The Word Cloud

One dark February I was between chickens, my first two flocks having died out and I had yet to restock. Taking advantage of a lightening of my domestic workload, I went to Marrakech to escape the winter glums. The light was dazzling, the souks fascinating, the treatment of animals appalling.

I bought the prettiest pair of slippers in the whole wide world. They were camel leather, soft as eiderdown, bright pink, and covered in sequins and beads; they were truly glorious. For ages afterwards, I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning to put on my magic slippers and sit on the edge of the bed to admire my feet, twinkling my toes so that the jewelled light would wink away the English glummery.

Meanwhile, Elfie Fox who lived in the woods at the end of my garden, was heavily pregnant. She’d lost two litters before and I hoped she’d be a mother at long last. She lived with her mum and her gran, who’d also lost their previous litters. Someone jetting a hose into their nest under a shed? Poison? Shot? All I knew was that my fox-friendly garden/nursery was bereft of cubs: sticks unplayed-with, bowls unchewed, heaps of leaves unpounced-upon.

I saw Elfie daily as she swelled with babies, so when she went missing on the night of 3^rd March, I hoped for the best.

Sure enough, she returned to my garden the night after, newly slim and voraciously hungry. She didn’t muddle about, she grabbed whatever leftovers I’d put out and was off, back to her new cubs.

It turned out to be a bumper crop, as all three vixens were safely delivered of fine new families and before long, my garden burgeoned with bouncing babies.

As the youngest mother, Elfie drew the short straw and ran the crèche, suckling all the babies together, which included her baby siblings, baby aunts and baby uncles. Foxes often suckle standing up and when the cubs got too boisterous, she’d try to walk away but the babies dragged along underneath her, falling over themselves to hold on to a nipple. Resistance was futile and she drowned in cubs with commendable resignation.

‘All right then, come on you lot,’ she seemed to sigh, as she settled on a patch of sunny grass and let them have their hungry way. She winced stoically when the nipple clamps were applied to all six teats at once. As soon as one cub fell off, fat as a tick and wriggling upside down, another pushed in, eager to take his place.

I had been watching this family grow since January 2001 when I’d seen a wounded fox (later imaginatively called “Wounded Fox”) in my garden and contacted The Fox Project, which led to me becoming a volunteer rescuer. Wounded Fox was the great-grandmother of Elfie (b. 2005), so I knew them all.

After so long without youngsters, it was a joy to watch six cubs playing in the garden. They’d stalk each other, roll around and mince my shrubs more efficiently than a garden shredder. All three mothers were patient with them, but Elfie was the most devoted. They’d chew her ears, bite her tail, sit on her head then slide down her face to suckle, lying on their backs, little legs waggling in the air and their tails – with white paintbrush tips – would wag with pleasure. So many hours I watched, when I really should have been doing something else.

One day I watched a pretty little cub with a heart-shaped face. He’d scaled a ledge by the water butt and strutted along, showing off. Pride came before a fall and he fell awkwardly. I gasped.

The game stopped. As he struggled to his feet, something was very wrong. His leg stuck out at an awkward angle; he overbalanced again. Oh no!

I knew I wouldn’t be able to catch him right then; he was too close to the woods and there were too many exits. I’d never reach him before he could crawl away into a hole and if I frightened them all off, I may never see them again. I hoped it was a sprain, or even a dislocation that would pop back in again. He was young, that was something.

Over the next few days, I watched, hoping to see it getting better, but it didn’t. While the other cubs jostled, our little crippled boy leaned into his mother for support and didn’t join in any games. As the others roughed and tumbled, he’d shrink behind Elfie and whimper. She’d lick his ear and stay steady, defending him; and hang back when the family moved on, to give him a chance to catch up. He managed to walk after a fashion, but it clearly hurt. The leg wasn’t getting better. I called him ‘Hoppy’.

While Elfie trusted me to some extent and I could get quite close to her, her children were a different matter. As soon as I opened the patio doors, they’d retreat closer to the woods, ready to make a dash for it and look back at me, wary. I knew I’d have one chance and one chance only to nab Hoppy. If I missed, that might be the last I ever saw of him and he might limp back to the forest and die slowly as that leg festered.

