South Beach Foxes

I was on duty this weekend, which meant taking care of lots of chickens, keeping temperatures steady in the flathouses and greenhouses in a lovely orchestration of opening and shutting and venting, some watering duties, and feeding the cats.

In between all that, I managed to squeeze in a little bike ride:

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This time, I had companions… David who’s a jack-of-all trades who lives out on Sweet Earth Farm and a new friend Pritha who is an intern out on Heritage Farm.

David and Pritha looking at Mt. Baker

Still snowy out there.

We went almost out to the lighthouse at South Beach, but fell just shy (my 4 o’clock chicken date held us back), making for a total of around 20 miles round-trip.

Past American Camp a ways, we headed down a mini gravel path a little ways towards the water and were stopped by this curious guy. Pritha, the fox-whisperer, got him to come real close. Eventually, a friend of his came along with silver fur and eyes that were even yellower and more eerie.

Pensive fox.

Hungry fox.

Apparently, the red foxes on San Juan Island are a non-native species that was first introduced in 1947, and a few times afterwards to control a populations of (also non-native) rabbits which had been introduced in the 1890s and were out of control. Now there aren’t so many rabbits, but you can still see foxes all over the place.

Field + sea + mountains + sky = beautiful