One of the downsides of living right next to a nature reserve manifested itself this morning. Well, actually, it probably manifested itself a few days ago but this morning it came to a head.
We spent yesterday in France and by the time we got home it was dark. We crept out into the garden to shut up the chickens and the whole place reeked of bad fish. Really bad fish, like it had been rotting for days. We couldn’t see anything, of course, so we shut up the house and went to bed, thinking nothing more of it.
Coming in from his run this morning, Rich went out to let them out again and that’s when he saw it: a dead fox on next door’s lawn. It was in a terrible state, the poor thing. There was no obvious sign of how it had died, but most of the fur had come off its back and it was decaying quickly, which isn’t surprising when you consider it’s been pushing 30 degrees for more than a week now.
This wouldn’t usually be such a problem, but our neighbours are away at the moment so it was up to us to deal with it. It was too big to put in a bin bag, and anyway the bins aren’t going to be emptied until Friday. By then the whole thing would be moving around on its own courtesy of the seething mass of flies that would have hatched. Being a Sunday there was no point calling Environmental Health, either, as there would be no one there.
So we did the only thing we could: we put one of the plastic recycling crates over it to contain the thousands of maggots that were devouring the poor creature and anchored it down with two logs from the stack they’re seasoning for their wood-burning stove.
We’ve left them a note. What a nasty thing to find on your return from holiday. If you want to see what it looks like, click here, but be aware that it’s pretty gruesome.
I hope we’ve done the right thing. At least this way they can arrange for Environmental Health to come around when they know they’ll be home.
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Yikes! I hope your neighbors aren’t gone for much longer. If they are, you might just want to call that Environmental Agency tomorrow and have it taken care of for them. You’re right, it would be horrible to come home to that.
It’s gone now, fortunately. They got back from their holiday yesterday and were fine about it, although they did say that after just one day under the box it had started to ooze out around the edges and the maggots were escaping. I’m very glad it’s gone.