So I did.
I completed the reports.
Arranged the inspections.
Paid for restoration after two rough winters.
Handled the agricultural tax recertification every year.
Eventually Dad suggested transferring the farm into my name.
“It’ll make things easier later.”
Mom agreed.
.
“I trust you.”
We used their longtime local attorney.
The transfer was explained carefully.
Dad asked whether they could continue living there.
“Of course.”
Mom asked whether I would continue managing the conservation agreement.
“I already am.”
They signed voluntarily.
For the next three years, almost nothing changed.
They lived there.
I handled the property.
Then one Wednesday, I opened a certified letter in a grocery-store parking lot.
My parents were suing me.
They claimed they hadn’t fully understood the transfer.
Mom said she had felt pressured.
Dad described me in deposition as someone who had inserted herself into their affairs.
Merritt read the paperwork and told me:
“This is a weak case.”
Then he added something more important.
“But with family, facts are only half of it.”
He wanted to fight hard.
Subpoenas.
Witnesses.
Every receipt.
Every signed document.
“You have to fight,” he told me. “Otherwise they’ll carry their version forever.”
He wasn’t wrong.
But while he prepared for court, I kept rereading the conservation easement.