after all, we know they are comfortable exceeding their authority ;-)".

Defending Your Freedoms

Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans!

A lot of people talk about our independence as if it is something secure, something we can count on being there forever.  We can't.  If we don't stick up for our freedoms, they can be eroded away until nothing is left.

You think it can't happen?  It is happening right now.  Take the case of Maryanne Godboldo from Detroit, MI whose daughter was kidnapped by the government because she refused to pump her full of drugs that were making her sicker.  Look at all the areas where you can't legally collect your own rainwater (although apparently this is improving in a lot of places, thanks to people challenging the laws).  Look at Julie Bass of Oak Park, MI who is currently facing misdemeanor charges for growing food in her own front yard, since they claim it violates the city's ordinance that front yards must contain "suitable plant material".

These are all freedoms that are being stolen, bit by bit.  There are literally millions of examples that I could cite of freedoms disappearing daily.  I just list these ones because they directly affect our pocketbooks as well as our freedom.

It is our patriotic duty as Americans to do something about this.

Write letters to officials and politicians responsible for making these laws.  Actively campaign for or at least vote for politicians that support our freedoms.  Vote out the ones that don't.  Support things like the Right to Garden legislation I proposed a couple posts ago to protect our rights and make it harder for them to sneak them away.

So what am I doing this Independence Day?  Having a cook-out with my family here at the Trailer Park Homestead, going to see a nice small town parade, watching some fireworks....and getting a dictionary ready to mail to the city planner of Oak Park, since apparently he doesn't know what the definition of "suitable" is (hint: he thinks it means "common").

If anyone else would like to send photos of front yard vegetable gardens, to demonstrate how suitable vegetables are for front yard plant materials, or dictionaries to the city planner of Oak Park, so they can look up the definition of "suitable", the address is:

Kevin Rulkowski, City Planner
City of Oak Park
13600 Oak Park Blvd
Oak Park, MI 48237