-Wildlife-

Foxes have run through the patio twice this holiday season. Farflung relations have run through many more times, but with much less purpose and much more awkwardness. As a result, the appearance of the foxes pleases me in ways annual family meetings never could. When this neighborhood was only part of a master estate that controlled unspoiled forests and fields from the creek to the country road, such foxes would have been hunted nearly to extinction. In a reversal of fortune, the fox hunting club that outlived the estate is the foxes' greatest proponent. They still hunt today, chasing fox simulacrums - drags for the dog to scent, and horsemen to follow.