Fox in the Box

We've all joked about children getting presents when they are younger and quickly grow tired of the toy and spend more time playing with the box that the toy came in.  And it's true.  I've always loved boxes.  It was so much fun as a child when my parents got a new appliance like a refrigerator or washer or dryer.  Those boxes were fun!  We made forts out of them, spaceships, race cars.  A child's imagination could run wild with what you could do with an ordinary box.

As it turns out, when I grew up, I never outgrew my love of boxes.  When we make a new purchase, I put the empty boxes up in the attic because, "that's a good box and it'll come in useful one day."  The other day, Tricia ordered a new crock pot.  When we have 'dinner on the ground' at church, it is so doggone handy to have a crock pot to bring your offering to the fellowship hall, plug it in to keep the food warm, and place on the serving line.

That new purchase meant we have a new box.  But we have so many boxes already.  Tricia placed the empty box outside in the garage to put in the trash can.  But now we can't possibly throw it away.  Why, you may ask, can't we throw it away?

Because Ginger, the cat, has adopted the box as her new home.

Instead of the cat in the hat, I call her the fox in the box. 

Each day, she's in her box where she naps in solitude, in safety, in security, tucked away out of sight.  And it's a good thing that she's not out patrolling around because just outside the garage door on the patio, there is and adventure taking place.  Like Marlin Perkins on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, there is the hunter and the prey.

Let's take a look.  Can you spot that bird on top of the patio chair?

That's a Carolina Wren and she's got food in her mouth.  She's bringing bugs to feed her two babies that are in the planter behind the ivy plant.  We watched as she repeatedly fed them.  The babies were big, almost full grown.  The Carolina Wren was mighty brave, trying to raise her young in a nest at ground level instead of in a tree.  A ground level nest provides zero protection for her or her two babies from the huntress.  But she is a really wise wren, and she surveilles the area, not giving away the location of her babies until she is absolutely sure that there is no danger.  Then she swoops in and brings a breakfast of bugs to two open mouthed baby birds.

We were worried about the mama wren and her babies.  But the babies grew up quickly on their diet of bugs and apparently flew out of the nest for they were gone today.  They owe their lives to the fact that the carnivorous cat was otherwise preoccupied with cat-napping in the cardboard crock pot box.