To Lucile

It is my sweet mother-in-law's birthday today. Happy Birthday, Lucile. I love you.

Lucile

Who is sweet and kind and twice my age

who is beautiful and loving and simply amazing

who has character and history and stories to tell

who has memories and tales and has loved long and hard

who loves animals and people and wildlife and plants

who turns raccoons into friends, raised sons to be fine husbands

who is Grandma to six and mother to four,

who is beloved wife and fond friend

Who is writer, defender, compassion sender.

who is survivor and lover and all things tender.

I 'm so blessed to be apart of your family -

happy birthday, dear mother and friend

May year 73 be everything you want it to be.

Henricks.

Late-breaking Fox News

So, here's how it went down... I got home yesterday from a friend's house to discover that one of our fox babies had died. It was in my neighbor's backyard. It was very sad. Earlier in the week, a male fox (which we assumed was the dad) had shown up in the yard. I haven't seen Tilly in a few days. Patrick thinks that this male fox killed the baby fox... I guess they do that sometimes. Yesterday morning, I saw the babies, and then last night one came around. I called animal control as well as the division of wildlife and neither of them would come to help us dispose of the dead fox. They told us to put it into a trashbag and put it in our trash can. ARE YOU KIDDING ME????????? First of all, our trash doesn't go out until Tuesday... Second of all... well... just NO WAY AM I PUTTING A DEAD ANIMAL IN MY TRASH IN MY GARAGE!!!!!!!! So, Patrick graciously came home from work and picked up the baby fox and took it to a dumpster. Far away... I was very sad to lose it, but I guess that's how it goes. So the rest of the afternoon, we spent cleaning up under the deck. It was something from a scary story. Patrick picked up so many remains of dead animals that had been food for our fox family, the remains filled a large trash bag. The WORST was a rotting, dead squirrel that smelled SO bad. SO BAD.  There were maggots. I cannot believe it... Maggots. It was awful. The backyard reeked. I think that my sister in Nebraska could smell it, the stench was so strong. So now we are airing out the space underneath the deck, washing the rocks with water,and placing rags soaked with ammonia to deter the foxes from coming back and nesting again. Our fox adventures have come to an end. I might need some time before I stop looking in the backyard to see if they are still back there playing. (begin sad music). It was so much fun to have them live here. But what we saw and smelled yesterday showed that they were definitely not domestic animals. Still, I'm thankful that we had this experience- something to go down in the Henricks' family history book. I will always have a place in my heart for our furry friends.  Thank you for living out our fox adventures with us.