poliphilo

It's Spring today but it could be Winter tomorrow and then again Spring the day after. There are transitional times in the year when it's not very clearly one season or another. In fact much of the year is like that.

Which makes it pretty meaningless to set dates for the beginning and end of a season. So far as I'm concerned Spring begins when I see the first daffodil. Last year Spring began in late January; this year it's a bit later. Today, as it happens, the actual weather is backing me up. The sky is blue, a bit hazy and there's warmth in the sun....

We have a fox coming to the garden. A vixen we think. Once in a while we catch glimpses. She's been digging in one of the flower beds, gets to a certain depth, then gives up. Is she trying to make an earth for herself? If so she's not trying very hard. I backfill but then she excavates the self-same spot and stops at just the same depth. This morning I found one of the gladioli bulbs she'd displace sitting on the patio. Obviously she'd picked it up and carried it there in her little sharp teeth. Why? As a peace offering? A gift? I presume she knows what she's doing.....

The other morning, very early, in the gloaming, there was the most unearthly screeching going on. We're not schooled in fox behaviour but we think she may have been making love.....