 |
| You won't see many photos of me on this blog. But here's a very happy exception! Watson and Jakob found not one but two baby hedgehogs sniffing about in our garden and called me out to see. I didn't have time to put shoes on. |
 |
| Run snail run! |
 |
| Jake took photos and we fed them with kitten food. They must have come for the water I put out in a bowl every night. |
 |
| Then they trotted back off into the hedge. And Jake went back to bed. AMAZING! |
 |
| You'll need - a pallet (we got ours for about £3 from a local plant nursery. Just plain wood, with no paint or surface treatment that might be poisonous for hedgehogs) - a hammer - nails - cold water - a plaster - off-cuts of wood (or use a big pallet and cut it in half and use the bits from the extra half) - plastic sacks - paving slabs (not too big) |
 |
| About this size, in fact. |
 |
| First they took two plastic sacks, wrap the ends on one side and nail them onto the pallet as a roof. That will stop rainwater dripping inside. |
 |
| Now they found pieces of wood to fit three sides of the pallet and nailed them on VERY carefully. |
 |
| This piece of wood was perfect for the base. You'll even see it has breakfast in bed for its hoggy owner if you look closely enough |
 |
| The last side was going on when... |
 |
| OUCH! Poor Louis. Poor thumb. Put it in cold water. The bit of a log beside his hand made a great way of blocking half the entrance. You can see that in the finished house. |
 |
| With Louis taking a break (not literally, thank goodness, it was only bruised) it was Jake's chance to shine. The base wasn't quite big enough so we added another strip of wood. |
 |
| And when all the sides were done leaving an opening as a door, and the top and base were fixed firmly in place... the boys found a good spot away from the lawnmover and in between our garden and Tina's so she can see hoggies too. Actually her living room is closer than ours, which is right around the other side of the gallery AND the cottage. But the secret garden where we put it is far away from the road and that's more important than anything. |
 |
We made a base of slabs to help stop the wooden base from rotting. |
 |
| Six slabs fitted perfectly. |
 |
| Jake lowered the house on top, plastic roof up, naturally. Mind your fingers! |
 |
| We put some slabs on top so Mr Fox can't flip it over. And then covered it up with sticks and other stuff for extra insulation. Last of all we put old dry leaves, straw or strips of newspaper inside it as cosy bedding. |
 |
| Do you think any hedgehogs will find it while we're away? Can you? It's not in the woodpile because that's too close to a tree that's leaning a bit close to the gallery and needs to be cut down. (We've planted four trees, so don't worry). Thinking about it, that's rather an attractive pile og twigs and stuff. In fact, there could already be at least three families of hedgehogs already living in that pile, but we've never seen any. Fingers crossed! |
500 | For about 40 muffins, you will need gram | flour |
| 100 | gram | butter |
| 500 | gram | sugar |
| 8 | eggs | |
| 4 | dl. | milk |
| 6 | tsk. | baking powder |
| 4 | tsk. | vanilla sugar |
| sweetie eyes and noses | ||
| Topping: | ||
| 240 | gram | Butter |
| 200 | gram | dessicated coconut |
| 500 | gram | brown sugar |
| 1 | dl. | milk |
 |
| It's Hedgehog Awareness Week from 3-6 May in England So why not make a cake and auction it on social media then send the proceeds to Reg. no. 9570 and account no. 9069755and help the Danish hedgehog charity pindsvin.dk |
 |
Step 1: make your favourite round chocolate cake. Cut it in half and round off the sides. |
 |
| Cover it in chocolate butter frosting. |
 |
| Like this. |
 |
| Melt some milk chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of water |
 |
| Then dip the strawberries in one at a time, carefully. |
 |
| Then pin them onto the cake with cocktail sticks or they keep sliding off. |
 |
| All over. |
 |
| Cover one end of an ice cream waffle in some melted chocolate and add sweetie eyes |
 |
| Then add some dark chocolate sprinkles quick before the melted chocolate dries or licked off by mistake. |
 |
| Jake found four prunes in the cupboard and added cocktail stick claws for paws |
|
| And here it is! |
 |
| The only problem is that it's not easy to eat it afterwards. Well maybe not for the first few seconds! |
 |
| So who do you think might be tucked away all cuddled up in here in a cosy garage owned by a friendly foster mummy? |
 |
| He's a bit shy to start with. |
 |
| And a wee bit sleepy as an overly keen gardener had woken him up from his hibernation by accident. Isn't he sweet! |
 |
| And quite long too. |
 |
| With quite nibbly teeth. |
 |
| He wasn't alone, either. At the moment Conni has about 6 hedgehogs to look after, fattening them up while the weather warms up outside. |
 |
| Another little fellow was rummaging about in the newspaper shreddings. We could just see his nose inside the box but couldn't get a good photo. Jake tried with his phone but we didn't want to scare him with the flash. |
 |
| There are two hedgehogs in this big box but they don't get on so the doors to their separate hoggy homes have to face different ways. |
 |
| Outside in the carport, Conni's clever husband has made this multi-box condo that can be sectioned off to house lots of hedgehogs needing help. That's just as well because last year Conni had 86 hedgehogs to care for - 23 was the most at one time. |
 |
| Of course, hedghogs like woodpiles better than moving boxes. |
 |
| The bigger the better!
Conni started fostering seven years ago when a family of
young hedgehogs lost their mum. Now she has at least four permanent prickly
residents in her garden.
So what does it take to be a hedgehog foster mum?
You need time, according to Conni. A call can come any time,
though the peak season is from May until November. And you need the stamina to
care for sometimes wounded, infected hogs and to remove ticks, mites, maggots
etc. if necessary from the poor little creatures. Naturally, the society puts
new recruits in touch with an experienced contact person to help advise on
looking after sick hedgehogs, bottle-feeding hoglets and homing hoggies. Food
(kitten biscuits) is delivered to the door and the cost of medicine is covered
by the society. Anyone interested in volunteering in Denmark is welcome to write to plejeransvarlig@pindsvin.dk. They
are also interested to hear from potential drivers who can pick up hogs and
drop them off with foster parents though the petrol isn’t refunded and all work
for the society is voluntary.
|
 |
| If you don't have a big woodpile like Conni, but would like to give a hedgehog a home, they can make do with a pallet pad covered in insulating plastic... |
 |
| ...and full of straw. We'll be making our own pallet pad for a hedgehog next time we go up to our cottage where the garden is big enough for a new resident and the neighbours are friendly too. So look out for that post in a week or two. BUT FIRST...next Sunday (3 May) we'll be posting photos of how to bake a chocolate and strawberry hedgehog cake to celebrate the first day of Hedgehog Awareness Week in England. |
 |
| Mmmmmmm! Fingerlickin' good! Who needs perfection in confection anyway? A good dollop of fun is the icing on OUR cake! |
