Yikes...We're being invaded.

Back in the Dark Ages(1977 to be exact) we moved from busy London to an isolated smallholding near St David's in Pembrokeshire. As a parting gift , my school in Haringey presented me with a guide to self sufficiency, by John Seymour. John Seymour was considered to be the guru of the self sufficient life style at that time. This book proved to be an extremely useful manual at first , for we were absolute novices, but as the years passed we became a little sceptical. Some of his advice did not prove quite as useful as we had hoped. Here is one such example: if you want to turn over a piece of land without a tractor , just put some pigs on it. That was all very well, but we only ever had one or two pigs at a time to fatten, and they were kept indoors. But we did not doubt his words. Pigs are indeed very effective at digging up the land. As you will see.

Nappy days!

There are two signs that the sanglier ( wild boar) are present. Wherever you see that something has been digging a hole in the ground, or disturbing a drift of leaves, chances are that it was a sanglier. This is a common sight in the forest, but not in our garden, for we not only have fencing around the entire property, some of it is electric. But alas! Yesterday morning, we woke up to see a distressing sight. Everywhere we looked, areas of earth had been turned over as these large beasts had rooted about, searching for grubs and insects. Clearly, as we slept, a whole porcine battalion, or so it seemed, had been happily foraging beneath our bedroom window, and everywhere else besides.

Sanglier are on the increase throughout Europe. You may have even seen reports from Rome, describing how they have caused upsets within the city itself. Farmers everywhere worry about their crops, and it is becoming exhausting for B. to keep clambering around the property boundaries, to spot and repair gaps where the sanglier have forced their way through. But do we welcome the hunters who claim to keep them under control? NO! You may have already learned from my blogs that hunters make our lives a misery, and in fact their efforts to reduce the sanglier population seem futile. We see more and more sanglier as the years pass. But alas, there is a strong pro hunting lobby in France, and hunting is a way of life . Hasn't anyone out there ever heard of birth control?

But this is not the first sanglier invasion that we have experienced. These fellas were caught on our night vision camera in February 2020.

But there is one moment in the year when we may swallow our pride, and enjoy the fruits of the hunters' labour. And that is....

...La fete de Diane.

What is it they say? If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.