I typed in the address wrong on this last night and it came back...trying again....Jeannie T I bet you've left your front porch and gone in to bed , but I'm going to write to you anyhow...maybe theres a few" night owl's " still rocking and watching the lightening bugs court ! Seeing a fox peek out of the bushes as I drove down a country road made me think of how I used to go out and sit with Daddy as he listened to the neighbors hounds running foxes, back when I was a little girl....He would sit on the chopping block and I would find a chunk of wood for myself, and I would sit there and help him listen to the dogs as the fox had his fun with them...He knew the "voices " of each dog, and would name off the dog and the neighbor it belonged to...He didn't smoke, but somehow I see him sitting there quietly smoking a pipe, the smoke wreathing his head... Going fox hunting was what decided him to be a teetotaler ! He went with the neighbors, and they built a big bonfire to set around and swap tales as they listened to their dogs" run ." When it was time to head for home the neighbor and his big strapping sons were so drunk Dad had to help them to the car and drive them home...They must have disgusted him pretty badly, because he told Mama , "If that's what it does to you, I don't want nothing to do with it ! " I never knew of him taking a drink or smoking tobacco...except " rabbit tobacco' in the corn cob pipe he made, so he could blow the warm smoke in our ears...That made him sick , but he did it to try and help us little kids. Brother Robert said he remembered a fox story from when he was about 6 years old ... " We were outside one night and heard an awful howling and strange noises from some wild animals off in the distance. A couple of the neighbors heard it too and came over...they wondered what it could be, because it was definitely a large bunch of animals. They didn't come to any conclusions ,so the next day a group of the men got their guns and went out to discover what made all that awful noise. I was too small to go , ( about 6), and waited impatiently for them to come back with some sort of strange wild animals and maybe some of the men hurt or killed. When they came in sight I ran to meet them and very excitedly asked them what they had found. They were somewhat abashed but finally one of the men said all the weird howling and noise had been done by some foxes that had some dens over in the fields. They hadn't gotten a single fox , and since they weren't causing any problems it was decided to just leave them alone. After finding that it wasn't anything dangerous Dad took me with him when he went back over there to check the place out a couple of weeks later. I didn't know what to expect but it was disappointing to find some washed out gullies and some holes dug back in the banks. We didn't even see any foxes. That scene took all the excitement out of the adventure ! . " I am rather surprised that these foxes weren't raiding every hen house within miles, but maybe at that particular time there was an overabundance of field mice and jack rabbits... I didn't think Foxes usually lived in packs, but he says there was 8 or 10 dens in this place... so maybe the odd noises everyone heard was a bunch of them courting ....I have heard they make strange noises, for sure! On nights when sounds carry clearly for a long way it must have sounded frightening indeed... Happy hunting for good dreams tonight ! Jeannie T ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit: http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.