It has been a different year with the fox, this is his third year with us. He'll come by, and then we won't see him for a week or ten days.

Lately, he'll skip a few days, but when he shows up, camps out in the yard for about an hour, making us dig deep for something to toss to him. I ran out of the dinner rolls I made just for him, so am making some more right now.



We've been catching a mouse or two a night in the live trap, and finally the fox was here one morning when there were two mice from next door. Mr. Troutbend let them out one at a time, and the fox caught them easily. He killed them quickly (they don't play like a cat does) and left the corpses for later pickup.

After the second mouse, the fox came trotting back to us with such an expectant look on his face, we were sorry we didn't have more mice for him. This is better than watching to see if the fish catch them when we put them in the river. So far this year, we have caught more than 40 mice in this house alone, and haven't even gotten to the garage.

I had a couple of cheese garlic biscuits I'd been saving for him. He ate one, and then had the other in his mouth to take to the family, but he couldn't hold onto it and pick up a mouse at the same time. He struggled with it, and finally left with only the biscuit, so he could come back for the mice later.




You can see how his coat is thinning for summer.



This was several weeks ago: