Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard is probably my favorite book—and it has been ever since I first picked it up in 1976, recommended by a friend. Nonfiction. Fabulously descriptive of her days spent in a cabin on Tinker Creek. She won the Pulitzer Prize for her writing—close observations and reflections on nature, on what she saw and encountered and discovered in Virginia’s Blue Ridge Valley. It’s a luminous, luscious, lovely book. And as I noted elsewhere here, she wrote “…beauty and grace are performed whether or not we will or sense them. The least we can do is try to be there.”
Somewhere she quotes a couple of lines from a poem by Michael Goldman:
When the Muse comes She doesn’t tell you to write;
She says get up for a minute, I’ve something to show you. Stand here.
I think my whole life the Muse has been saying something like Come outside! Lookie here!
My biology teacher when I was a high-school sophomore–the lovely Sister Sheila– gets the credit for channeling the Muse for me early: a homework assignment, as I recall, was to go outside, find a place in the yard, and to look very closely to see what I could see…how many different things there were in a square foot of lawn…and to make notes about that. Best homework assignment ever! It was an invitation–no, an imperative–to look, see, notice, pay attention!
Now, living out here at the Ranchito, I have been awash in Lookie-heres. So many beautiful, strange, intriguing, puzzling, touching sights and revelations in the world out here. And I mean to write about them–or at least some of them: The Lookie-Here Chronicles, I guess.
So it was, in early June, late afternoon, as we worked in the yard, we heard a sound we had never heard before. Not quite a dog bark. Unless the dog was trying to cough up a chicken bone stuck in its throat. We turned to look and saw there, standing in the driveway, looking right at us, a Fox! We stood still and stared at it and it stared at us. A couple of scrubjays flew down to harass the creature with their raucous cries. Fox didn’t budge. Wow. Totally unbelievable. We were struck with awe. And shock, really. Shock and awe…. In a most wonderful, beautiful and totally surprising way!
And the game begins. I approach, he moves a little bit away, gives me a bark, and I move closer and he moves a little distance away…and he eventually goes through the fence into the neighbor’s property. But he doesn’t hide or run away. He poses, handsome devil that he is. He barks as if someone taught him that that’s what he’s supposed to do, but it doesn’t seem to mean much. There’s a certain nonchalance to it. But it holds my attention. Which I later understood was the point of it all.
He barks, he poses in the morning sun. The harassing blue scrub jays fly in, squawking, and one sits near 
him.
He reclines, he closes his eyes, he puts his head down. He gets up to bark again and we share a few more words as I walk back to the house. I’ve got to sit down.
And there he was, sitting on the top of that pile, with his back was to me. He hadn’t seen or heard me. I called out “FOX!” and there was no response. I “barked” again…and he turned around. This wasn’t Fox. This was Baby Fox! I just could not believe my eyes!
I’m guessing that their hanging out at the big rock pile was a temporary sojourn. It seemed to me that Fox had brought food for the journey: I found the head of a young deer there near the rocks…and a turkey vulture waiting for it. But a short time later, the head was gone. Pretty sure the vulture didn’t carry it off. I don’t think they do that. They just eat where they find the food.
I returned a little later, bringing a measuring tape so that I could get an idea of their size. I know the hugeness of a full-grown, fat armadillo, but these little ones were such a surprise to encounter. Nose to butt they are 9 inches. Add the tail for another 9”, I guess. One sniffed or nudged my shoe, walked right between my legs, and snuffled on.
