A Feral Epiphany.....

I realized tonight that I have spent a fair amount of time with things feral.

Back in the day, we had the Arroyo Seco Wild Irish Pig Company.....raising Russian Imperial Boar on our pathetic little ranch the other side of the Cahoon Grade. Well, it was 1500 acres....and maybe the ranch was not as pathetic as the ranchers....

Here we are on a marketing trip in San Francisco in 1979......I am on the left. My partner and brother-in-law is on the left. The foto was taken a half hour before Michael barfed on Dianne Feinstein's shoes.....an action for which I will always revere him. No politician has ever more deserved projectile Irish pig-farmer barf on her shoes than Dianne Feinstein.

(Note the roasted head of a pig stuck on the end of a shovel handle, protruding in front of our chauffeured limousine.....Body By Ford. The Only-In-San Francisco note of this event is that....the day was Saint Patrick's Day...and it was pissing rain and we all ran the effects of hypothermia from hanging out for hours beneath a drizzle of rain and Jameson. I drove the Beast Wagon downtown to Union Square after the Barf Incident to buy dry clothes for all of us at Macy's.....I double parked and made my purchases. When I emerged from Macy's....some San Franciscan had stolen the roasted pig head.........for what completely perverted and completely interesting purpose one can only imagine.....and be pissed at not having been invited to......)

Our Wild Boar were visually pure......long black hair, big shoulders, small hams, and a seriously pissed off attitude.

We started our Wild Boar business and got good graphic design behind us.....My friend Jeff Sax did our logo...... (We won the Jonathon Livingston Seagull Award that year for Best Graphic Design........)


But, the pigs themselves were genetically, technically......feral.

We caught the ancestors of our tribe of wild boar at the Search Ranch on Tassajara Road one Christmas morning.

Catching wild boar on Christmas morning? Mothers don't let their daughters grow up to be caterers......

That morning.....I know longer remember what the draw was, but it was pre-children....say 1977 or 1976. What else does Christmas morning in Carmel Valley have to offer for single people?

Chasing baby wild boar, apparently.

Our friends who were tenants of the Search Ranch directed us to some old abandoned chicken coops: "They are all down there......They are tearing up shit, but they are little......We think there is no mom."

What followed was total Charlie Chaplin physical comedy.....white boys and girls charging through the mud, and at one point even charging through a wall....diving into the grass and kidnapping baby pigs.

We got three....they weighed approximately four or five pounds. Even though they looked to be pure wild hog....they were technically just regular feral pigs....

This weekend we had my friend Helaine out to help us build our kitchen garden for this year. Her business is The Raised Bed......turn-key gardens. (I know you know how to do this gardening stuff.....you also are really good at ironing shirts........good use of your time?)

I tried to describe our situation in Cachagua to Helaine before she came out: riverbed sandy soil with boulders.....screaming summer sun, freezing hard-frost winter cold, overflowing creek on occasion, fifty feral chickens.....

Fifty feral chickens?

Yeah.....really.

The local Mexicans drop off all the gay roosters.....or the peace-love-tie-dye roosters that won't fight....and we have a sufficient supply of hens that there are chickens everywhere, and eggs pretty much everywhere as well.

Our feral chickens help me out with the compost in summer....as soon as I move the tarps that cover the piles they all come rushing over to feast.....but the rest of the time having fifty feral chickens is like having fifty Energizer Bunny weed-whackers randomly cruising your property.....only the strong herbs and veggies survive.

In our case that means: rosemary, gnarly piss-tasting epazote, and hunted, stunted fear-driven mint.

Our chickens fly. The only reason the hawks, bobcats, pumas, snakes, camp dogs and hungry Mexicans have not exterminated them is that they are fast on the ground......and they sleep in trees.

On the morning just before Christmas when I came to work to find our entire water system frozen shut......I walked outside to check the areal water-line over the creek.....to find a dozen chickens dozing in the pale morning sun on my frozen water line.....eight feet off the ground over the Creek.

The future success of our kitchen garden depends on our gathering up and civilizing our feral chickens......

Grant and Dave offered to help in the trapping process and the whole penning up process. They are experts......

Because.....

Grant and Dave are Feral Humans!

They draw almost no nuture from government or any civilized institution......they live by their wits......and they technically don't exist.

And.....from time to time....they are a huge pain in the ass.

And.....from time to time.....their mere existence and spirit inspire us.

Unlike our feral roosters....Grant and Dave are not reproducing. I am not sure if this a good our bad thing....

But....picture the savings for our government. Suddenly there could be no more homeless people.

None.

No stigma for failing to care for our poorest and most unable.....Ronald Reagan's miraculous legacy of Anti-Commie Cowboy and Kommie Gobment Killer could be extra polished....

All the completely crazy, or slightly crazy people Ronnie dumped from any hope of state care and released under our Republic's most popular warm bridges and freeway overpasses......

Could be re-labled....and further disappeared!

They are not Homeless.........

They are Feral Americans!

They have rights to pursue their lifestyle outside of social and government assistance and interference.....

Get them off the books and back on their own.

I gotta call Rush Limbaugh.....

Viva Feral Americans!