The weather was balmy and I took to sitting outside a lot, so that the cubs would get used to me; I watched for my chance.

I fetched my net and fox box from the boot of the car where they lived, and propped them against the back wall. When Elfie saw this, she was spooked and summoned her kids with high peeps. They all came running and the family trotted back to the woods to be safe. I left my equipment out so that they could sniff it at their leisure and decide it wasn’t a threat after all. I hoped that would be soon.

There is a hole in my garage so the cats can shelter if they need to, but the cubs had found this hole. What a great new game! In and out they went, little faces peeking from the entrance. I held my breath and watched.

When the crippled cub crawled in to escape his boisterous siblings, my moment came. I jumped up and stood by the hole, blocking the exit. Damn, my net was over there. While I stood guard, he was trapped in the garage. But this was a deadly embrace – if I ran for my fox-catching equipment, he might escape and it could be my last chance – that leg had been damaged for a few days now and he was deteriorating.

I had my mobile in my pocket and called my neighbour for urgent help.

‘What?’ she said, ‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Help catch a fox.’

I assembled the tools of the fox catcher’s trade, a net on a long pole and the fox box lined with newspaper and a towel.

I was ready. ‘Can you clump about in the garage please, drive him back towards the hole? Then I’ll catch him when he emerges and we can send him away to be repaired.’

‘Go in your garage? With a wild fox?’

‘Yes.’

‘Can’t you clump about and I’ll catch him?’

I sighed, ‘OK.’

A quick lesson in net technique (surprisingly, there is one) and in I went. As expected, the adrenalin of my presence was a temporary painkiller and Hoppy bounced about, trying to get away from me. Over went boxes, stacked chairs, tins of paint. I bashed about, driving him ever nearer to the hole. He could see the net hovering on the other side but I gave him no choice. Out he went. Hooray!

I dashed back out to see my neighbour holding the net aloft, a writhing fox cub within. I took it from her, overturned it quickly on the grass and cuffed our prisoner (didn’t really – took hold of his scruff through the net) and covered him with a towel. They calm down remarkably when it all goes dark. Then it’s plain sailing.

He was surprisingly strong, as is anybody who thinks they’re in mortal peril. Once boxed up, I called The Fox Project and off he went to hospital.

My triumphant neighbour sang, ‘I caught a fox, I caught a fox,’ and joined me on the patio for a celebratory glass of wine that evening.

Meanwhile, Elfie had been beside herself all afternoon, searching for her lost cub. Humans hurtling about the garden meant that she hadn’t seen the catch, for which I’d been thankful, but when the drama was over, she returned to that patch of grass where we’d wrestled him, time and time again, calling and calling. She sniffed it, ran in circles, trying to scent where he’d gone after that – but his trail led nowhere.

 For at least a week after, she bothered at that patch of grass – and nobody knew why, except us two guilty captors. She didn’t forget him, she didn’t get over it; she was bewildered, searching, searching and calling, calling. She looked at me warily. Where’s my son?

Back at The Fox Project, they confirmed it was a nasty break – they could hear the bones grinding against each other. How painful must that have been? It was right on the knee joint too, which would mean if we saved the leg at all, he’d always have an interesting gait. The vet decided against surgery (a pin) because he was so very young, growing fast and far too active. Instead, they chose strict confinement – if he couldn’t move, it might heal by itself. The danger was that it would break all over again. I didn’t want an amputation which is often the only option. While foxes are able to live without a hind leg if they have to, he had such a perfect little fox body.

Treating wild animals is a whole different kettle of kippers. They tear off dressings in no time and can break their jaws, biting off plaster casts. You can’t put lampshades around their necks and expect them to put up with it like pets, nor administer regular tablets, not if ten fingers is ideal for you; nor can you can haul them back in for a three-month check-up when they’ve missed their appointment.

After ten days in confinement, The Fox Project felt it was time to test that knee out.

My chicken run was vacant and just the thing for a convalescing cub to try his new leg – if it broke again, he’d still be confined and we could deal with it straight away. And his mother could visit. They didn’t think she’d still remember him but I’d seen her anxiety; I knew different.

