Letter from my island

 

Letter from my island (in the Stockholm archipelago)

This morning, looking out at the snowy scene and noting how an overnight fall has completely covered the areas I cleared only yesterday, I saw the fox crawling underneath the cottage. He has become a regular, uninvited visitor. But should I not feel sorry for him? He wants shelter. He wants food. The trouble is, his visits invariably spell trouble.

There are no recycling bins on the island for plastic or metal, only for glass and newspapers – near the jetty, about one-and-a-half kilometres from here. To throw plastic and metal containers in the ordinary rubbish, which is collected every other week, would leave me with a bad conscience, especially with regard to plastic, so I collect them and wait for the recycling boat to come, which it does twice a year. I have been tying them up in refuse bags and leaving them on a trolley outside, ready to be wheeled away when the time comes. Hmm... It's no longer possible. The fox gets there first.

His sense of smell tells him immediately whether anything has contained food, regardless of there being traces left or not, and he will stop at nothing to get at it. I have placed a heavy log over a bag, but what use is that against one so skilful and sly. He will somehow get it, and although he may not be good at untying knots, will gnaw his way through the bag, drag it away and spread its contents far and wide. So now the bags are piling up in the tool shed, where he has little chance of reaching the bolt that keeps it closed.

Or has he? My nearest neighbour assures me he is by no means the only representative of his species on the island, so I suppose he could return with some of his friends and relations and stand on each other's backs. You may think it's very unlikely, but I have underestimated him before. And lived to regret it.