foxing

yes, foxes are vermin.

introduced to australia by an idiot who wanted to go fox-hunting around geelong
a few decades later the cheeky foxes were feasting on unsuspecting marsupials across the continent
now they are a scourge, chomping on native animals and domestic beasts without much compunction

but i must admit, i do find them rather winsome

i first fell in love with foxes at the age of 4 or 5 when i saw basil brush (boom! boom!!)
even though there's a lot of the creepy old uncle about him, with his terrible, suggestive jokes, he is incredibly endearing, with that cheeky twinkle in his eyes and naughty swishing tail
you can also hear him singing i remember it well with petula clark

not long afterwards, i had another foxy moment, when the sweet put out fox on the run. oh how i loved this song!

there were also plenty of illustrations of foxes to fall in love with.

there was one in particular in my book of grimm's fairy tales, by janusz grabianski a wonderful polish illustrator. i couldn't find the picture but here are some of his other illustrations

a polish stamp of the fox & the crow. i had never read this folk tale before, but i've just had a quick read.not a very good opinion of foxes! well wiley as a fox, cunning as a fox ... no-one's ever said as sweet-natured as a fox!

i only recently came across roald dahl's fantastic mr fox and the sweetly naughty illustrations by quentin blake. mr fox is incredibly dashing - i was sorry i hadn't read it sooner

apparently wes anderson is making a stop-motion film, jarvis cocker will be voicing someone or other. mr fox, himself, will be voiced by george clooney ... i find this a little strange, but americans will be americans.
a favourite fox of mine is the one that hangs suspended on the Foxeys Hangout wine label. when i first saw it i thought it looked like a puppet, but no! it is actually inspired by the tales of massacre and murder surrounding an ancient eucalypt that still stands at the corner of Balnarring and Tubbarubba roads on the Mornington Peninsula.
In the 1930s, two fox trappers used the tree as their score- card, hanging the corpses of their day's shooting from opposite branches... Locals continued the practice of hanging fox corpses for some years but eventually it petered out. Now wooden effigies of foxes hang from the tree, reminding passers- by of its grisly past.
i like the idea of fox effigies, checking this out i found another site which says:
The tree branches are adorned with sheet metal fox profiles as symbols of the real fox carcasses, which hung there in the 1930's.
see: fascinating facts - mornington peninsula for more

for an animal that's unpopular with farmers and environmentalists, foxes capture the creative imagination.
linen fabric, original design by michelle engel bencsko

a small felted fox - i have a similar one but it's a beautiful golden yellow, given to me by a friend

1950s four toy animals PDF knitting pattern - available on etsy

more handmade, crazy as a fox - according to the maker,
This foxy figure has a spun cotton body, hand spun using techniques similar to those of the early German artisans who created cotton ornaments for Christmas. He has been hand painted with carefully drawn facial features and is about 3.5" tall. He stands as a figure and has bendable limbs

worth looking at the other images on etsy

a lovely fox-themed graphic, found here

and a stalking blue,

perky pink and shiny mirror fox by a skulk of foxes

foxing! oxing!

i love that the deterioration and

discolouration of old mirrors is called foxing

while googling around, i found this curious sentence,
For if man forms his self-image in a foxed mirror, he may start to lose his feeling for what he might achieve and the proper way to achieve ...
it's a quote from an article in a scientific journal, brain: the journal of neurology
it sounds fascinating, but i couldn't read any further - there's a nice feeling of decay and mystery

a fox stole seems to bring together these elements. especially with the paws and head are still attached and dangling

my grandmother had a fox fur - for some reason i like to think it was a stole made of a single fox, it's tail snapping on its mouth but i suspect it was more a jacket
she did have a little fox brooch that i loved. it was fluffy with a big tail and little pointy snout. it smelt of her perfume and powder and i thought it was very glamorous. i used to take it out and look at it, and later on i was given it. it looks very fragile these days so i don't wear it. i remember showing it to friends and them all thinking it looked manky. i still love it .

thinking of dead foxes, it's not so great a leap to the work of julia de ville. reading around, it turns out that julia's grandmother also had a fox-fur stole, but unlike me, julia was able to handle it, and make its jaws snap onto its tail. it's possible that this fact alone explains the difference in life paths for me and julia. or there may be more to it.
another take on "fox-fur", by artist juliana swaney, more information here

a dead fox - to show sympathy for the victims of their marauding habits not sure what the story behind this image is. i was tempted to the blogsite by the cunning title, a dead fox stole my heart (get it, fox stole) but it was kind of a yuck site so i haven't linked to it

poor urban foxey

i once saw 3 fox kittens playing near my house.
i used to live near the merri creek, and there was a large old electricity generator (or something) on a fair piece of land surrounded by high fencing. one morning on the way to work, i saw them chasing each other and rolling around in the grass - enjoying the sunshine and just the joy of being. it reminded me of that cocteau twins song, frou frou foxes in midsummer fires - not sure what that means though

someone else's youtube of baby foxes plus vixen


12 july - just found out about a 2007 french film, the fox and the child, has been released locally. am i in tune with the zeitgeist or what?

20 july - a recommendation from friends - clever fox - story with hand movements