The run had to be fox-proofed from the inside (to protect the foxes), which is not the same thing as fox-proofing from the outside (to protect the hens) – and the inch mesh reduced to half an inch. There had been cases of distressed cubs poking their tiny paws through inch mesh to reach an fretting parent who takes hold and pulls – well, you can imagine the rest.

So Hoppy came back to stay with me in the converted hospital chicken wing, which was a wry form of poetic justice. He arrived with his hospital cell mate for company: Little Chris was a soppy fox if ever there was one, and so tame that nobody knew what to do with him, but he has his own story.

They explored the run with much trepidation. There were things to jump on, things to climb. Hidey holes and tree stumps, toys and even a small bedroom. I left them to settle in.

The shadows lengthened and when Elfie appeared from the woods for her evening stroll, I watched from the window. Hoppy saw her first. In an instant, he was alert: he lunged around the pen, trying to get a better view of her. He jumped on ledges, scrambled up high, fell off, hurled himself against the wire.

His reaction was so violent that I worried he’d break his leg all over again and dashed to the garage. I came out with the back of wooden bench to make a quick ladder for him to scale the heights of the highest ledge.

Elfie stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

She called in those high little peeps, a mother summoning her lost child. He fought to reach her. She stayed outside his pen for four hours that night, and Hoppy nearly destroyed himself in his efforts to bite his way out. I couldn’t release him though – we needed to know the leg was strong.

Did they remember each other? Oh yes indeedy. It nearly broke my heart. I had to turn the telly up so I couldn’t hear them.

Each evening, Hoppy scaled his high platform and waited for his mother to appear, calling, calling. Little Chris, his cellmate, became equally excited as the wild family appeared, as if they were his family too.

            The time came for Hoppy’s release back into the wild and I was there with my camera. I boxed up Little Chris (who didn’t like it one bit) and when I knew Elfie had arrived, I opened the pen door and retreated.

            Hoppy took one uncertain step out, then another. He paused, looking from side to side, unsure. Then in a flash, he made a heart-wrenching dash for the woods and his mother, calling for her and swishing his tail in the submissive way of cubs. Their reunion was in the privacy of a holly bush but I heard the welcome home party and glowed with happiness. Hoppy was back in the bosom of his extended family and oh, how he’d missed them.

            He fared well on four good legs, played with the others and dug a hole in the middle of my lawn, just for fun. It’s still there to this day; it’s called ‘Hoppy’s Hole’ and the chickens use it to bathe in, the cats use it to ambush pigeons and one day I’ll break my ankle in it.

As the summer wore on, one of my beautiful pink Moroccan slippers with sequins and beads disappeared from the doorway, then the other. When I found a shred at the end of the garden, the mystery was solved. They’d been stolen! They’d been very bright and very shiny and smelt of lush soft leather. I cursed, but I understood. How could a naughty cub resist such delights, left out for the taking?

Autumn came and the teenage foxes’ thoughts turned to other things.

They assembled in the garden for the evening’s entertainment, along with the adults and eyed up the opposite sex bashfully. I’d seen a few nubile vixens flirting with Hoppy and his brother, Stripey, who both became self-conscious and silly but we knew the cycle would start again.

Mind you, I wasn’t so sure of Hoppy’s romantic chances, despite his heart-shaped face – he was such a funny fox and I was convinced that at night, by the light of the silvery moon, he danced a foxtrot around the garden in a beautiful pair of pink Moroccan slippers with sequins and beads twinkling all over them.

* * * * *

This was three years ago. Hoppy disappeared that winter and I didn’t know what had happened. I hoped he’d struck out on his own or eloped with a girlfriend, founded his dynasty, was thriving elsewhere. I hoped he hadn’t been hit by a car and died painfully. You just don’t know. It’s the way of things.

Elfie remains a regular visitor and a few weeks ago, a new fox arrived who looked familiar. He was a fine-figured dog fox who recognised me, evidently knew his way around and the other foxes knew him too. Only when I noted his heart-shaped face, did the penny drop. Hoppy has returned a strong handsome adult after three long years away.

No sign of my slippers.