Mr. Fox

Often, if you come by my house at 9:20 in the morning you can find me in my backyard doing things many would consider out of the ordinary.  Take for example the time when the rooster escaped and attacked me, causing me to fall backwards in the dewy grass, heels above my head, kicking and screaming.  My neighbors probably got a chuckle out of me fighting for my life, kicking the rooster with my red rubber boots.  Just a few weeks ago, I was trying to wrangle a head-butting ram into the barn and wincing in pain from the giant bruise that was forming on my rear end.  All this excitement before I even get the chance to eat my Cheerios.


Well this morning had me running around the yard banging pots and pans together.  


Why you ask?  Well, as I was moving around the kitchen at a slow speed, per usual to my morning routine, I happened to glance out the window at the sheep pasture and notice another creature in the field with the ram.  A fox.  A FOX!  It took a second for me to realize that it was the foxy loxy that had been seen in our field and the neighbor's the last month or so, hanging around since lambing started.  Our neighbor has tried to shoot it multiple times.  But, just like Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox, he always managed to sneak away.  I yelled for Daisy to get off the couch and do her duty as a dog and scare the creature away from our precious lambs.  On went the red boots (they really make me invincible) and out the door we went, off to defend our land and our livestock.  Well, Daisy was completely uninterested.  I don't think she even noticed the fox, and Dodge didn't pay it any attention either.  It just stood there.  I yelled at Daisy, "Scare it away!"  She barely looked up from whatever she was sniffing.  I thought to myself, "what am I going to do?!"  I thought of my options:  I couldn't shoot one of Joey's guns, I've never even held a gun before.  And I couldn't shoot his bow, I'm probably not even strong even to pull back on the string, and what if I accidentally shot Dodge with an  arrow? 


So I did what any good farmer's wife would do.  I ran into the house and got my trusty old Revereware.  Yes, these were weapons I was more familiar with: two saucepans.  So that's what I did, I knocked together two pans and made a racket.  And it ran away.  And it was probably laughing at me. 


When Joey got home from work he fed and watered the sheep and then a couple minutes later came inside with a big smile on his face.  Mr. Fox had come back.  And he shot it with his bow.  I was grossed out, but relieved that the fox couldn't hurt our baby sheep.  Joey was triumphant.  He outsmarted the fox that had gotten away so many times.  


When I used one of the pots to make dinner tonight (Grandma Pinky's Mac n' Cheese) I noticed that I had actually dented it a little.  Whoops.  Now it has two stories: I bought it an an estate sale for a dollar and it saved the day and scared a fox away.  Not too bad for a weapon that can also heat up dinner.  (And by dinner I don't mean fox.  This is the country, but we have to draw the line somewhere.)

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