There’s no need to bark at me
Never mind what I was doing out picking peas at one in the morning. We eat late, and peas are best cooked as soon as possible after picking, m’kay? So anyhow, I was out back under a full moon last night with a flashlight snugged in my armpit, filling a sack with peas, when I heard the most amazing…well, this:
[audio:fox_territory_call.mp3]
I snagged that audio from this defunct Angelfire site and then bent the pitch down a little, but it still doesn’t match exactly what I heard. That shit was spooky.
I swung the flashlight up and caught a pair of green eyes about a hundred feet away in the fallow field behind the house. Okay, but here’s the thing — that’s when the son of a bitch started running toward me. That’s the side of the house with the wide drainage ditch, or I seriously think I’d have made a puddle.
Fox. It must not have known how to process a flashlight beam and assumed a little weasel-scaring aggression was called for. It kept barking until I went to get Uncle B, but it was gone by the time we got back.
Oh, well. There is some comfort knowing there really aren’t all that many big mammals in the UK, and none of them are rabid.
The field on the front side of the house is full of a half dozen of our neighbor’s rams most of the time. And dozens of runnybabbits. I love to go out with a flashlight on dark nights and shine it into that field. The whole thing lights up with little red hoppity-hoppity bunny-glow eyes and slow, solemn green sheep eyes. Verily, it is an hoot.
It always reminds me of the condom scene from Skin Deep.
I know, I know. Way to step on my own mood.
August 4, 2009 — 7:51 pm
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