National Geographic in My Backyard

You guys. Seriously. You are probably not going to believe what I am getting ready to share with you. It's complete insanity.

You may or may not know that there is a house in my neighborhood that has been foreclosed. It has been like that for just about two years - the whole time that we have lived here. The little girls that live next door to it call it "The Creepy House," which is totally understandable, because it is kind of creepy.

Anyway, the last few months we have seen a fox here or there in our neighborhood. No big deal, you say? Well, we live in a very urban area, so it has been rather surprising. The fox appearances kept coming and us neighbors started speculating on the origin of the foxes. We finally used our detective skillz to figure out that they were coming and going from the backyard of the foreclosed house.

Upon further investigation, we realized that it wasn't just one or two foxes. There is an entire fox family. Like we're talking FIVE BABY FOXES and three adults. They have built a huge tunnel system under the in ground pool with at least three entrances.

Do you see that cuteness? Look at those babies! And they run around like little puppies and play, play, play. It's unbelievable.

Here are two of the adults:

Yes. That is a pool. That is the backyard of a house in an urban city. Unreal.

So, the hubster and I have been making an almost daily habit of walking over and checking out the yard to see if the foxes are out. We run over there like crazy people with our kitchen table stools to stand on so we can see over the fence and our iPhones. 

They are like our new pets. Except they are apparently still wild animals, and could technically eat at least one or two of my dogs. They go out every night and hunt, apparently mostly mice and rabbits, squirrels, etc. One adult fox did growl at us the other day, and that was kind of scary, but I'm pretty sure it was growling at the three dogs we had with us. I have a feeling the foxes would be pretty pleased if they got a little toy poodle. YIKES! 

So, anyway, tonight we went to check on the foxes again, and there were all five babies playing and running around, one adult supervising, and a new edition to our personal zoo exhibit. In the nasty pool that has about a foot of gross standing water in it swam two ducks. I promise. There were two ducks swimming in the pool. I'm like okay, first of all, how did they get in there without getting eaten by the foxes? And second of all, what the heck is going on in that backyard? It's like National Geographic. I can't even handle it.

Can you see the two ducks? 

I have a two minute video on youtube (excuse my dorky comments) if you want to see some fox action from a week or two ago. Anyway, this whole thing is crazy, so I had to share it with you all!

"We'll be friends forever, Todd."

~Kathryn