Yep, that's Michigan. My family has run into that tree law a few times but I didn't know about the exemption - places we wanted to clear were a LOT smaller than that.

We do have a lot of scrub land around too.

The good news is, I'm pretty sure these guys are going to win their case easily. You can't survey neighboring property and then insist that's how many trees they cut down. That's ridiculous. Even here, they have a good chance of winning with that kind of stupidity.

But you're right: the fact they even were assessed the fine just betrays how little "our" land really belongs to us.

And don't even get me started on what happens if you try to get ahold of raw milk around here.