The Thin Red Property Line I like to pretend that I ended up owning a fishing cabin by throwing a dart at a map. The truth is, I was intent on a barn. I looked at 50 or so, and they were huge and beautiful. And freezing. Money pits, said the doomsayer architects. And so I bought a cabin instead, on a postage stamp of land on the Delaware River. The Realtor who sold it to me asked if I was a fisherman. Not yet, I told her, soon. That turned out to be a lie, as it's now years later and I haven't baited a single hook. Not that I don't want to learn. But the cabin is more than just a place to go and not fish; it is everything the city lacks: sky, forest, bears. The drive there is bookended by two bridges - the George Washington (span: 4,760 feet; 2 levels; 14 lanes) and another suspension gem, the Kellam-Stalker (384 feet; 1 level; 1 lane; no E-ZPass). You have to inch up to the Kellam-Stalker to make sure that no one is approaching from the other side. Crossing it always confirms that I am far from New York City, much farther, in fact, than the odometer registers. Like most idylls, this one is not 100 percent Edenic. There are floods, Lyme-carrying ticks, houseguests to disappoint ("if you are here during hunting season, yes, those are gunshots, and here is an unflattering orange hat"). These are minor headaches compared with the most recent native custom I discovered: deforestation, on the most local of levels. One side of my property is bounded by a stand of pines, trees that had apparently done something wrong to my neighbors, whom I discovered exacting their revenge through height readjustment. I had arrived that Friday with the same vague plans as I often had: do some reading and writing but mostly stare at the river. Normally the only living creatures I interrupt when I pull in are squirrels, occasionally deer, both of them quick to scamper off. I mutter an apology, and they forgive me, or at least that is how I interpret their inevitable return. This time, though, I happened upon my neighbors, one precarious on a ladder with a saw, the other anchored on the ground with a rope around his waist. They don't live there full time either, but they've owned their home for decades. I watched them shear off the treetops. And then the middles. There may have been some murmuring about easing the sunlight's path to the anemic shrubs hugging the earth below. They were wearing thick gloves and were grunting a lot, though not as much as I felt they deserved. So I did what any conflict-averse person who doesn't know exactly where his property line is and who maybe could but most likely can't locate the survey he had done several years ago would do. I smiled, asked how they and their families were and took my Trader Joe's bags inside. I listened to them saw and yank. I sulked, I paced. I gazed at the river a few hundred yards away, because the simple, coursing water often quiets all sorts of ills in a way that defies explanation. Didn't work. I was fairly sure this wasn't something that merited a call to the sheriff. It was also outside the purview of the people I rely on to fix things I wish I knew how to fix myself: water-well repairman, contractor, firewood deliverer. A dog. This was a situation in which a dog would come in handy - a big German shepherd type who was secretly a sweetheart. But that wasn't available, either. Onto Google I went, though not in search of property law. What trees grow fastest? I typed, figuring that replacement was the best, least litigious option. Also, I didn't want to look for the survey. Some day our computers will spit out the proper response to this question: Get over your resistance to conflict and march outside. Dude, man up. Instead I clicked on photos of bamboo and pandas. I learned some valuable information that altered my mood not at all. It was a little like going to a therapist. Hours later I inspected the carnage, the innocent limbs left on the ground like a taunt. Once they aged and dried, they would make good kindling. Maybe I could build a bonfire with the waste and light up the river at night. I could stand at the edge, backlit by the flames, and my neighbors could part their blinds and cower at the message I was sending. Or we could just be in the country, not the Terrence Malick movie in my head, and they could wander down to the water and I could offer them a beer and ask how their families are.