I mentioned the birth of a litter (is this the right term?) of foxes earlier this year in the Book of Days. We can hear the kits barking in the night or in the morning as they roam the neighborhood. They seem to have grown rapidly because we now often see them, lying in the warm gravel road at night, hopping up and retreating for cover when our headlights sweep over them, or just prancing across the pastures during the daytime hours. Two new stories of foxen adventures have come to light courtesy of my Mennonite neighbors down the road. First, Paul, reported that the wonderful Buff Orpington rooster we had given him to fertilize the eggs of his hens (he and I are both hoping to increase our flocks) was killed the other night and it was quite clear that the fox that had been carrying off some of the lighter weight hens was responsible. That fox may have been the victim of gardeners’ karma when he tried to sneak into Abe's vegetable garden a couple of nights later. Abe found him the next morning hanging, quite dead, from his electric fence!
