She said nature's great until it's not

The morning after going out with us to dinner here in the Glen, Juliette texted me. She was at her place just up the highway.

“We got hit last night.”

I thought, my god, traffic accident? Nope, it was a midnight marauding visit by boars who tore up maybe a third of her and her husband’s lawn in search of underground critter food.

She sent me pics.

It looked like a Komatsu tractor had peeled back and significantly trenched her front yard.

“I think the Battle of the Somme in ‘16 was something like this.”

My WWI trench reference fell flat.

Juliette harks originally from Bermuda, or as she says “one of the lesser-understood Commonwealth.” She is normally laid back, a pretty cool cucumber. But today she was distraught.

And I couldn’t blame her. You work years out here carving and shaping a yard from rocks, mud, and indestructible bamboo, and then what? One morning as you sip your coffee and gaze out the kitchen window, you find your lawn and half your azaleas have been turned upside down and plowed underground?

Like one of those prison movies when the guards arrive for a surprise inspection and give a guy’s cell the “toss.” The boars didn’t care. They probably finished in minutes—got about six worms and then moved on.

Juliette and I started firing chats back and forth, brainstorming how to rain maximum hell on the wiry beasts.

Juliette: I’m hitting Komeri. Gonna buy out their entire boar ‘taisaku’ section.

Jack: Nice one. Komeri’s got like two full aisles. But screw the conventional. I’d go straight for field flame throwers, and go on a mano-a-mano search for the culprits.

They got odors, sounds, fencing, things that glitter. All sounds too weak tbh.

Can’t say I know much about obliteration, but I’d scoop up anything that mentions ‘Pro.’ A message has to be sent, Jules.

Juliette was thinking right. Out here, the moment nature rears its at times terrifying head, we head to Komeri Power, the local home center aimed squarely at the needs of farmers. I.e., not your average customers.

Komeri looks like a four football field sized metal and concrete aircraft hangar stocked high with hardware, tools, equipment, materials, chems, and most importantly when thinking about boars…taisaku, which simply means countermeasures.

(I love the Japanese word taisaku. It translates so innocently. Yet in reality covers everything from a paper clip to hollow point automatic weaponry.)

Cainz is another home center further down the road, but it’s owned by the prissy Tokyu Hands. Cainz is for people looking for a new living room paint color.

“Agree with the immediate Komeri visit,” I chatted. “At Cainz, you might find some pretty fencing. At Komeri they’ll sell you San Quentin barbed wire, illumination, and armed guard towers.”

She went off that morning and purchased an array of smells, sounds, and irritants, all marketed as ‘Pro.’ Juliette told me she learned that boars hate the smell of burned materials too, so she spread ash from their wood-burning oven around for good measure.

A few days later she chatted again. “They’ve been back. Hit again.” She was now talking obliteration.

Juliette: Too bad Japan’s banned firearms.

Jack: Tell me about it. Blam! Take that, mama pig.

I know a hunter down the road from us. We’re gonna contract—he’ll set some cages and we’ll get these guys.

BBQ…I call dibs! I get slabs of meat, no organs or snouts please.

Boars need to die.

Boars need to grill. Toru makes an amazing sauce. And I can bring the Shiraz.

I went over to see the damage up close. It really was a trench. I didn’t say it, but the pigs’ work almost looked personal.

Juliette pulled a cold Sauvignon Blanc from the fridge and poured us both a glass. We sat on the edge of her deck out in the garden.

“This is when we want to be living in America,” I said. “Flip thirty bucks at the 13-year old kid and his pa down the road and they bring the family shotgun. Dinner!”

Our exchanges over the past days got me thinking. When confronted with a setback, how quickly our initial countryside dreams of being One With the Earth and I’d Just Like Some Fresh Air and Peace go out the window.

One garden trashing on a random Saturday night and we’re wondering if Komeri stocks napalm.

I think Juliette and I are quite similar. We both have pretty high-paced careers in the Edo concrete jungle across the bay, but the grind got to us over time and left us with a feeling there’s more—or at least something different—in the sticks. We didn’t know each other at the time, but we both started modest homes within a car ride from the concrete to begin to recapture some rest and peace.

“Nature’s great, until it’s not,” Juliette told me. “Moles attack, those huge wasps come, now boars, and I head to Komeri for weaponry.”

Juliette took another pull of her white wine and squinted at nothing in particular across the yard.

“Stay in your fucking lane, Nature,” she said in a quiet, even voice.

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