Imagine , if you will , every apartment door , every house, everywhere ,on 1/4 acre lots. All have a NO TRESPASSING sign on them "for legal reasons" . The lawyers have officially taken over this country because we let them . We do not have that now because there is a different way of thinking. There is always going to be the "Hey you kids, get off of my lawn" types. Story's of needless destruction by careless, bad , people can go on and on forever. We grew up in a simpler time. My dad was told many times to "post" the property but he would have none of it. If some (usually) kids were camping in the back tree line, he would bring them a trash bag. If he saw some one picking apples out of the orchard , he would say "come up and get some ripe ones , those on the tree are still bitter. These are sweet." The point of this is to say that no one will remember how many apples we lost that we could have sold. We will always remember that , although he was from a small town, OVER 1300 PEOPLE went to his funeral. ......... I moved away over 30 years ago and didn't know he even knew that many people !
It sounds like your father was a fine man. Most people nowadays don't exhibit that kind of character; which is why others need to post "No Trespassing" signs.