Tuesday 11 December 2007

Fire and ice

A winter wonderlandscape meets the eye this morning. Tiny stalagmites of starry frost stand on every fence post, on every surface. Thin sheets of ice seal the water in the troughs 'til I crack through with my boot, but with so much icy moisture in every mouthful of grass and hay, the sheep don't seem to mind. The dogs look into their trough and lick the ice forlornly. They can easily break it with their great paws, but they are slippers and pipe girls and wait for me to serve my purpose.
I look across to the pig paddock and in front of the ark is a flash of deep orange. I let out a low sound, and the fox looks at me and comes closer. And closer. And closer still. Its feet make small cracking sounds as it passes over the frosty grasses and iced puddles. It is full grown, in flourishing health, but there is something young about its features. It has a snowball tip to its tail, a recognisably large marking that I will know again if it reappears. I am about to let the ducks out into this field, and electric fence or no, I don't want a fox this close. I let Fenn through the gate to send it a message of unwelcome and it streaks off across the fields, scattering the eight month old lambs in its wake. It doesn't duck or jump under or over the stock fencing; it simply flies through the grid of wire as if it wasn't there.
I drop a few flakes of the goat mix that I feed to the llama, and spot a dark velvety vole shoot out of the log pile to take advantage. The survival instincts are on full alert today.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a wonderful picture mopsa, and what a beautifully different morning.
I hope you found a car parking space - Exeter is complete hell for parking...

ps blogger said if I sign in with my 'other' password and username it would recognise me again...bull!

Mopsa said...

Sorry to all the non google /blogger folks - EVERYONE is having this problem with Blogger fannying about and causing irritation in blogland. Hopefully it will be sorted soon.

Mopsa said...

Oh, and I didn't take this photo - I didn't have the camera with me at the time (that'll teach me).

Eurodog said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Eurodog said...

Do you think a fox would attack a human if prompted?

Mopsa said...

Eurowoof - I can't imagine it would have the bottle to do so. I'm an awful lot bigger than a duck!

Hannah Velten said...

So much for the electric fence keeping the ducks safe!? Hope fox is finding his food somewhere else...