Wrecked Gardens

Driving home from work. Come up my drive - 18 cows in my yard from the farm about 1/2 mile back. My first concern is for the cows because they are very close to the road. I jump out of my truck - in my "work" clothes/shoes. I get them headed back towards my house. A truck pulls up and a neighbor down the road agrees to help me herd them back to the farm. Mind you, it's a hike. We get them back to the field but the gates are all locked so they got through a broken fence somewhere. It's very rainy here now and I'm up to my ankles in mud. I had only my cell phone on me and called my DH still at work (we work together and he's still at office). He's howling laughing which is making me laugh but calls our neighbor who has a tenant farmer minding his 150 acres in back of us to tell them of the dilemma. This is the same neighbor who we delivered manure for (my thread in organic gardening entitled well rotted horse manure). When the "owning" neighbor saw me walking up the lane, she walked out and said she was very glad the cows got home OK -no thank you or anything. Bottom line - they didn't even come out to help. When I finally walked home, I find my 3500 tulip bulbs, now almost ready to bloom, which we planted last fall, along with all my heaths and heathers in our rock gardens which we have nursed for 2 years are absolutely wrecked.

I know there is nothing to do but repair what we can and move on.

My question is: would you voice any complaint or am I just being petty?

3500 bulbs is not petty, I would definiately say something.

Paul

Oh, dohopp, how sad!!!! All those gorgeous tulips and heathers! Were they eaten or *just* trampled? meaning, will they survive the experience, but just not look good this year?

I just came back in from surveying. The cows, unfortunately, got into more than the tulips and heathers. I've lost 12 rose bushes and 2 clematis. This just makes me so sad, but I also realize that I live in a rural area. I think I'm more angry at the neighbor who does not really farm or garden and relies on others to manage their resources.

I think I need to sleep on this because anger won't produce any beautiful tulips this spring. Guess I just needed to vent somewhere.

From your description, you have obviously suffered property, and thus, financial damage.

In law, the owner of the cows (and possibly the land itself ~~~ depending on details of the lease agreement), has a clear obligation to restrain the animals by means of fencing or other means, to prevent damage to adjacent and / or surrounding property. Here is an analogy:

Let's say that you have a car parked in your driveway and that your driveway slopes downhill to a street. Now, let's say that your emergency brake fails and your car rolls down the driveway into the street, across the street, and then damages a neighbor's property (let's just say a garden).

Your obligations in law are clear, and why you are required, in law, to have automobile insurance. This is a basic legal principal that has been upheld in courts across the nation, and the failure of the emergency brake, a restraining device, is analogous to the failure of a fence, another sort of restraining device.

Your indicating that the neighbor has a tenant farmer may mean that there is more than one responsible party, depending on underlying terms of the lease agreement:

First, the land is owned by someone. Is this the person who supplies and maintains the fencing? Also, is this the person who owns the cows (I am not clear on this part)?

Second, the cows are on the land owned by the landlord. Does the lease agreement on the land include the terms that the tenant is obligated to keep fences in good repair?

Now, you are not obligated to know the answers to these questions. But, should you decide to pursue the matter, who you sue and for what will determine a successful outcome.

I am very sorry to learn that so much of your garden has suffered damage. I know you must be very sad about this.

To paraphrase Robert Frost, good fences make good neighbors.

Adam.

dohopp, Adam is right. This is a property damage issue, and more than one party may be held responsible for your loss. One expects certain damage living in a rural environment, but nature did not plop a herd of cattle in your yard. At this point, there has been little consequence for anyone but you. The cattle got out, the cattle had a little buffet, the cattle were brought home.... "Thank You Very Much". Obviously, the lady of the household had no clear idea of the damages these cows can cause or the threat to their own safety. Until the caretakers of the cattle feel a little loss themselves, this could repeat itself again and again. At the very least, I would assess the damage and pay them a visit.

Thank you all, we are not litigous people. In saying that, I suppose we could submit a claim to our insurance company.

Either way, the plants may be destroyed as they are all unrooted and it is too cold and dark to work with them and we must work tomorrow and Friday; so we shall see on Saturday what we can reclaim.

The lady of the household knows clear well the damage as she can plainly see it from every window in her home. That being said, I have learned a great lesson about the momentary life of a garden.

Saturday shall be a day on both our knees repairing what we can and looking to the future. Me and my DH have decided tonight that we shall walk the entire 150 acre fence line and visit our neighbors Saturday evening and let them know exactly where they need to have their tenant farmers make amends.

No matter which course of action you choose, be certain to document the damage in detail in photographs.

