Page 32 - ARUBA TODAY

A32 FEATURE
Tuesday 4 June 2019
Wattle fences: Weaving branches takes time, yields rewards

By CAIN BURDEAU ingly robust — comes from
Associated Press weaving twigs in opposite
CONTRADA PETRARO, Sic- directions around the posts.
ily (AP) — They come in So, if you start one twig on
the middle of the night the inside of a post, it then
and are gone by morning. gets woven around the
But without fail, they leave outside of the next post,
their calling cards: Pronged the inside of the next one,
footprints and gashes in the and so on. The next twig
ground where they've dug fed into the fence goes the
with natural abandon. opposite direction: outside
This nocturnal troublemak- of post, inside, outside.
er in mountainous northern It was quiet work. I cut and
Sicily is the "cinghiale," the stripped branches pruned
wild pig, a bane to those from olive and ash trees,
who tend a garden. and listened to the water
When I came to live with in a river running far down
my wife and two boys on a along the valley bottom.
small abandoned farm that The bells of sheep and
we bought here in the Ma- cows in far-off pastures
donie Mountains, the locals twinkled in the air; the wild
quickly instilled a fear of the shouts of herders were in-
cinghiale in me. According This March 26, 2018 photo shows Cain Burdeau cutting to length a branch to make a post for a comprehensible riddles
to many people, these ani- garden wattle fence in Contrada Petraro in the mountains of northern Sicily. that kept me company.
mals have made garden- Associated Press Sometimes, I paused in my
ing nearly impossible. slow, steady work to catch
The wild pigs disappeared chokes. Many people string up fence? sight of a screeching bird
from Sicily around the end I began to think harder electric fences around gar- I had a vague notion, but rushing through the trees.
of the 19th century, but about fences that would dens. But there are prob- needed to look it up in a I started my first fence in
their numbers have explod- keep out the wild pigs. lems: Besides costing a fair dictionary. It was a eureka early March, and six weeks
ed since they were reintro- Our farm, like much of the amount, they can malfunc- moment: A wattle fence is later I stood back and ad-
duced more than 20 years countryside hereabouts, tion, and pose the obvious made of sticks driven into mired my handiwork. Defi-
ago and crossbred with is patchily ringed by wire problem of causing nasty the ground and interwoven nitely, it had been a lot of
domesticated pig species, fences threaded with electric shocks. with twigs and branches. work. But I was satisfied.
authorities say. strands of barbed wire. Sturdy wire fences with ce- Then I did the next obvious Aesthetically, it was pleas-
Plant a vineyard? Don't These fences weren't de- ment posts are common. thing: an internet search. ing in its inexactness, ram-
bother, locals told me. signed to keep wild pigs But I found them unattract- Sure enough, a few people bling and irregular lines, its
They'll eat all your grapes. out but to keep flocks of ive, expensive and boring out in the world were wat- woodiness.
Put up a fence and they'll sheep in. Held up by with- to look at with their unifor- tling, and happy to show I was happy to have used
find a way in. These pigs ered sticks and even sec- mity in shape and purpose. how it is done on home- twigs and branches that
can jump 3 feet off the tions of plumbing pipe, they Besides, I was told that pigs made videos. otherwise would have
ground, I learned. were old and falling over. will get under them eventu- A wattle fence is simple. It's been burned, either in the
One neighbor told me he They were useless, and a ally. made by pounding posts wood stove or as bonfires.
was removing his vine- nuisance. One section cut As spring approached into the ground — say 12 The wattle fence, I learned,
yard due to the pigs and across our land and had to — and with it an urge to inches deep — and then was an ancient technique
their bottomless appetites. be removed both for safe- sow seeds and plant veg- weaving twigs and branch- in use until the 1900s. Wattle
"They're terrible," he said ty and ease of passage. I etables — we still had no es in and out of the posts. panels are still intact inside
with regret. didn't want my boys to get fence. At the very least, a twig many British homes built
But I had visions of turning caught on the barbed wire And on several crisp win- needs to be woven around centuries ago. Archae-
sections of our three acres while they were running ter mornings, I found the three posts so that it stays in ologists have found wattle
into garden spots overflow- and playing. telltale signs of wild pigs: place. fence remains dating to
ing with carrots, tomatoes, With wire cutters in hand, I big holes dug around ol- The fence's robustness — the ninth century A.D. in
cucumbers, herbs, arti- removed these obstacles. ive trees and along mud- and it does become surpris- Britain.q
dy trenches where rains
drained off our hillsides.
The power of their snouts
was impressive. The pigs
root in search of tubers
and other buried delights,
and can make it look like
a mechanized tiller guided
by a phantom got loose
overnight.
As it happened, one eve-
ning as I read Leo Tolstoy's
masterpiece "Anna Kar-
enina," I paused halfway
through one of his descrip-
This May 4, 2018 photo shows a wattle fence made to protect a tions of Russian country life. This March 26, 2018 photo shows Cain Burdeau hammering into
garden on a property in Contrada Petraro in the mountains of He depicted a countryside the ground a post for a garden wattle fence he's making in Con-
northern Sicily. strung with wattle fences. trada Petraro in the mountains of northern Sicily.
Associated Press What exactly IS a wattle Associated Press