The Race Point Rambler

Four o’ clock fox showed up at teatime today. FOF is a red fox with black velvet triangles on the backs of her ears and long black gloves on her front legs — very proper attire for tea! Her coat is a sumptuous sunset color. Her tail always looks freshly fluffed.

FOF visits the same house I visit when I am in need of a cup of tea, and she usually arrives at the same time I arrive. She has an appointment to keep with the pile of birdseed under the birdfeeder. If she is lucky, she will also meet up with a hard-boiled egg or a turkey meatball, complements of the neighborhood patron of hungry foxes. I watch her, while I am sipping my tea, through the squares of the wide glass window that overlooks her breakfasting spot (at four o’clock I believe she is just beginning her day). She eats daintily and precisely. First she points her narrow snout at the grass and sniffs out the delicacy hiding there. Then her small sharp teeth go to work. She is a very small fox. She is so small that in some circles she is known as “Foxling.” When she sits on her haunches she is barely two feet high.

FOF disappears into the dusk just as the pinks and oranges and scarlets of our Rococo winter sunsets are beginning to suffuse the sky over Cape Cod Bay. Perhaps she finds them distasteful. They really are no match for her own resplendent hues.

‘Til next time, fox!