Here are some hints about how to take property damage / evidentiary photos:

If your camera does this, be sure to have the dates on the photos. If not, write the dates on the back. If it's a film camera, save the developing receipt and bag (they have dates).

Before you begin shooting, decide on a shooting plan, taking photographs in order, let's say, from left to right, north to south, etc. Then label each photo according to this plan (numbers work, when coordinated with a written list by number).

Have the sun behind you.

Compose the photograph so that the damage is in the center of the image.

Close ups, unless of something tiny, do not work. For a sense of scale and perspective, have someone stand in the picture, to the side of the damaged area. You should see both their feet and head.

Depending on your insurance deductable, you may not be able to recover nearly what you have put into nurturing your garden, as most is labor.

Remember to ask your carrier the following question: "If we submit this claim, how much can we expect our premiums to increase based upon loss experience?" I learned this lesson the hard way.

Again, so sorry this happened to you.

Adam.

This message was edited Wednesday, Apr 9th 10:00 PM

Oh Adam, you were quite right along with the others. Just got home and they were here apparently all day. We have only lived here 2 years and our first goal was to create one totally formal garden which we did. That is the garden they trampled today. 22 rose bushes, all 6 of our copper obelisks with 2 year old climbers of varied kinds, our tiny boxwoods and lollipop crabapples. I am heartbroken.

To be specific, the neighbor leases the acreage and farmhouse to a tenant farmer. Our neighbor is an attorney so I'm sure that is why she did not offer thanks nor much else conversation. Although there are only 7 houses in the community; each about 3-4 acres, we cannot put up a fence to surround the property.

I have taken your advice on photos, but wish I had stayed home today to protect the property until we can find the break in the fence line.

Dohopp,
Boy, it's discouraging, isn't it?
Years ago (at our other home with a bigger orchard)
our neighbor's horses were constantly over (at our place) eating our apples. It's not like our neighbors didn't try to keep the horses home, it's just that wild deer would frequently tear down their electric fencing, so the horses would roam...right over to our apples!
My husband and I would go out and 'round 'em up, and take them back to their own home, but I know how you feel.
It's a 'bummer, to be sure.
OD

Speaking from the farmers' point of view, I would have been out checking fences as soon as I had the cattle back in. There are two reasons for this, the obvious that any one who keeps cattle feels a concern for the animals and inspite of their appetites they really have rather delicate digestive tracts and second, we all know that when Robert Frost was talking of apples and pine cones jumping fences it was with a great deal of irony, but when it comes to cows, good fences do indeed make good neighbors. In New York state there are laws written in regards to who is responcible for line fence upkeep. In the case of one landowner keeping cows, and the other not, it is the responcibility of the the owner of the cows to make sure the fences are kept in good order and the cattle remain where they are supposed to be. We had neighbors whose cattle were out everyday one summer and another neighbor who called the sherrif's department and blamed us. Even after we proved to the sherrif that it couldn't possibly be our cattle, and walked down the only fence that could have been involved, we were given notice that if there were cattle in the road again, we could be charged, regarless of whether or not they were our cows. It never came to that, thank goodness. Stan is a sweet man, but he has a very strong sense of justice!


And speaking from a gardener's point of view, you have my sympathy. I know all too well what a rampaging herd of cows can do, and it very likely took them much less time than you think. You had 18 four legged bulldozers plowing their way around your yard, and the hoof prints will haunt you for years. You didn't say what kind of roses, but if I have any in my collection of old garden roses that will help you put your garden back together, I would be most pleased to send them to you.

And please, do file a notice of loss with your insurance, take pictures and document what plants you've lost and file a complaint against your neighbors. There are times in every farmer's life when nothing is going to keep a herd of cows in, but there is no excuse for letting it happen more than once. If nothing else, there will be a record of this happening, and you will have let your neighbors know that you are serious about the sanctity of your property.

I hate to see this happen. Farmers are under a great deal of stress in an increasingly non-farming society. We all need to take great care to keep what goodwill there is left intact.

Kathleen, how kind of you to write from both sides of the fence. Adam has been so very informative and kind also. We do want to be good neighbors in a rural community. I realize that the tenant farmer may consider us as interlopers. It is hard for us to explain to him that we garden all by ourselves; no outside help, just the two of us for 4 acres. We try to be good community citizens by providing whatever help we can in plowing driveways, hauling in good rotted horse manure, etc. I grew up on a farm in Indiana and although I've moved away, it's always a tough emotional call for me to get mad at a tenant farmer. I literally came from dirt - parents with 9 kids, no $, not a dime honestly, but encouraged us all to get whatever scholarships we could, go to college and become "professionals" or do something that would better society. This is a tough one for me and my DH. Wish we could just take two weeks off, try to repair the damage and find some magical dust that would dissuade the cows from our property.

