Then at the temporary fencing stretching across my field.
Then at the portable toilets lined beside my irrigation shed.
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Someone had driven forty steel posts into my ground.
Orange flags marked parking rows.
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Three rented carnival tents 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.
Soybeans along the creek bottom.
