Snow forts and foxes; snowmen and wolves

This wolf has become a fixture in the Lutsen yard of Dick Nelson. The snowman guarding a snow fort built by Nelson’s grandchildren does not seem to be doing his job.

It’s strange to write a story about a fox when there is no fox—not even a fox foot print. But this is about a fox and Dick Nelson’s grandkids, although they aren’t really in the story either. Like the fox—not even a footprint.

But there is a snowman and a snow fort they built. The grandkids, that is, not the fox. Fox are wily, but not industrious, not like grandchildren.

The fox came after the Nelsons’ grandkids left Lutsen and went back to Michigan after Christmas break. Nelson saw the fox poking its head into the abandoned snow fort, looking for something to eat. So Nelson started throwing a few scraps into the fort. The fox would come and Nelson could watch it out of his window. The window was less than 25 feet from Nelson’s deck. The house is just off of Highway 61 and not deep in the woods, as one might guess from the animals in this story. And I mean the fox and wolves, not the grandkids, however wild they might get.

So the fox came, and Nelson fed the fox, although he knew better. But the fox was cute, and reminded him of his grandkids.

It was a daily ritual. Something Nelson looked forward to, and something he told his grandkids about, e-mailing them pictures and telling them that their snowman wasn’t much of a watchman.

But then one day a wolf came by and stuck its head in the fort. Soon the fox came no more, but a deer with an injured leg came and the first wolf brought a friend. Then the deer came no more. But the two wolves brought more friends until, one-day mid-February, five wolves showed up in Nelson’s yard.

“All of them healthy, not a trace of mange or sickness,” said Nelson.

Now, the snowman really wasn’t doing his job.

And as for Nelson? Now he’s shooting pictures from his second-story window. And he’s taken lots of great pictures of wolves, all of whom stick their heads into his grandkids’ snow fort while the snowman stands still, stuck in fear, shrinking a little every day, waiting for the grandkids to come back and play, and keep the wolves at bay.