Daves Garden is a Miracle find as far as I'm concerned!

I understand your heart-break at seeing your garden destroyed. A couple years ago a neighbor's dalmation got loose in our backyard, and completely destroyed my raspberry bed. *sigh* No fruit that summer.

Since a couple farmers have given you some advice, can I ask them, is there any kind of a hedge that will help keep the cattle out? Obviously it wouldn't stop a stampede, but just keep them from wandering into your garden.

A hedge would be a lot easier to fit into the design of your formal garden, as well as not injuring any animals like an electric fence could. Also they are much more child-friendly as well as child-proof! Tall boxwood maybe? Or lilac? Obviously it would have to be something that local wildlife wouldn't eat down to the ground.

I agree with Kathleen. You need to document and let them know you are serious. It's the same way here if you have the cattle it's your repsonsiblity to keep the fence in repair and like her if we have any get out we look for the place asap. We did have one bull that got all the time there was no way to keep him in we ended up selling him.Lupine you have to be careful with that too so many shrubs will kill cattle. We lost several head last year when a yard in front of one of our fields trimmed there yews and tossed them over the fence.dohopp I think it would depend on the people too but the only time any of our cattle got out and did any damage to anybodies garden which by the way was roses they must like them. We replaced them. I don't know if legally we had to or not but just seemed the right thing to do. So why not try telling them how much they destroyed and see what happens. They might surprise ya. I know it won't repair the damage and all the work you have done but it might help you get the plants replaced.

I can surely sympathize too. Years ago when we lived in Fl. we had an acre of flat ground except the holes where we had dug out the Palmetto stumps. We had 5 yds of dirt hauled in and smoothed it out ourselves, whew!

That year, I had my first veggie garden with sweet corn and all the rest of the goodies. Well, we had a neighbor about 1/2 mi away that had 3 horses that got out regularly. One day, just as my corn was tasseling, they paid us a visit, literally stripped the whole crop and rolled in the fresh dirt in the rest of our back yard. My Dh called the man at the service station where he worked and demamded that he come and get his horses. The man said he couldn't leave work, but dh told him he'd better or else he would find 3 dead horses. We also called the Sheriff, who told Doug he couldn't legally shoot them. Doug said he would just pay the fine, but after he had watched me dig up those little corn kernals to see if they had sprouted, he wasn't going to put up with this invasion.

The owner did come and round up those horses on his lunch hour! We only lost about a bushel of corn an my labor, but if I were you, I would hope I still had receipts for all those lovely roses and bulbs. Really you should try to figure up what they were worth and sock it to em!

This message was edited Thursday, Apr 10th 8:04 PM

This message was edited May 21, 2005 2:37 PM

We've been on both sides of this fence. Our horses learned to jump the stock guards(poor design)and run to the neighbors. We would go up in the pickup with the shotgun loaded with bird shot and pepper their backsides as they ran all the way home. It finally got so that all we had to do was rev the pickup engine and shoot the gun into the air and those nags were on the way home. I kept telling the neighbors to pepper them so they would know he didn't want them there either but he didn't for several years. He never would admit he did it, but I found shot in a couple of the worse horses and they were always afraid to go past his house after that.
Our land tenent had some cows who would get out almost daily and roam thru the yard and parts of the garden. Finally one day I reminded him that we raised LOTS of rhubarb at that time and that I would see to it that that cow got a nice big, very toxic leaf. He moved them to a different pasture the next day!
I do reccomend confronting the owner of the cattle with pictures asap. Ask you county sheriff to visit your yard before you do any repairs at all. Give him copies of the pictures you take with the information written on the back of each one of them. Then plant some rhubarb and let the cattle owners know about it.

This happened so often when we lived out of town that we knew the highway patrols number by heart. The dispatcher would ask "are they beef or dairy? How many? and what colors? They would then contact the owner based upon your answers and contain the animals until the owners arrived. This way there was a report on file in case anyone or anything was damaged. I never sued anyone over it either but they always said Thankyou and offered to pay for any damages and they checked the fences immediately. Raising livestock is a huge responsibility and should be treated as such for the sake of the livestock and the safety of the community.

Well......the cows did their damage. DH and I walked the fence lines yesterday and today and found several breaks. We have photo'd all the damage. The tenant dairy farmer has absolutely no money whatsoever to compensate us - milk prices here in MD are below even the national average. We told him that we will be calling the sheriff if we find damage again. He actually did seem concerned when told that we will plant rhubarb!!!

All this being said, it is an incredibly beautiful day today weather wise and the repair work is moving ahead. Anybody know what several hundred hours and thousands of tulips are worth? LOL and Thanks to all who have given their thoughts so generously!

