The Red Fox of Fables Showed up at Our House

Remember those fables and stories about the clever fox that were read to you as a child?
Well they are all based on fact.

 A few years ago the male members of our family were out on the kitchen porch enjoying a cool twilight breeze after a hot summer day. Suddenly Anthony whispered,

 "Don't move. There is a fox between Matt's truck and the car"

Michael quietly called the rest of us to join them; there was a red fox, frozen in place with his head turned our way in surprise. It seemed to me that he he was thinking,

"This is my time to be out and about. What are you doing out here?"

He started to trot across the backyard into some bushes between the corral and the barn, did a u-turn, ran up the hill to double doors of the barn,, made another u-turn and then ran down the hill into the corn. Meanwhile our dog was running circles around the garage  with his nose right to the ground.

Dad yelled at the dog,

"Shadow, the fox ran over there."

Shadow looked up, tore across the yard, dove into the bushes, did a u-turn, ran up the hill and down again, then raced after the fox. If this dog had used his eyes instead of his nose, he would have headed straight into the corn.That clever fox hadn't even been frightened nor in a  terrible hurry as he laid his scent down because he knew exactly how to fool a dog.

This scene was typical around our hobby.

When children live close to the nature and can interact with wide open spaces and a variety of animals and plants, they retain their early childhood sense of wonder, awe and delight in nature. We chose to move out to an old fashioned, small family hobby farm because we couldn't afford all kinds of activities for our kids and we did not want them growing up on the steets or hanging out at shopping malls.  This  life choice also gave us the opportunity to raise our own organic vegetables, eggs, chicken, pork and beef and it immediately became a source of great joy.