THE TRIALS OF AN ANGEL Part 11: Spreading Our Wings

The use of guns helped to reduce crop loss. No animals were actually killed. The flash of the discharge and its ear numbing explosion enough to determine the wild boars. They were clever. For a week they stayed away before one or two more dogged hogs crept back and grabbed what they could. Again the noise of the guns scared them off. After a while they all but gave up. It seemed the cat had the upper hand in this particular battle. Regaining control of our vegetable gardens gave us time to improve the barriers and strengthen them by planting hedges for coming years.

The field crops were more difficult to protect. The pigs turned to night raids on the cereals, but the damage they inflicted was fairly minimal. I guess they didn’t find stringy stands of wheat or barley as palatable as tender wild grasses. The main problem was deer and feral farm animals like goats, sheep or horses. There seemed to be hundreds of them living in the woodland outside the estate. Constant dawn raids nibbled away at the edges of fields. Gunshots frightened them into cover, but they quickly re-emerged when it was clear. They grew more wary and hence crafty. The crop losses were down, but daily patrols took its toll. Life became a cycle of morning patrols followed by days of labour building up defences and hedges. Nevertheless pretty much everybody felt it was worth the effort to ensure we could eat well in the future.

Jess proved a good soldier. Liaising with Junior and Alan, he picked out a bunch of guys to train on using the guns and organised a regime of armed patrols around the fields. Generally they went out at dawn and dusk and took turns to set boundary fires and keep guard at night. Things seemed to be going well, Jess and his men gained much respect within the community.

Being aware of Jess’s people skills at moots I made a point of calling regular one on one meetings. I asked him for updates and offered advice on planning. I felt it important to get to know him and the way he thought. Jess was intelligent – I wanted his trust. If he proved reliable and supportive he’d make a good addition to our family. My offspring were around fifty, but due to the lack of partners in the early days their children were pretty young, mostly in their teens. Someone like Jess could be a big help in keeping everyone pulling together. Also it was time the community started organising their own destiny – which of course had always been the aim of the project. I needed any respect he’d built up to benefit to all of us.

The idea of spreading out into the woodlands came from Jess. He reckoned if his a group regularly went deeper and made a lot of noise the frightened animals would stay well away from our boundary, especially if a few shots were fired. It seemed logical although I worried about wasting ammunition. In a get together with Jess and my sons we made a plan where groups of unarmed folks went into the trees making a lot of noise. Each group accompanied by one or two lads with guns. When the plan was put at the following moot it was accepted with enthusiasm. Everyone wanted to get involved, particularly the young men.

I was pleased. Spreading beyond our estate was important. I’d made that point over a year earlier in a moot just after the solar storm. There was a need to explore the land around us and even scavenge for things that could help us. The problem we had the previous growing season with the loss of our crop meant all our efforts were directed at securing our land. There was little time to think about expanding. I felt if Jess’s idea worked it would release more time for people investigate what lay outside our little domain. I had maps, I knew what had been near us. I decided if things went well with Jess’s first forays it was time to encourage organised searches targeting interesting places shown on my charts.

Ordanance survey map image courtesy Wiki commons