Monday, 11 March 2019

Foxy

Every evening we feed the foxes, and they know our garden is a safe place to be. In the summertime, often we see a fox curled up asleep on the grass by a log or by the wall. They bring their cubs in the summer.

We sometimes have fed them in supermarket packaging containers (the plastic boxes mushrooms come in, for example. In the waste ground beyond our garden they have a neat stash of these containers in a hollow under the low curving branches of a sheltering tree

We know they play in our garden at night because they leave behind toys they have brought up from the park down the hill from us — a ball, a child's shoe, that sort of thing.

This is what they left on the grass last night.







It smells very strongly of fox.


8 comments:

greta said...

what a blessing to have these wild and shy creatures feel at home in your backyard. they must give you endless pleasure. lucky you!

Pen Wilcock said...

I never take it for granted. It is one of the greatest joys of my life.

Sandra Ann said...

They are thanking you for your generosity! I am thoroughly enjoying The Wilderness Within You xx

Pen Wilcock said...

So glad you like it! xx

BLD in MT said...

Ha! How fun! Oooooooh, I do love foxes. They're such smart, elegant, beautiful creatures. I see a couple every year, but oh! To have one come visit on the regular! How spectacular!

Pen Wilcock said...

We subdivided our garden about a third of the way down with a low fece and a central arch. We grow honeysuckle and roses over the arch, there are flower beds either side of the fence, and the (shorter) house side of he garden we have grass and our laundry lines and veggie patch, and the (longer) side beyond we have planted an orchard. My little summerhouse called Komorebi is almost at the bottom of the garden, and I feed the fox on the veranda there. If I'm late, I've known the fox to come and curl up waiting right in the centre of the lower half of the garden, gazing fixedly up at the house through the arch where we couldn't miss him/her. We love them.

kat said...

Ohhh, but you must have had a brief moment of fear that it was the remnant of something once living when you first saw it in the grass?
They are such beautiful creatures aren't they? We are inundated with magpies and jackdaws at the moment, hopping and bopping beneath the food tree near the house. Also a great pleasure xx

Pen Wilcock said...

Well, I was lucky because Hebe found it, not me — but yes, I think there was an uh-oh moment there. In the cherry tree outside my window, I've been watching the jackdaw pair sitting nonchalantly on branches swinging about wildly in the high wind! And our crows come every day to be fed. We find the magpies are more shy that the crows — very smart, though, in their permanent evening dress. x