Forked Creek – Chapter 4
Setting the Trap
Adam arrives on Monday ready for work, his battered Nissan pulling a trailer stacked with gear. I cajole him into joining us for lunch.
Lunchtime is the main social occasion of our farm life. I feed my workers well. Or rather: Rosa, our plump, cheery, dark-eyed cook, feeds them with opulent abundance.
She and the farm manager, Oliver – a tall, spare Canadian with a Wyatt Earp moustache – are the only two paid staff on Forked Creek Farm. Everyone else here, besides me, has come for a working holiday. They’re hoping to learn new skills and make new friends. It has to be a pleasant experience for them.
Illicit substances are not encouraged; excessive alcohol consumption is frowned upon. Harrassment or bullying will get you off my land before your feet can touch the ground. Otherwise, the young folk can party hard – as long as they work hard first.
To that end, I put a lot of thought into creating a social space for them, back in the early days. I had a big shearing shed that was no longer required, with the shift to polyculture and the consequent reduction of the flock.
Oliver and I transformed that draughty, inhospitable tin shed, with the help of our first enthusiastic volunteers.
The roof and walls were insulated, the slatted floor of the holding pens replaced by solid boards. Fallen timber was sawn on-farm (Lord bless the inventor of the Lucas Mill) to fashion a ten-metre refectory table and benches. A cast-iron potbelly stove was installed for the chilly winter nights. Old armchairs and a sofa were rescued from a house clearance.
Oliver, Rosa and I sleep in the farmhouse; the volunteers sleep in two gender-segregated yurts. Couples can get a little privacy in a dome tent or in the beat-up old caravan. Happily christened the Shaggin’ Waggon.
Everyone is free to use the farmhouse kitchen at breakfast time, as long as their boots and hands are clean. It’s lovely to be greeted by bright-eyed young things when this old girl, feeling every year of her ancient forty-seven, staggers Medusa-haired out of her bedroom. The energy and resilience of the young never cease to amaze me.
At lunch in the shearing shed, Adam arouses interest, which he deals with pleasantly, but without giving much away. He listens politely to Emmi’s lecture on animal welfare; deftly avoids a dick-measuring contest with Texas Dan on hunting weaponry; shows genuine interest in Elsa’s Icelandic homeland and the finer points of Viking sheep.
After lunch he excuses himself to go and set up his pig traps. Oliver and I allocate the afternoon’s work, while today’s washing-up crew clatter with the pots and pans in the wash-up area.
All chores around the farm are done on a rota basis. Only Rosa and Oliver are exempt. The least popular chore is ‘dunny duty’: cleaning the toilets and replacing the big bins full of shit and sawdust. I pull my weight in all the chores. I believe in leadership from the front and besides: it’s fun.
As the shadow of the big redgum stretches across the home paddock, I hop on the quad and go see how Adam is getting on over at the orchard.
He has erected two weldmesh cages, chest high and about five by three metres, with a sturdy steel frame. The traps each have two drop doors, which slide vertically in two channels. When both are open, animals can pass through them freely. When both fall, the trap is sealed. They can be operated remotely or set to trip automatically, he shows me.
I help him to pile over-ripe fruit around the traps. ‘We need all this,’ he says, indicating two generous barrow-loads, ‘around the traps in piles. Inside and out. And we’ll need the same every night, for about a week. The rest of the windfall fruit around the orchard needs cleaning up.’
I promise to get someone on the task right away.
The first stage is habituation, he explains. The pigs must get used to the traps’ presence in the orchard; then they need to forage freely around the traps and enter and leave them unhindered, with both doors open. This will take at least three nights, he reckons; maybe a lot longer. He has set up trail cameras to monitor the traps, so he can watch porcine goings-on through his phone overnight.
‘And then?’
‘I start to trap pigs.’
‘How many are you expecting to get?’
‘Judging by the spoor down at the creek, there’s at least two breeding sows, one young litter and one half-grown. So about twelve pigs. And one real big old momma pig, the matriarch. Could be as big as eighty, ninety kilos.’
‘No boar?’
‘Unlikely. They don’t hang around unless the girls are in heat. It will be the sows that killed your dogs. Get between a momma pig and her babies, and she’ll tear you up real good.’
‘So why such small traps, for so many pigs?’
Adam shrugs. ‘Couple of reasons.’
‘Sorry, not trying to question your competence. Just interested.’
‘Well, I could build a big old corral trap out of fencing panels and star pickets, like some farmers do. But – I have to carry all this gear around on my trailer. Put it all up and take it all down. And according to the regs, I’m supposed to kill each animal with a clean head shot. Difficult if they’re tearing around a hundred square metres, bouncing off the walls.’
‘So how do these farmers do it?’
‘Some don’t. They don’t give a rat’s about the regulations. Just keep shooting until they’re all dead.’
‘And you have to play by the rules – because you’re a licensed eradicator?’
‘Exactly. One complaint about animal cruelty, by some “concerned citizen” and I get an inspector breathing down my neck.’
‘What will you do with the piglets?’
‘That’s what the pump-action shotgun is for.’
I must have winced. Adam gives me a long, steady look. Appraising. ‘Make no mistake: this is going to be bloody. And some people will find it upsetting. It would be good to keep your little eco-warriors away while I’m dealing with the pigs. Give ’em jobs at the other end of the farm.’
Whoa. Say what?
‘That’s a bit patronising. They can handle the realities of farm life. They’re tougher than they look.’
Adam arches a brow.
‘Emmi? Javier? Sweet kids, but they’re idealists.’ He says the word with a sneer. It makes his face momentarily less beautiful, like a dark cloud passing over the sun.
I’m about to launch into a heated defence of Emmi and Javier – and of idealism in general – but I know full well that Adam has a point. I just don’t like anyone but me criticising my people.
Besides, I like to have the last word. You can take the barrister away from the Bar, but …
So, let it pass, girl.
I shrug my shoulders. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
With thanks to Susan Fendt for the audio reading.
Next week in ‘Forked Creek’:
Chapter 4: After Dark
Around the campfire songs are sung, stories told … and midnight liaisons arranged?