Well, tulips used to be worth more than gold and were a precious commodity, but I don't know about now!

I would ask them for their farm/renters insurance information. I think they should have that, then I would go to them. Maybe this has been already suggested, but I only had time to skim the posts. I'm not real up on the insurance that farmers and renters need to have, but something makes me think that they should have it.

In law, damage claims are rarely based on the cost basis of the underlying property. Many goods have value added to them by labor (such as the planting of tulip bulbs). Further, a damage claim can be increased by assessing the "emotional or sentimental" value of the property damaged.

Please note that insurance claims are handled differently.

Additionally, damage claims may be increased based upon the conduct of the party guilty of causing the damage (such assesments are ofen made by either a jury or judge or an arbitrator after proof of damage and guilt is established):

1. Was the damage unavoidable?
2. Was the damage avoidable.
3. Was the damage accidental?
4. Could the damage easily have been prevented?
5. Was the damage impossible to prevent?
6. Was the damage the result of benign (innocent) negligence?
7. Was it the result of intentional (as in "for profit") negligence?

There is a pretty lengthy list of hypotheticals such as this, which are either mitigating circumstances or circumstances calling for special punitive judgement due to willful conduct on the part of the guilty (cigarette companies come easily to mind).

Your claim for payment is not against the insurance company (if any) of the party causing the damage, but against the party causing the damage. They either will or will not contact their insurance company (if they have insurance). Remember, this is not automobile damage, which is a special case (no~fault provisions, statutory requirements, etc).

Adam.

This message was edited Sunday, Apr 13th 8:38 PM

This message was edited Sunday, Apr 13th 8:39 PM

This message was edited Sunday, Apr 13th 8:46 PM

Well, I'm no lawyer or insurance agent. Just though it might be of some help.

It's so frustrating having to deal with this sort of thing with neighbors. Wrongs should be made right, but it's a delicate line keeping neighbors good/friendly neighbors; even when things are their fault, you still want to have decent relations with them. The fact that they're strapped for cash doesn't make it any easier, I'm sure. I understand your dilemma, dohopp, and wish the best to you.

WEll...if I understand it correctly....in the state of Arizona...if you want cows kept out of your yard...then YOU put up a fence!! This was told to me by my son-in-law...who was once known to be wrong! LOL Jo

Many roads lead to Rome, as it were.

One possible solution, as you speak with your neighbors about this, is that they assist in the actual physical restoration of the damaged property.

They might have a power tiller or a special skill one of them could help out with, or help make runs to suppliers (whom they would pay), for needed things in a pick~up. This sort of participation might even make them truly want to keep their cows out of "their" work.

Adversity does not necessarily need to create adverse parties. Sometimes a shared dilemma can cause people to put their heads together to solve their shared problem.

It's been my experience that, sometimes (just sometimes), work and sweat can help build bridges between people (but not always).

Ultimately, in a quest for making a thing right, it comes down to figuring out the best strategy for attracting and then keeping the attention of the party who needs to make the problem right.

This is frequently a carrot and stick process: do this and you will feel better..., but if not..., then this other thing's gonna happen.

Delicate balance. Not unlike trying to get a kid to do his homework ;~)

Adam.

Jo, that was true when I lived in Arizona: in rural areas, property owners had to fence animals OUT. That used to be true in OH, but I understand (not positive) the law was changed that animals had to be fenced IN.

Laws change continually, so it could well be that your son in law is right, or at least, WAS right ;D

In the case in question, it is the obligation of the animal owners to restrain (fence) their cattle.

Adam.

I like the sweat equity solution. Say, "hey, I have a big cooler of lemonade and dinner waiting for when we're done, but I'd like y'all to come over here and help me set things right in my gardens." :)

But, because there is, in essence, a dispute going on, there needs to also be consequences for not participating.

And these ought to be defined.

And then, if the party performs appropriately, all can put the diffuculties behind them and move on into the future.

Be sure not to call it "equity" in practice, which implies ownership.

Adam.

Bah! Semantics! ;)

ooo, GW, thems fighting words - semantics, the study of the meaning of words - without it, how can we understand each other?

Thus the winky. ;) Hee hee hee, couldn't resist.

I'm sorry for your loss, I know it hurts the heart most when you expected so much good and beauty, especially after all your hard work.

How much are your tulips, rosebushes and worth? I would venture to say a cow or two!

I can't offer very much help here, but when Powell Gardens(the botanical garden where I do volunteer work)pulls and pitches their tulips in a few weeks I can send you some of them. Not all will be labeled as they just pull and pitch & I'm not going to be there when all are done, but they do have some lovely ones this year.