"Can I help you?" I called.
Gary didn't look up from his clipboard. "Board's documenting setback violations. Your barn's too close to the line."
"My barn's been there since 1974. Your subdivision was permitted in 2018. The setback requirements apply to the newer construction, not to pre-existing agricultural structures."
Gary finally looked up. He studied me the way a contractor studies a wall he's been hired to demolish: assessing the difficulty, not the value. "Listen, buddy, my wife runs this community. She's got lawyers. She's got the board. And she's got 100 homeowners who don't want to look at your barn, your cows, or your tractor every morning when they're drinking their coffee. So, you can play farmer all you want, but we're going to make this property conform to community standards one way or another."
"Your community standards don't apply to my property," I said.
"They will," Gary said.
He folded the clipboard under his arm, turned, and walked back through the fence gap he'd made by pushing aside two strands of barbed wire—my barbed wire, on my fence, that Gary had just damaged to access my land without permission.
I didn't say anything. I watched Gary walk back to the black Silverado parked on the HOA common area, open the door, and drive away with the specific lack of urgency that comes from a man who believes consequences are something that happens to other people.
That evening, I pulled up the Burnet County property records and printed everything: my deed, my plat, the subdivision's recorded plat, the easement documents, the agricultural exemption certificate. I put it all in a folder labeled "Stone Creek," the same way I'd labeled case folders for 14 years at the marshal's office: plain, factual, and patient.
Then, I ordered four trail cameras.