Dancing Oaks Farm

I HAVE SOME VERY SAD NEWS:

As some may have noticed, Merryman Family Farm has not been open to the public or even producing food for our community as we had intended.

Unfortunately, we have run into a major snag with the reliability of our water that may not be resolved in the foreseeable future. We even allowed our nursery permit to lapse because of the resistance we have encountered in fixing these problems and I reached out to Representative Sam Garrison and Senator Jennifer Bradley for help.

Residents in our area may have noticed a large pond project off of Tynes Blvd between Pine Ridge Parkway and Trail Ridge Road, between the Two Creeks and Pine Ridge Neighborhoods.

Because of the impact I believe this project may have caused to our water resources and the St. Johns River Water Management District's decision to NOT substantially act on the complaints we began filing with them in July 2022, I have filed a Petition for Declaratory Statement. This all comes on the tail of testimony under oath claiming this water management district has accepted bribes in the past. https://www.gainesville.com/story/opinion/2022/09/23/ryan-smart-questions-john-miklos-st-johns-river-district/10397482002/

To see a more complete list of questions and complaints we have filed, you may email the following individuals to obtain a copy of the Petition for Declaratory Statement : [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]

To ensure you obtain all associated documents, be sure to request both the petition for declaratory statement filed by William Merryman on October 2, 2023 AND the appendix of evidentiary documents filed to support that petition. The appendix shows two distinct sets of plans for this project depicting what we believe to be significantly different scopes of adverse impact to the area.

Notices of filing have been published to the Florida Department of State website:https://www.flrules.org/Faw/FAWDocuments/FAWVOLUMEFOLDERS2023/49194/49194doc.pdf on pages 3761 and 3762

We are hopeful to eventually get this resolved so we may serve our community as originally intended.

First Coast News Clay Today Newspaper The Florida Times-Union Jacksonville Daily News Action News Jax

To anyone thinking about moving to Florida, I have developed a short list of things to look out for:

Skeeters
Scorpions
Fire Ants
Red velvet ants (cow killers)
Lone star tick
Deer tick
Brown dog tick
American dog tick
Cayenne tick
Centipedes
Chiggers
Yellow jackets
Hornets
Wasps
Gators
Moccasins
Copperheads
Rattlers
Coral snakes
Cuban tree frogs
Giant parasite spewing snails
Tropical soda apple
Poison ivy
Poison oak
Poison sumac
Hammerhead worms
Rat lungworms
Cryptosporidium
No-see-ums
Yellow flies
Black flies
Black widows
Brown widows
Brown recluse
Bob cats
Coyotes
Panthers
Bear
Boar
Herpes infected wild monkeys
Florida man

And the absolute worst of all these... Palmetto bugs.

Other than that, you should be good to go. 👍

Welcome to the greatest state in the country!