When we were looking at buying our home several years ago, I was engaged in conversation with the owner when I saw him suddenly stare hard at something, his jaw clenched in anger. I turned to see a fox loping across the lot, disappearing into the trees. " Alright!" I said, " do you see foxes very often around here?" He grimaced "yes, unfortunately."

After we bought the house he admitted to me that this particular female fox (vixen) had been denning under the storage shed for several years, and he was afraid that eventually she would damage it. He had tried filling the den-opening with cement, driving rebar into the ground, using noxious chemicals, but nothing stopped her. We moved in in July, and didn't see a sign of her until snow-melt in March, when I noticed fresh-dug soil around the perimeter of the den-hole. By mid-April, four baby foxes had emerged accompanied by their parents. We watched them grow until late May, when suddenly there was no sign of them. No sign until March of the following year, when the vixen returned to nurse a new litter in the peace of the den beneath the shed.

I long ago decided that, if the shed should collapse, it was of little importance compared to the privelege of sharing our home with these beautiful creatures, the honor of watching life renew itself every March through this family of foxes. It sometimes occurs to me that we, and not they, are the visitors here in this parcel of still-near-wilderness.