About a month ago, I had gone out to the shop to feed the cats, and when I came back in, Finley, who was sitting at the table eating breakfast, said, "I just saw a fox!" She said it was running down the hill in the neighbors' pasture.
True to fashion, I responded, "Oh, wow!" looked out the window to see if I could catch a glimpse, but really didn't believe her. I mean, why would there be any foxes around here?
A few days later, when we found a mangled chicken body in the driveway, it occurred to me- she might have been right. "Finely, remember that fox you saw? What color was it?" I asked her. "Red," she responded. "And it had a bushy tail." Oh. [chagrin] We let the neighbors know so they could keep an eye out.
A week or two later, I wandered outside to the usual throng of chickens, but felt like something was missing. No duck laughs. No ducks. I asked Chris if he had seen the ducks. "Yes, I saw them this morning." "Are you sure?" I proceeded to check the ponds. No ducks. Chris realized maybe he didn't see them. It was last night he saw them, past dark, hunting for frogs in the little pond. A more thorough search ensued, and finally, in the pasture just northwest of the shop, he found one, head missing. Chris was despondent.
I can't lie. I wasn't quite as upset as Chris was. We had just had a visit from Chris's trapper friend who bestowed upon us a skunk skin. I had visions of a fox skin dancing in my head. [This is where I can see heads shaking in disapproval. I should try catch and release, right? I'm just not sure where around here would be safe to release a fox where it wouldn't be a nuisance to some other chicken owner, what with the fox's 2-3 square mile territory. Now if we lived anywhere near the Tennessee National Wildlife Refuge...]
So we bought a live trap, and the neighbors set it up in their barnyard for a few days, but no luck. Next we set it up along the fence line between our ponds. Two days of a live chicken for bait and nothing. We put some chicken hearts and gizzards in there and caught one of our cats the first night, then a possum the next. Chris gave up.
This morning, as I was talking on the phone with my neighbor, all of a sudden I heard, "The fox [something, something]! I'll call you right back. [click]" Oh, the agony of suspense! Time dragged. And dragged. Finally, she called back. By the time she had loaded the gun and gotten out there, the fox had run too far off to get a good shot at it.
So what will happen next in this saga of the fox? We shall see... Aside from the danger of losing some good laying hens, I have to admit, I love the drama of country life.
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