MIDDLEBURY — State Sen. Carlin Yoder wasn’t planning to stay home from work Friday morning.

But the more than half-dozen protesters in his yard carrying signs made him change his mind.

“They’re in my front yard protesting right-to-work,” Yoder said.

The Middlebury Republican is the author of the Indiana Senate’s version of the controversial right-to-work bill. The legislation passed the Senate and the House this week. The Senate will take up the House version next week, with a committee meeting Monday, second reading Tuesday for amendments and final reading expected Wednesday, Yoder said.

He said the protesters weren’t a big shock. There were some at the speaker’s house during the week.

“We’ve had some vague threats and some other stuff happen,” Yoder said.

He’s been taking precautions.

“I was warned it could happen,” he said. “We’ll be OK.”

If the protesters are at his home when it’s time for him to return to session in Indy, he’ll move his family out of the house, he said. For now, he’s just going to “take it day by day.”

Yoder said he ran for office to do what was right.

“I don’t know that I ever anticipated this. It doesn’t shake me up. It’s part of the process,” he said.

The Indiana State Police were on hand at Yoder’s house and will be as long as protesters are there, he said.

“I had the police tell them, if they want to be out there, that’s their right, as long as they leave my wife and kids alone,” Yoder said.

The protesters agreed.

Yoder said he was asked by state police not to engage the protesters, so he didn’t, but he said he’s talked to a lot of them at the Statehouse on a daily basis.

“There’s probably better formats than picketing my front yard,” Yoder said. “If that’s the route they choose, that’s what they’ve got to do.”

They arrived around 8:30 a.m. today and departed later in the morning, said James Zeser, an Indiana State Police trooper stationed at Yoder’s house.

“They’ve been respectful. There haven’t been any issues at this point,” Zeser said.

The group stood in the public right-of-way fronting Yoder’s home off S.R. 13 south of Middlebury, holding signs to express their opposition and generating honks from passing motorists.

“They’re just out here to peaceably protest the bill,” Zeser said.

It wasn’t immediately clear who the protesters were. Zeser didn’t get their identities and though state police remained behind this afternoon as a precautionary safety measure, the picketers left around 11:30 a.m. and hadn’t returned as of around 1 p.m.

Yoder said he called his children at school to warn them of what they might see when they got home.

The protesters left around the same time Yoder departed to introduce Gov. Mitch Daniels at a Goshen Rotary luncheon at Greencroft Senior Center.

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