all creatures great and small.................

Well it’s that time again. What a load of hassle I’ve had from my previous blog. (Mainly by 'friends' who saw the picture but didn’t actually read the blog!!! it was my arm for goodness sakes!!!!!) That said, I’ve got something nice to share now. Not controversial in any way.


It's all about a hedgehog and some frogs.
I often forget how lovely nature can be. This year we've had some really nice visitors to our garden.

Frogs
In the summer I decided to have a go at making a small rockery display in our garden, and i'm quite happy with the results of my work. It seems though to have encouraged frogs! Which amazed me as we don't have a pond. They seem happy enough living under the shrubs. We must have had tens of baby frogs jumping around. The kids have loved it. But along with these small babies we've also got the larger mum and dad. One time I was taking garden rubbish to a local tip and wilst driving a felt something hit my leg. I looked down and there was one of the adult frogs who must have fancied the drive!!
Another incident that happened this summer was after I had left the back door open that leads to the garden. I went into the kitchen to make a snack and I caught something in the corner of my eye. I looked down at my shoe on the floor, and what I saw surprised me. It was another adult frog. His head was popping out of my shoe having a nose at what i was up too.

It's the frog in my shoe!! I bet he was glad we're not a french family! Otherwise he'd have been limping around on small crutches :-)

Hedgehogs
This happened only last weekend. I was looking out over the garden from the kitchen window when I saw a hedgehog scurrying about. I was surprised as they are meant to hibernate in the autumn, especially as it has turned so cold lately. Anyhow I called the children to have a look. Later on as it was getting darker in the afternoon I saw him again this time scurrying around the bin area and he seemed to be trying to get out of the gate. I called the family to have a look, but this time my wife was concerned about it, so she looked it up on the web. Apparently if hedgehogs are still out at this time of year it usually means they are orphaned and in distress. Also it said that the best way to find out if its ok is to gather up the 'hog' and weigh it. It should weigh 600 g (about 1 1/4 lb). So my brave wife found something to wrap it up in and brought the little darling in to weigh it. It was half the weight it should have been!!! With guidance found on the web we put it in a box with a wrapped up hot water bottle to keep it warm and put a piece of chicken on a dish with a little water. Our friend must have been starving. He was chewing at the chicken immediately. With the immediate care of the chappy dealt with we needed further advice, and found some phone numbers to call for animal rescue! Eventually we spoke to a rescue centre about 15 miles away and arranged to take 'Hamish' the hedgehog around to them to look after. (my son came up with the name, he loves nature so much) Hamish successfully survived the night but we were told he would have likely died if we hadn't rescued him from the elements. He is nowly safely and warmly homed at the rescue centre ready for release into the wild in the spring.

Did you know?.......


A baby hedgehog is known as a 'hoglet'

a happy ending.....