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On Your Antenna? You Must Be Joking!

     Hey, everyone. We have had an abundance of rain lately, at the green retreat. When this happens and our creek gets a decent amount of water in it, we always start seeing more animals. This morning we had a fox drift across the back yard within 10 feet of our glass doors. The picture quality is poor because you just have time to blindly grab a camera and point it in the critter's general direction and fire. Speaking of firing, can you believe that folks around here sometimes kill a fox or a coon merely for the purpose of hanging his tail on the antenna of their truck? I hate to be critical but I find this a bit barbaric.
     I know that your typical fox would be surprised if I mentioned this practice to him. I can see the fox looking at me with incredulity and saying, "On your antenna? You can't be serious!"
    Back to the subject of animal sightings and rain. When the rains come you will see an abundance of deer if you are driving at night. They have been laying up pretty close to permanent water during the dry spell and when the rains come they venture out to new forage, knowing that there will be water, at least pooled on rocks and hollows.
     The animals around here have evidently grown accustomed to Carley and I because they just trot or walk away when they see us. It's like the word is out in the animal kingdom. "Those old fogies are harmless." I don't know if they have someone monitor people's car antennas or what.
    Though I hate to sound ghoulish, I sort of hope the fox eats a rabbit person that is hanging about the retreat. He (the rabbit) is eating the leaves off our plants. Particularly a peach colored Hibiscus we bought. I sympathize with the whole hunger thing, I really do, but this is getting old. Having a garden up here would indeed be hopeless. Rabbits don't live long up here, though, not because of me but because of foxes, coyotes, cougars, owls and hawks. You'll see one for a few days, then you'll come home and see a few fur-balls laying in the yard. Then you know that the rabbit is taking the scenic tour of a predator's intestines.
    Foxes, by the way, are not a danger to people, unless they have hydrophobia. If you see one that is foaming at the mouth, just stay away from it or shoot it. If I were a fox, I might swallow some shaving cream just to mess with people.
     Back in my younger years, I seem to recall that attractive women were called foxes but I still don't know why this term was employed. Is it any wonder that women have gotten tired of the male perspective on things?
     As long as we are examining odd terms, how about the dance called the foxtrot? If I asked the average fox how he felt about having a dance named after him he would doubtless shrug and say, "What's a dance?"
    From the foxes' green retreat, I'm CE Wills.
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