Opening Day Posting
A.V. Walters
We’ve debated it. After all, we don’t want to appear unfriendly to our new neighbors. Ultimately, we decided that we needed to establish our boundaries. The land has been vacant for twenty-five years and others have come to see it as open land, or even as something to which they have a right. In just this past year we’ve had trespassing mushroom pickers, berry pickers, Christian campers (claiming a leasehold from our neighbor! Lord only knows who has boundary problems in that equation), road commission workers and a farmer who finds it more convenient to park his heavy equipment on our land whilst he works his own. Apparently building a house is not enough to telegraph the message that we are here.
On our back property line, new neighbors, who are diligent about posting their own property, are not mindful of ours. They took a page from the farmer, and planted and poisoned to the very edge of their land, using ours for their tractor access and turnaround. They are not farmers; they plant a large “feed plot” to attract deer. I hope they are better hunters than they are gardeners. They inspired our decision to post, but they weren’t the only reason that we broke down and bought “No Hunting, No Trespassing” signs. As any good psychologist will tell you, one needs to establish healthy boundaries.
Yesterday was a beautiful day and we took full advantage to traipse about the property, hiking, surveying and putting up new signs. The signs from twenty-five years ago are long gone. They were sturdy metal signs, but the words have long since faded, they’ve been shot at, torn down, or the trees on which they were posted have toppled. If we were going to do it, yesterday was the day. Today is Opening Day.
For those who are not rural, Opening Day is a big deal. This next couple of weeks marks the official and traditional hunting season. Of course, folks have been hunting now in the various “special seasons” for months. There’s bow season, and there are special permits for farmers protecting crops. There must also be some kind of special “youth” hunting—because the pictures of tykes and their “trophies” have been in the local paper for weeks. Still, the die-hard traditionalists wait for Opening Day. That’s the day they all head off to go to Deer Camp.
Hunting season is real. Just try getting your car fixed this week (or worse, if you needed a plumber!) Though not entirely divided by gender, for the most part, men disappear this time of year. You can still find them at the hardware store, or buying liquor at Bunting’s Market, but nowhere else. Even the schools have attendance problems.
Rick bought the signs last week, while I was gone. He bought “Michigan lingerie,” too—the ubiquitous orange vests that make you visible in the woods. When I was a kid, hunters wore cammo gear. I guess it’s lucky that someone finally did research and determined that the deer are color blind; now the hunters can stop shooting each other. In past years, we’ve stayed out of the woods in season. It was safer that way. Of course, it was cold and snowy, too. This year is an ENSO year (El Nino Southern Oscillation) which should bring rain to California and a warm, mild winter here. We’re unwilling to surrender our time in our woods, so we suit up for safety. One would think it was unnecessary on one’s own land, but then, one wouldn’t expect Christian campers, either. We’re wearing the vests.
Cammo hasn’t completely gone out of hunter style, you can buy many, many deer camp accessories with the old pattern, wall paper, upholstered chairs, all-terrain vehicles, even refrigerators and freezers, come in the popular, man-cave pattern.
We wanted to be strategic about the signs. Posting the entire property would be time consuming and expensive. We concentrated our efforts on those areas of known (or suspected) incursion. The back line was easy. Our neighbors had posted numerous, bold, NO TRESPASSING signs, facing in our direction. (They’d even put hand-written additions to their signs, “no cross-country skiing, no hiking.” Sheesh!) We simply posted our orange, day-glo signs to the backs of theirs. There’s a comfortable, tit-for-tat in it, that is satisfying.
Another neighbor had joined in the no-cross-country-skiing litany. We posted there, too. We have always welcomed respectful neighborly use. What is it with this antipathy towards a sport that is so light on the land? And, from people driving ATVs and tractors, too! Go figure.
The surprise was on the Northern line. It’s low-lying, marshy with a small creek running through. We didn’t expect anything there, but it was a nice day and we were walking perimeters. Lo and behold—a neighbor on that side had set up his deer blind on the very edge of his property, facing ours! He’d amply chummed the area (his and ours) with apples. It’s a lovely spot and all—but rules are rules, and if you want to hunt on someone else’s land, you ask first. So we posted there, too. It’ll come as an unwelcome surprise, this morning, on Opening Day, when he sees our orange signs.
There was another odd thing. All around his chummed territory, there were a few apples up high, in the trees. These are not apple trees. We wondered, what possible purpose would those apples serve, up high like that? We decided to ask our friend, Fred, hunter extraordinaire. He laughed, “The hunter didn’t put them there. The thieving squirrels did.” Apparently hunters must endure boundary violations, too. The squirrels make off with the free food—decorating the area like some Christmas tableau. I guess we’re all ready now, for Opening Day.
