Get the Fuck Off My Lawn
Alone and deep in Nature, it is never bears of which I fear, but rather good ol’ boys, packing guns, high on cheap beer, adrenaline, and misogyny, and in search of animals to shoot. Please don’t confuse me for a pleathure-wearing vegan. While there is no joy attached to killing any living creature, I’ve taken great pleasure in hunting dinner: felling birds, stalking deer, eviscerating pigs. I grok the desire to hunt for clean, wild food. The pangs of sadness I feel for culled woodland creatures are dwarfed by remorseful waves the size of those at Nazaré after passing a truck loaded with livestock en route to slaughter. There are not enough tears to cry for an animal raised on a feedlot.
Our patch of earth in northern Italy’s rural Piemonte is situated on the side of a wooded canyon in a culture deeply rooted in its peasant-farmer past. In the prevalent use-whatcha-got mentality, old men navigate older tractors on localitas ribboning the hills; burgeoning hazelnut orchards swath larger and larger parcels as the nuts command more and more euros; and fields of dark earth elevate the lowly potato to cult status announced on grand signs in tiny towns. Just beyond the hubbub of the Barolo and Barbaresco wine-growing areas, this Alta Langhe region is colder, less manicured, more Piemontese.
Like the hours-long daily lunchtimes, Sunday rituals are non-negotiable. Geezers meet for morning coffee in the piazza while church bells peal an invitation to the faithful, a sound that resonates so profoundly even I feel the tug. Extended families gather for elaborate meals of local foodstuffs, sometimes in brightly-lit dining rooms or more often at home, prepared by matriarchs force-feeding tradition for a few hours every Sunday afternoon.
It’s also hunting day.
Shotgun blasts ring out over the hills from dawn ’til dusk, echoing and reverberating long after life has expired. Rusty, mud-covered Pandas with empty dog crates are parked haphazardly next to the roads, the owners and their canines deep in the barren winter woods. Hunting as a team, they radio one another as they close in on one of the thousands of wild boar who tear up the hillsides, leaving the earth scarred and disfigured. In the evenings, I hear the cinghiale in the forest below, snorting and rooting and fucking. I envy their abandon.
On hunting days, heartbreakingly young cinghiale often high-tail it across the yard from the property above, trying in vain to evade the dogs. Before it became our home, the old-timers hunted our mostly-abandoned land for untold years. We hung ‘private property’ signs, but couldn’t locate ‘no hunting’ signs in any of the hardware stores, as this ritual is so baked into the culture. We even added a couple of cameras for security, catching two hunters walking with their rifles next to our front door while we were away.
One Sunday in late autumn, a young man with a rifle and three dogs walked across our land, audaciously hopping over the electrified pig fence. We ran after him, pleading for him to stop and speak with us, calling to mind a humiliating day during college pursuing a customer down Boston’s Newbury Street who had neglected to tip me, both times giving chase in an apron. Like those cheapskates, the hunter kept moving at a fast clip. When we finally caught up to him and his entourage, he was red-faced and yelling, a mix of embarrassment and anger at the two women hunting the hunter. Unsure how to best proceed, lingually or culturally, we turned to the senior member of the hunting party, an ancient gnarled man with few teeth and a calm demeanor. We explained we now owned the property and no longer wanted it hunted, and further, that it was a matter of respect, a word not taken lightly in these parts. Mortified by the younger man’s behavior, he apologized, vowing to inform the other hunters in the area. Not one camouflaged soul has approached the property since.
The unwelcoming ‘private property’ signs on the gate, not a common site on Piemonte’s wild lands, are a tad “get the fuck off my lawn.” A parcel arrived from a wood-cutter in Ukraine, an artisan still able to ply his craft. Two large oak peace signs now hang from our front gates, but at the very bottom of one of the gates hangs a small metal sign, which explains the property is surveilled by cameras.
Trust but verify.
