Feeding the Boars
Planting crops is not as simple as it may seem to a city dweller. It's not simply a question of planting and then waiting for the harvest. There are many things that can eliminate the possibility of the harvest. This year, for example, there is a lack of water that is not helping. Some years pesticides have to be applied thickly if you don't want to feed insects with your work. And, if you plant corn and potatoes, you better make sure there aren't many wild boars in the area.
Anyone who has read the Little House books will remember Laura writing about the rabbits and the deer that would visit their summer garden to eat the tender lettuce and other plants. It wasn't as pleasant as it sounds. It's even worse when, surveying the tall rows of corn, you find a discontinuity, and in that discontinuity the corn stalks are trampled, the corncobs stripped of their corn. Or, when you go to check if the potatoes are ready to be unearthed, you find something has already done you that favor. What these things mean, aside from a neighborhood boar, is that you have no potatoes for the winter, and your chickens have no feed for the year. And you have to spend more money.
So, people try everything and anything to try to frighten off the boars, because it is illegal to hunt them without express authorization. The regional government, by law, is obliged to pay a percentage of the damaged crops to the farmers. But the percentage is ridiculous, and they want you to prove it was boars that did the damage, and not feral dogs, for instance. People simply turn to remedies that others affirm will do the trick. Don't be scared of witches if, walking along a path through the fields, you find human hair stuck on poles along the edge of a cornfield. Or a radio talk show preaching politics at the potatoes and the cabbages. Many people believe that the smell of human hair will frighten off the boars, and go begging for the trash at a hairdresser's. Or that the sound of human voices will make a boar turn around in its tracks and head back up the hill. Many batteries have lived out their lives in radios out in the fields.
Others believe that the smell of burnt sheep's wool will do the trick. Or moth balls. Or firecrackers. That last might scare off the boars, but it might attract the Guardia Civil in such a dry summer. Until it rains it is illegal to set off any type of fireworks except in designated areas. Some farmers get their hands on sulphur and burn it along the edges of the field. So, no the smell of brimstone on a tranquil country walk does not mean you need to call a priest. Someone is trying to preserve their crops till the harvest. And if you see someone going off with a sleeping bag to the fields in the evening, know that that person is not a nature lover going to commune with nature. They are going to sleep by their cornfield so that the boar will see them and decide to dine at another field.
Then there are those desperate farmers that, having tried various remedies to ward off the pests, will try the last card up their sleeves. For that they have to be very careful, because the law is not on their side. It is illegal to hunt and kill a boar without permission. The reason is that they are an endangered species. But that depends on where you go. They may have been endangered ten years ago, but now it's quite common to see them, including on the roads. The other morning, my husband had to avoid a family of four just down the road. He had no time to brake the car, and was extremely lucky no other car was coming in the opposite direction at the time. In some towns, the boar families will come into town and wander the streets, stopping to eat at the garbage containers. Some even act as pets and walk up to people. It hasn't gotten to that extreme here, yet, but they are becoming too common.
And farmers are getting fed up. So they set up traps in the woods to try to kill any boar that might fall into them. The latest was discovered in the woods near Muxía. A patrol of Guardia Civiles, traipsing through the woods, making sure no one was setting a fire, found an artifact perfectly camouflaged in the underbrush. When they carefully brought it out, they discovered a homemade mechanism with twenty-seven 12 calibre bullets set to shoot whenever a boar tripped over a wire. The Guardia Civil investigated, and discovered that a farmer from Muxía had set it up to stop any boar from reaching the fields. I would hate to think what it might have done if someone out for firewood had tripped the wire. Even if the bullets were set to shoot at boar-height, that would have meant a possibly life-threatening wound in the legs, far from help.
Hey, boars, if we drop you some potatoes in the woods, will you leave our crops alone?
Anyone who has read the Little House books will remember Laura writing about the rabbits and the deer that would visit their summer garden to eat the tender lettuce and other plants. It wasn't as pleasant as it sounds. It's even worse when, surveying the tall rows of corn, you find a discontinuity, and in that discontinuity the corn stalks are trampled, the corncobs stripped of their corn. Or, when you go to check if the potatoes are ready to be unearthed, you find something has already done you that favor. What these things mean, aside from a neighborhood boar, is that you have no potatoes for the winter, and your chickens have no feed for the year. And you have to spend more money.
So, people try everything and anything to try to frighten off the boars, because it is illegal to hunt them without express authorization. The regional government, by law, is obliged to pay a percentage of the damaged crops to the farmers. But the percentage is ridiculous, and they want you to prove it was boars that did the damage, and not feral dogs, for instance. People simply turn to remedies that others affirm will do the trick. Don't be scared of witches if, walking along a path through the fields, you find human hair stuck on poles along the edge of a cornfield. Or a radio talk show preaching politics at the potatoes and the cabbages. Many people believe that the smell of human hair will frighten off the boars, and go begging for the trash at a hairdresser's. Or that the sound of human voices will make a boar turn around in its tracks and head back up the hill. Many batteries have lived out their lives in radios out in the fields.
Others believe that the smell of burnt sheep's wool will do the trick. Or moth balls. Or firecrackers. That last might scare off the boars, but it might attract the Guardia Civil in such a dry summer. Until it rains it is illegal to set off any type of fireworks except in designated areas. Some farmers get their hands on sulphur and burn it along the edges of the field. So, no the smell of brimstone on a tranquil country walk does not mean you need to call a priest. Someone is trying to preserve their crops till the harvest. And if you see someone going off with a sleeping bag to the fields in the evening, know that that person is not a nature lover going to commune with nature. They are going to sleep by their cornfield so that the boar will see them and decide to dine at another field.
Then there are those desperate farmers that, having tried various remedies to ward off the pests, will try the last card up their sleeves. For that they have to be very careful, because the law is not on their side. It is illegal to hunt and kill a boar without permission. The reason is that they are an endangered species. But that depends on where you go. They may have been endangered ten years ago, but now it's quite common to see them, including on the roads. The other morning, my husband had to avoid a family of four just down the road. He had no time to brake the car, and was extremely lucky no other car was coming in the opposite direction at the time. In some towns, the boar families will come into town and wander the streets, stopping to eat at the garbage containers. Some even act as pets and walk up to people. It hasn't gotten to that extreme here, yet, but they are becoming too common. And farmers are getting fed up. So they set up traps in the woods to try to kill any boar that might fall into them. The latest was discovered in the woods near Muxía. A patrol of Guardia Civiles, traipsing through the woods, making sure no one was setting a fire, found an artifact perfectly camouflaged in the underbrush. When they carefully brought it out, they discovered a homemade mechanism with twenty-seven 12 calibre bullets set to shoot whenever a boar tripped over a wire. The Guardia Civil investigated, and discovered that a farmer from Muxía had set it up to stop any boar from reaching the fields. I would hate to think what it might have done if someone out for firewood had tripped the wire. Even if the bullets were set to shoot at boar-height, that would have meant a possibly life-threatening wound in the legs, far from help.
Hey, boars, if we drop you some potatoes in the woods, will you leave our crops alone?
Comments
Post a Comment