To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] Trespassers, dealing with
Date: Fri, 24 Nov 2006 09:09:38 -0600
Years ago I was at a dinner party at a nearby
friend's house. Guests included our elected
county judge. During after-dinner talk, John
noted that the most contentious cases he heard
involved property line disputes and charges of
trespassing. Serious felonies caused anger but trespassing caused rage.
Something there is in many of us otherwise gentle
folk that brings out the base animal within when
our territory is invaded. This article by TNYT
gardening editor motivates me to ask you how you
feel about and deal with those who violate your property rights.
EVEN though I grew up around hunters, Ive been
wary of guns all my life. Ive never wanted to kill a goose, or a deer.
But here I am, standing in the meadow, inserting
a slug into the chamber of my single-barrel
shotgun. I lift the gun to shoulder level, left
eye closed and right eye open, and sight down the
smooth barrel. I try to keep my arms steady as I
aim for the middle of a cross taped onto plywood.
The boom of igniting gunpowder, the cloud of
smoke, are a shock to the senses. A hole the size
of a grape is punched through the target by the
slug, which is designed to expand on impact.
Two inches from dead center, says my boyfriend,
Rock, who is already a good shot, focusing his little scope on the target.
So why is a peacenik garden writer learning how to use lethal firearms?
For one thing, when we first moved to the farm,
in central Maryland, we found a number of guns,
unloaded shotguns and .22 rifles, stashed in
closets, and ammunition tucked into bedroom
drawers. We gathered them up, to keep them out of
the reach of children and visitors. But handling
them sparked our interest, and we decided that
learning how they worked was safer than studied ignorance.
When I came back to my family homestead about 15
years ago, no one had been regularly walking the
125-acre property. My father had died after a
long illness, and my mother confined her walks to the yard.
I found the tracks of all-terrain vehicles
crisscrossing the woods. These machines have come
with suburbia, and the houses cropping up on the
old fields. The new residents dont want to walk
down to the stream or through the woods. Some of
them even joyride through fields of young green wheat.
Sometimes I could trace the tracks back to a
particular house, in which case I would try to
talk to the people living there and invite them
to enjoy our land on foot. I often met resistance.
Oh, we werent hurting anything, one man told
me. We just like to get out in the woods and enjoy nature.
When I explained that his machine was eroding the
stream banks, crushing wildflowers and disturbing
the birds and other animals, and that besides, he
was trespassing, his patronizing tone took on a hostile note.
Well, he said. We have a different attitude
about nature than you do. We think this woods is for everyone.
I have often used much the same words, picturing
quiet birders, children wading in the stream,
even careful hunters, who keep down the deer
population. But hearing them from someone who
never walks when he can ride filled me with a kind of primitive rage.
Our family has lived here for five generations.
We have a deed dated 1761, which granted
thousands of acres to the Bond family. My
great-great-grandfather, a Pennsylvania Dutch
farmer, was smart enough to marry a Bond, thus
claiming title to about 300 acres. Over time, it
was divided among his descendants.
Owning land is a tricky thing, if you are of the
opinion that most of it was stolen from the
Indians: Who am I to keep people off my
property? But we have preserved the farm under a
conservation easement, meaning it can never be
developed, and are trying to be good stewards.
Many of my new neighbors do not think of land as
something that must be nurtured if it is going to
sustain life. Its a medium, like AstroTurf, for recreation.
When I informed my neighbor that I would call the
police if I found him riding through our woods
again, our polite sparring was over. Its people
like you who ruin things for everyone! he
screamed. Everything was fine until you came here!
Thats when I considered stretching wire taut
between the trees so no one could trespass on my
land. The mans attitude had triggered something
deep inside me that was now rising into my
throat. I wasnt exactly proud of this part of
me, but there it was, my barking dog.
My brother Jim, who owns a farm in western
Maryland, warned me that I could be sued or
imprisoned for injuring a trespasser with such a
barrier. So Rock and I felled trees across the
paths instead. Sometimes, when we hear that
familiar whine, we take chase in our ancient
pickup. Its not that we expect to catch anyone.
Were just making things uncomfortable and most trespassers go elsewhere.
But the idea of learning to shoot one of those
guns never occurred to me, until two winters ago
when I heard what sounded like a chainsaw ripping
through the quiet air of a snowy afternoon. I ran
out to see a bright blue snowmobile careering
over our cornfield, spiraling across its white
blanket of snow, a plume of exhaust in its wake.
I drove after it in my Subaru Forester, waving my
hand as if to say, Slow down.
The driver ignored me, roaring past the front of
my car, then swerving back, and screeching to a
halt a few inches from my window.
When I told him that this was a conservation
area, that we did not allow snowmobiles on our
land, and that if he persisted I would call the
police, he cursed me, told me he would burn down our barn.
As he roared off, I realized how naïve I was
being, confronting these strangers.
I didnt get much help from the state police, who
told me that, essentially, I could bring no
charges other than trespassing because I had no proof of intent.
Like burning down the barn, I guess.
When I called Jim that night, he wasnt
surprised. The state police dont want to get
mixed up in these turf battles, he said. I just
walk the property with my shotgun, broken open,
so people know its not loaded.
So thats what we have been doing lately. And
maybe its luck, but we havent had any trespassers.
A shotgun, at close range, can do a lot of
damage. And fortunately, in Maryland, its
illegal to fire one, even up in the air, to scare someone off your land.
I still dont want to shoot anything, but Im
glad I know how this old shotgun works. In a
strange way, it connects me to my
great-grandfather, who may have walked these very same boundaries.