Reasonably Educated Bumpkins

We have a new neighbor.

That is to say, we have recently become aware of our neighbor, who may or may not be new to our neighborhood, and who may or may not be living single.

I first became aware of this neighbor a couple of weeks ago while tossing and turning and generally not sleeping. Neighbor was making a racket.

"Chas?" I loudly whispered.

"Yeah."

"Do you hear that sound?"

"Yeah."

"Any idea what that might be?"

"A cat?"

"Well, that's what I thought, but it's more like a dog, but not like any dog I've ever heard. It's not a coyote."

"I dunno."

"I'm thinking bobcat."

"We don't have bobcats."

"I know, but . . . what, then?"

"I dunno."

"Thanks. You've been helpful."

I'm not usually that chatty in the middle of the night, or that sarcastic. Yes I am.

So the other night I heard it again, repeating over and over and over, for as long as I stayed awake, and probably much longer. Calls at short intervals, always the same. Kind of a bark, but not exactly. Cat-like, but it'd have to be a huge cat. This time, though, I was sure it was a cat, a huge cat, come to eat up the kittens of our slutty outdoor cat, who shall henceforth be called Teenage Pregnancy StatistiCat. I writhed in my awakitude, guilty over the kittens who were probably now Bobcat Snacks. Couldn't I have just brought them inside for one night until Teenage Pregnancy StatistiCat got her proper mother groove on? I knew the honest answer to that, but it didn't make me feel any better about the kittens.

We finally saw our new neighbor last night. As Smedley and I walked past the dining room window, she stopped cold and said, "Look! It's a _____!" (Don't want to give it away just yet.)

And sure enough, it was. Running around in the dairy yard at dusk, looking for something. Food? Mate? Offspring? No clue. But it must have doubled back through the network of barns because it next appeared in the opposite direction, standing between us and the afterglow of the sunset, making the mysterious call I've been hearing lately. Over and over and over, nose pointed north. For the next hour.

Here's our new neighbor, or one of his shirttail relatives:

(Photo stolen from Wikipedia)

Okay, I realize y'all were just humoring me, pretending to be surprised, when you had probably guessed it way back in the second paragraph. And I'm surprised that I didn't guess it myself, since we used to have a fox family living quite out in the open in the corner of the east pasture that's protected by berry bushes.

So much makes sense now -- the empty kitten box that was completely tossed (no self-respecting cat would do that), the crushed plastic Easter eggs which had to have been bitten open, and no remnants of the foil from the devoured chocolate eggs. What cat would eat foil? Or chocolate, for that matter.

Yep, that fox is bold. I think we'll have some interesting encounters this summer. I plan to be a good and kind neighbor. But if he thinks I'm buying him more chocolate eggs he's got another think coming.