Wildlife
Woke up to the sound of a barking fox this morning. I have no idea what that’s all about. Who is calling whom, and why? I suppose I could do some naturalist research and find out, but that will be a later investigation. For the moment, and this little story, I just like hearing the sound and knowing that foxes are about. They seem more elegant than racoons, and I have both.
Videos of people feeding foxes and making pets of racoons are pretty popular, but I like my wildlife wild and timid of humans. I think it’s best for both of us. It’s why, when I hunted deer, I never used a feeder. We went into the woods and looked for them. We hunted. Shooting deer at a feeder is simply killing, and nothing to brag about really. And I still don’t know why it’s illegal to bait dove, but you can bait deer. Who sat down and thought that up?
And none of this is really Christmas sort of talk, although a company I once worked for had an annual father-son hunt at their lease in Brackettville during Christmas vacation time. My youngest son and I had lots of memorable visits. The camp house was in Fort Clark Springs. We never shot anything, but we were surrounded by a flock of wild turkey’s once, we helped a racoon escape a dry water tank, we walked into a herd of javelinas, and we had a lot of nice walks in the woods and around the fort. I’d say those were worthwhile trips. And both of us still like taking walks in the woods.