This short film is well done.  It's not sensationalized or dramatized.  It's just a clear view into one man's life.

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Last night, the hot and humid air from our first real summery day settled down to a dead calm.  That's when the fireflies emerged, hovering and drifting just above the ground.  There were so many of them, with their shifting web of chemical glow, it looked as if the stars had fallen to Earth.  There are no words to describe it.  My daughter might ( Read more... )

 

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I haven't seen the fox family since the end of May.  Either they no longer need use of the den, or they were frightened off by the regular lawn mowing activity.  I'm hoping it's the former and not the latter.  I had been holding my breath about the whole thing until Monday morning, when I happened to come across a juvenile fox dead on the highway ( Read more... )

 
Between rainstorms yesterday afternoon, the foxes came out to play in the field of flowers and grass.  This is a field and not a lawn because I choose not to mow it.  The kits were practicing the signature fox lunge.  They will use this skill to pounce on prey in the future.  Pairs of bobolinks were scoping out nesting locations in the tall grass ( Read more... )

 
The fox kits are no longer completely helpless.  Their cognitive abilities have advanced to the level where mother fox feels comfortable letting them play outside the den unsupervised.  Around 11:00 A.M. every morning, the young foxes come outside to explore their immediate world.  Under the cover of boxelder trees, and behind the screen of ( Read more... )

 
The most notable development to come out of my observations this week has been a correction to the litter count.  It's hard to number all of these scurrying individual fox kits, but one afternoon I got it pinned down to five.  It's even more difficult to capture them all in one photo frame, so four of them together will have to do.  I don't know ( Read more... )

Cinnamon was overdue for his routine wellness exam and updates on his vaccines.  That's my fault.  It's a chore I dread because he is so anxious in the car for the 30-mile trip.  Alas, I relented last week and made him an appointment at Valley Veterinary Clinic.  I was surprised to find that taking him to the vet was less stressful than hauling the ( Read more... )

 
Mother fox and her kits are beginning to warm up to us, or at least tolerate us.  I can walk outside and tinker in the garage without scaring them back into the den, as long as I don't make any sudden moves in their direction.  So, I pushed the boundary a little more.  I set up my tripod within a hundred feet of the den.  Camouflaged by the heavy ( Read more... )