Property rights are a tricky thing sometimes.

For example, consider a tree. If your neighbor has a tree that grows along your property line and hangs over your land, can you cut down the tree? The answer is no, but you CAN cut off flush to the property line any branches, even if doing so causes the tree to become unbalanced and fall over, or leads to tree decay, etc. This has actually gone all the way to the supreme court to rule on it, which seems like a silly thing to many for them to waste their time with but paramount to others I suppose.

If you aren't going to cut off the branches, say because you neighbor has a peach tree and some of the peaches hang over your yard, you still can't pick the fruit. By federal law, all the fruit from the tree belongs to the tree owner - but if the fruit falls on your side that may be another matter, depending on where you live.

If the branch or even the tree fall over and smash your house, your fence, your car, then he can still not be liable if he took good care of the tree, it is considered an Act Of God, and your problem. However, the compensation is that you get to keep the part of the tree that falls on your yard, even if it is the entire tree. That might not seem like such a big deal to most but it depends on what the branch is made of. Suppose its good, stout oak handy for firewood? Or a nice burled maple which sells to a sawmill for quite the premium? Or maybe even a precious, desirable, beautiful walnut tree!

Which reminded me of a preacher story I once heard. There was this cute couple at church, Dan and Julie. Teenagers who'd been dating for a while, now in their senior year at high school. They came from good families and were good kids, both of them Christians and both of them doing well in school. But this particular night, they were attending a final senior blast. There was going to be dancing and drinking there, but they went because they wanted to see their friends at least one last time before heading off to big U in the fall. Also, they didn't want to seem odd or strange, they wanted to enjoy some of the life and "fun" they had been doing without, by choice, all these years. Just this once.

Well, they went to this party and they got pressured into taking a drink or two, just so they wouldn't be prudes. They convinced themselves they would never do it again, but they both wanted to experience it just once so their friends couldn't rail on them about how they didn't understand, etc. They had a good time but even so the guilt lay heavy on them as they drove away. They worked up a story to tell their parents so they wouldn't get in trouble.

On the way home from the drinking and carousing, as the story goes, they got into an accident and both were killed. When the angels came to collect them and take them to heaven, the devil was already there laying his claim. You see, the root was good. The wood was very solid. But they died on his property.

What you do may not seem like a big deal, but do you want to take the chance and have your precious, desirable, beautiful soul end up being... firewood?

Randy