May 22 - Lisa's Musings (on baby fox) and Every Day Life

There's never a dull moment out in the country. Ever.

Today, after an aborted trip to Ann Arbor when the skies opened on the Jackson Road Cruise and before I even got to the city line -- I turned around and came home.

Where the sun was shining. Sure, everything was soaked, but I decided to head out and shoot a few photos of my newly emerging flowers.

What I came across was even more exciting.

I have a baby fox here. Actually, two little ones, but one's a lot less fearful than the other, and they apparently like the tall grass outside of my little storage shed.

As I was wrapping up the flower photo shoot, I looked out over my little kingdom and there it was -- a little fox. It looked at me. I looked at it. It looked at me and I was mesmerized.

Then, it took off behind the shed so I figured it had gone wherever little fox like to hang out during the day when there's acres of woods behind this house ripe for wee foxes.

So, the dogs and I headed out into the fenced dog yard. But wait, there was a little fox tail behind the shed. It watched me. I watched it. It watched me. I watched it as I walked ever closer to the far end of the dog yard that's closest to the shed.

And then I saw a bonus baby. But it saw me and was gone -- vroom ... off into the great woods where foxes don't have to deal with dogs that look like them and people.

I debated getting the camera because, of course, it was inside the house upstairs and I'd need a long lens to get a photo of the little cutie. I hung out and watched the little one while Driver did his best tolling (leaping through the air and pouncing, running, leaping, bouncing -- kinda like Tigger).

The fox was nonplussed. And try as he would, Driver finally gave up attempting to lure the little red guy any closer. Tolling works to draw in ducks, but, fox not so much.

When the fox took a lie down in the tall grass, I headed upstairs to get the camera, change the lens, figuring that the baby would be long gone before I got back down there and into position.

But if you look very closely between the tree and the shed, you'll see the outline of a fox head and ears.

OK, so they're not the best photos but, try as I might, coughing (which is second nature these days) banging the fence, calling "Here little fox," clucking like a chicken ... the little fox was not getting up to cooperate for a photo opp.

Sure, it got up once and changed positions, but, I have a healthy respect for Mother Nature and her creatures. I was feeling just fine with a fence between the little fox and I. I wasn't getting any closer.

What struck me as interesting was the fox saw the dogs. The dogs saw the fox, yet they never barked. Rather, they tried to lure it closer by tolling, and when that didn't work, they went off and did what dogs do in their dog yard.

Perhaps there's something to be said about how close dogs and fox are when it comes to the hierarchy of the food chain.

And I think I've figured out why I don't have a family of ground hogs under the shed this year.

Fox trump ground hog, right?