I snapped this bobcat photo on April 11th, 2007, just before lunch. The kitty was brown-rabbiting it that day. He dropped his freshly bagged repast under a bush to the left  and moved over here for a wee bit of shade beside the water bowl — and a better view of the camera. It's my bobcat, because I was the first one to see it in this location, and the fool who walked within 12 feet of it for a picture.

It's also my bobcat because it was on my property. Well, not exactly my property in the strictest sense, but mine, as I shall soon prove. We've always claimed enjoyment of part of the field of 4.8 acres of unimproved land behind our .35 acre lot. In an effort to document how I am using that property, I am posting pictures here for millions of viewers.

In the second photo, I've artificially lightened and added contrast to an area beside the yellow arrow to indicate where the bobcat is secreted. (These little critters are known for their excellent camouflage.*)

The red arrow is pointing to my woodpile. Not my whole woodpile, but the green wood pile where we let recent collections season up for the next winter's heating. The top right corner of the photo shows my elevated bird feeding tray. You can't see it clearly, but it's there.

If I were going to be perfectly generous, I would say the firewood and the feline are on the neighbor's property, that my line is just to the right of the scrub oak a few literal inches. That in the top photo, the cat was about two feet outside my boundary.

But now that Boulder, Colorado District Judge James Klein has ordered Don and Susie Kirlin to sign over "34 percent of their 4,750-square-foot lot" to former Boulder District Judge, Boulder Mayor, RTD board member - among other elected positions - *Richard McLean and his wife, attorney *Edith Stevens because McLean and Stevens claimed to have grown fond of trespassing on the Kirlins' land over the last 20 or so years, I need to document that I have been using - without interference or even comment - this section of acreage that has most recently become known as the Seven Vistas Project. It's rumored that the Florida developer is trying to sell off this parcel he bought not long ago, so I may have a few more years to claim my stake in it.

Denver Post staff columnist David Harsanyi calls the Boulder judgment "one of the most absurd cases" he's ever heard of. He wrote, "Property rights, one of the foundational ideas of this nation, mean less and less these days. Abusive eminent domain cases are popping up all over the county."

The ruling was based on a law called "adverse possession" in which people who did not purchase the property, pay property taxes on it, or even maintain it can go to court and claim use of it with such enthusiasm that it, or part of it, is awarded to them.

That's what I'm hoping for with a slice of the 4.8 acres behind me. Let someone else pay the mortgage and the property taxes. Let them refinance when they will, or sell, or even develop it. But so long as I keep my woodpile there, and photograph my pet kitten under the scrub oak — and keep my rain gauges on the other side of this same scrub oak — I think I could one day be the proud owner of at least half an acre. And that's just enough to make the remaining property undevelopable into a nine-home neighborhood, because of a half-acre lot deed restriction on it.

* There are no photos of Richard McLean Edith Stevens using the Kirlins' property, so perhaps they, too, have good camouflage.