Raspberries and Red Fox (and Baby Dog)

New summer flowers are beginning to bloom around me. The spring ones are gone, and summer’s blooms are just getting going. Today’s photo is a purple blooming raspberry (also known as purple flowering raspberry and thimbleberry). The flowers are very showy, aren’t they? Showier than the fruit will be, actually. I think the maple-shaped leaves are very pretty, too. The plant is actually a member of the rose family (rubus odorous). The fruits aren’t usually eaten as they are extremely seedy, though they have a nice flavor with a bit of a tang. The berries won’t be ripe until the end of August or so.

My morning started off with a bang, well, actually a bark. Baby Dog has seen the fox again, and in nearly the same spot as she did last year. We had just finished walking through the woods and were heading out onto one of the slopes, when we both saw the fox at the same time. It was perhaps 50 yards away, sitting out in the open at the edge of the slope. We watched it bark. Then it barked again. Baby Dog returned fire and barked back at it. The fox barked again, still sitting there looking very doglike. Baby Dog, whose voice, by the way, is considerably more impressive than the fox’s, barked back at the fox.

At this point the fox decided it was time to head out, so it turned tail and headed back up the slope. Baby Dog tried to follow---at least until she reached the end of the lead. One thing I’m sure of is that now I’ll never be able to get her to walk past this spot without stopping to look for the fox. She’s been stopping here nearly every morning for the past year since her last fox sighting.

No, I don’t have photos of our fox encounter. Sorry. I learned early on that a dog in one hand and a camera in the other do not make a good combination.