Farmers beware

Half Moon Bay CA

Description

In case you haven't had enough of people trespassing on your fields in order to get selfies or pictures of their kids with the wildflowers, get ready for more. KPIX ran a segment yesterday morning basically advertising the "super bloom" along Highway 1 on the San Mateo County coastline as a family photo op. Amazingly, the reporter even acknowledged that the trespassers were on farmland--and not public lands--by stating that "the wildflowers are good for the soil and the future crops" (or words to that effect). I've seen these people walk right by "No Trespassing" signs and into fields. I know of one farmer who ran across a family having a picnic amongst the wildflowers on their farm. Before a deer fence went up around the land where I farm, it was not uncommon this time of year for people to wander back about a quarter mile off the main road (over private farmland, mind you) to my field; when I would confront them, they would explain (incredulously) that they were "just taking a walk." (I have yet to ask any of these folks how they would feel if I wandered into their backyards because I just want to relax in a nicely tended garden.) I've even seen people allow their children to run across freshly-seeded fields, no doubt destroying the farmer's emerging seedlings. I put up a similar post to this one several years ago and got responses from other farmers who have encountered the same thing on their lands. What these trespassers don't realize, of course, is that if they or their kids go running through the fields and break an ankle by landing in a gopher hole, who do you think they'll sue? You, of course. And guess who will win? They will, of course, because the wildflowers are an "attractive nuisance" that you could have mown down...but you didn't (and you shouldn't have to).