It’s so interesting to learn about how people live in different parts of the country. And it’s interesting how people can feel kind of a “Bad” about upholding boundaries, isn’t it?
Do they have any bulletproof Michigan lingerie? Sounds like you might need that.
BTW, I think I’d enjoy seeing some cross country skiers gliding by in my backyard.
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I’m not inclined to go bulletproof! And I agree–I don’t mind hikers or cross-country skiers.
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At least Opening Day has given you the opportunity to mark your boundaries at an appropriate moment. There is a lot of hunting here too but you have to have a licence to possess a gun and it means taking lessons and passing a rigorous test. In this area the hunting appears to be controlled by community associations that also interest themselves in the environment. I have never thought to wear an orange vest – but now I think about it the body warmer I am wearing at the moment is bright red. Amelia
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Too many hunting “traditions” combine carrying a weapon and drinking. The orange vest is the easiest way to say, “Don’t shoot me!” to a hunter, who otherwise doesn’t follow the rules. Hang on to that red garment!
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Maybe you should emulate some of the Presidential candidates and put up a huge wall around your property. Don’t forget the concertina wire at the top. (Totally tongue in cheek) but stay safe while hanging out the laundry.
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I’ll pass on the wall–though it reminds me of a great Texas joke. We’re just minding our ps and qs and staying safe within the customs of the area.
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What fun to read this. I mean that as in ‘intriguing’, not joyful. I would think like you–that my neighbors would be respectful of each other. But, it wouldn’t take much more than what I’ve read in your blog to disabuse me of that naive attitude.
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I am cutting slack and assuming that it has to do with the extended period of absentee ownership. Moreover, ours is a large parcel, and somehow, people seem to think that also gives license.
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Saturday was opening day for rifle season here too. Last week I went out and replaced our Posted signs. But we have two problems I hope you’re spared. We have a lot of road frontage so we have the problem of hunters driving slowly down the road at dusk and dawn and shooting from the road. Illegal of course, but common. So I took abandoned election campaign signs and repurposed them as Posted signs, putting them along the road. The second problem we have (and the more serious one) is the use of dogs. Here it’s legal to pursue deer with dogs, so hunters will release a pack of dogs that will chase the deer around while these hunters wait in their trucks for a chance to shoot. The dogs of course don’t respect property lines and when I’ve complained about them on our posted land I’ve been told more than once, “My dogs can’t read.” Grrr….
But fortunately Saturday was quieter than usual. Our community has banded together to police things carefully this year and maybe we starting to have some success. But with another month and a half to go, confrontation is almost inevitable.
Hoping you have a safe and peaceful season.
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We have the advantage (and disadvantage) of being mostly landlocked. We have a thin panhandle that reaches out to the road, but the rest is neighbors. At the moment I’m not sure if that good news or bad news. No drive-by hunters, that’s good. But it also means that if they are scofflaws, they are really our scofflaws.
They don’t hunt with dogs here. I guess that’s a southern thing. (Though Rick wanted me to say that our dogs could read.)
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I’m not a huge fan of guns so when I hear any shooting near our place I head for a safe spot and text the neighbours to find out who it is (because we usually let each other know beforehand). We don’t have dear, but we do have feral pigs and the occasional hunter will come onto our land. We have also put up signs because we’ve noticed recently that the city is encroaching on us. We have a creek and can see the road to the creek from the RUC. We saw lights down there a few weeks back. Who goes fishing at midnight? Hubby headed down there to stop the trespassers and sent them packing. Boundaries are very important and I’m glad you’ve put up your signs 🙂
I love the apples in the trees!
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The city is encroaching here, too.
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Hi-I live in the Northern part of Michigan and we have 20 acres that we’ve tried to keep wild for the animals. It’s worked–it’s a deer/turkey/grouse paradise. But with that comes the age old problem of keeping others OFF our property. Despite well posted boundaries, we still find the occasional hunter helping himself. It’s maddening. I would let them hunt—IF THEY ASKED. But they don’t—they just trespass. Hubby came up with the idea of putting up a few hunting blinds around the back. Now, no one knows if he’s in there or not. Ha!
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Ha, is right. We also have land we want wild. It’s not unused, we harvest deadfall for firewood, pick berries and hike. But we also have issues with hunters who don’t ask. Years ago, my parents put up a blind and it helped. Oddly trespassing hunters respect an owner’s right to hunt more than they respect an owner’s right not to have hunting.(We’re in the tip of the Mitt, too.)
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