“There’s one,” Dale said, stepping back two paces to look at the plate.

“It’d take a crowbar to get that off the trunk.”

We worked our way steadily down the boundary, measuring two hundred sixty feet between trees.

At each mark, Dale lined up another yellow steel sign and sank two heavy lag bolts through the pre-drilled holes at the top and bottom, fixing my full name and farm address solidly along the edge of the woods.

“Brad came out here three weeks back with a chainsaw,” I said, pointing at a freshly cut brush pile by the second stand.