A Fence Within a Fence

A great success indeed

A Fence Within a Fence

The sheriff will be paying HappyDay Farms a visit-or two-this summer/fall, in order to ensure that our farm is in compliance with the new regulations for growing medicinal cannabis. I’m not sure how many times we will be entertaining the constabulary, but I am quite certain that I look forward to the experience(s) with a great deal of relish.

What’s not to like? Having been instrumental in establishing what the criteria is for growing clean, green medicine, Casey is clear on the concept. There is not one thing that had to change for us to prepare for the sheriff’s visit, except for the fence.

If using caps would place more emphasis on this barricade, then I would use caps; as it is, the fence stands out because it makes my backyard look like a stockade.

The need for this guard was established by the sheriff’s office, as a preventative against minors having access to the growing cannabis. The fence has to be at least six feet high, must extend down into the ground and must include locked gates. 

It matters not that my entire complex is already fenced in as protection against everything from deer to wild boars. Now I must put a fence within a fence to ensure that the kids who visit my home, do not have access to the cannabis out back.

I understand that this measure is one that is meant to help guarantee the safety of minors, and that it’s all a matter of choice: If I choose to jog out onto the diamond, I better be on my game. I choose to grow my medicine so I must build a barricade.

The problem is that I have spent the last 35 years creating a unique environment right outside my back door, one in which a fence would seem horribly out of place. After weaving a tapestry of vegetables, flowers and cannabis throughout the back “forty,” I could not envision a way to factor in a fence, without it creating the effect of a stockade. 

Where to unobtrusively install a fence...

Again, life is full of choices: Did I want my medicine or did I want my pristinely coiffed backyard?

Once that question was answered, the rest was easy. OK, easy is the wrong word. Maybe feasible is more like it. Easy would mean that when the fence was actually in place, I could smile and nod and note that it really didn’t matter, instead of fuming inside, despite the greatest of efforts on the part of the builder to minimize the damage.

It’s been several days now and I still find myself choosing the wrong route to get from point A to point B, due to an obstruction in my path, the obstruction being the stockade barrier.

On the other hand, the barriers to being able to grow my medicine, have been modified to the extent that I will no longer have to fear that “inspectors” will arrive by helicopter, with search warrants and a regimen of terror.

For that I am willing to pay a steep fee indeed, besides that which the government will surely take in the form of taxes.

I am even willing to allow a fence.