One lovely spring morning while the sun was shining happily and the birds were chirping joyfully, Grandma Owl sat watching the world. She saw green grass, blue skies and peace all around her. It wasn’t long before she saw a fox running out of the woods, racing across the field. Grandma Owl adjusted her glasses and tried to zoom in to see what the fox was after.

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The fox ran right up to the fence, dropped something and then turned around and came running past Grandma Owl once again, back into the woods.

Bang!

It was the deafening sound of a gunshot that gave Grandma Owl such a fright that her heart skipped a couple of beats. Her feathers were all standing upright and her glasses hung halfway down the side of her head. Trying to figure out what just happened, she suddenly realized that the fox did not return for whatever it left there and came to the conclusion that it must have been the farmer who shot the fox in fear of it harming his sheep. ”Oh, dear!” she grasped.

Grandma Owl was curious to see what the fox had dropped next to the fence, shook her feathers back into their places and started to flap her wings, heading into the same direction. She could not believe her eyes. ”It’s a baby fox!” she said to herself as she came closer and closer.

”What are you doing here, little fox?” asked Grandma Owl as she landed gracefully on the fence.

”Ma-ma,” said the little fox with big, teary eyes. He was shaking and it was clear that he was still shook-up from the sound of the gunshot.

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”Did your mama leave you here?” Grandma Owl asked as she covered the fox with her left wing.

The scared little fox let his ears down, closed his eyes and replied: ”Uh huh”

With great sadness Grandma Owl hugged the little fox and decided that she would have to find a home for the little fox. She told the fox to sit tight while she flew straight up in the air to look for help. Luckily, she saw some of her other bird friends nearby who also came out to see what had happened.

”Whoohooooo!” she called them over.

Between the friends they decided that it would be best to ask for Mrs. Smith’s help. She was an old widow who owned a farm nearby.

Grandma owl picked the little fox up and flew with her friends over to see if they could find Mrs. Smith. She was in the barn when she heard a lot of noise outside. Once outside, she could see the birds in the distance making a fuss by the fence.

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”What’s going on?” she shouted as she rushed over.

As she reached the fence, she saw the little fox and couldn’t help falling in love with the little animal immediately. ”Awww, you’re such a cutie,” she said as she hugged it in her big, loving arms. ”I think I’ll take you home, poor thing!”

At first the little fox was scared of such a big human, but eventually, after about 3 days, he got used to her and noticed that she didn’t want to hurt him. Mrs. Smith named him Foxie and he liked his name very much.

Every day, Foxie played with the farm animals. There were cows, goats, pigs and sheep too. It was fun living on the farm and there were plenty of space for him and his friends to play hide-and-seek.

One day, Foxie saw an animal that he had not seen before. It had the most beautiful wings he had ever seen and looked so free, flapping up and down. Foxie followed it around and couldn’t keep his eyes off this beautiful creature with wings and before he knew it, he was deep inside the woods.

Instead of being scared, Foxie was excited to be surrounded by so much of nature that he does not know anything about. There were so many things to discover and new smells from all types of plants and animals had him curious. He did not know that animals could live all by themselves! He always thought that animals could only live on farms where it was safe and they were fed daily.

"This is so cool!" he exclaimed. "Perhaps I'll find some other foxes around here and they can teach me how the woods work."

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...to be continued...

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