Steel Kitten

Lucky by name...

After seeing the state this animal was in when we first picked it up, I would never have guessed it would survive its ordeal but it has. The gentleman who found it asked us to call it Lucky if it survived, and it's a very fitting name.

It went through all the stages of hypothermia recovery it seems with no ill effect, although the shuddering and squeaking at one point was frightening to hear and watch even knowing it was a clear sign of its body systems recovering. In the end the warm bottle, a homeopathy-based hydration mixture and lot of worrying saw it fully curl and uncurl after six hours and finally eat a pouch of cat food after eight hours. At 11 hours post pick up I put it down on our sofa wrapped in fleeces while I arranged its bed overnight and turned back 2-3 minutes later to see it scurry across the sofa at top speed and climb down onto the floor, with Martin in hot pursuit.

All of its body systems seem to be working ok, which is remarkable considering, and it weighed 478g that first evening. However, far from being an appropriate weight for its age, we think that it has malnutrition and should weigh a lot more. Do you know how to tell? A hedgehog of the right weight will curl into a roughly circular ball, while an underweight hedgehog will look like an oval shape with a tapered bottom half. Have a look at this website for pictures of the difference between a healthy hedgehog and an underweight hedgehog.

I still don't know whether Lucky is male or female as his/her curling defences are very good. It can sustain a curl for 20+ minutes and simply will not uncurl if I'm watching. All my hard won hedgehog uncurling techniques I've learnt over the years are being thwarted, so I'll leave it for now and and try again in a few more days.

So a large plastic storage box in our warm upstairs bathroom will be Lucky's home for the next couple of weeks until he/she goes into a hutch in the conservatory ready for hibernation.

A very Lucky little hedgehog.

 

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A hedgehog with severe hypothermia

We were given such a sick hedgehog today. It was stiff with cold and barely breathing. One of Martin's work colleagues found it in a corner of his allotment patch caught up in discarded pea netting. Last night it was the first very hard frost of the year so it must have suffered dreadfully.

I have it on a heat pad in a warm box and syringing fluids into it every half an hour (a mixture of boiled cooled water, manuka honey, aconite and arnica), but its front arms are very swollen and unyielding and it doesn't seem to be able to uncurl its back half. We're thinking it may have received frostbite last night and unfortunately we won't know how badly its tissues have been damaged for another 48 hours or so.

At least it will be safe and warm now whatever the future holds for it.

 

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The 43 posts and a change of life

The beginnings of a knitted beanie hat - one of Martin's Christmas presents

A slightly belated Merry Christmas one and all.

Sorry for the big gap since I last posted. I've actually been back here dozens of times, made 43 attempts at posts but none ever made it to publishing stage. Most posts were just random thoughts that were never expanded, others were just plain dull so I abandoned them before the end. I really needed a break - I felt like I ran out of things to say. I lost the ability to write about subjects this blog was supposed to be about. If I ever did to begin with.

Anyway, I'm here once more. It feels like a lot has changed in my life, but it hasn't really compared to what some people go through.

:: I was made redundant at the end of September, but our financial preparations and grocery stockpiling have done us proud and made the process a hiccup rather than a huge fall off a cliff. I'm back to being freelance again, although this time I can add labour market researcher onto my skills list as well as copywriter. I'm still going to go and find another job, but probably a part-time one because I have a slight 'change of life' plan for next year. It will be a miracle if I pull it off.

:: The garden put on the greatest show since we moved here. The new beds combined with the good weather meant a glut of everything, all of which has been processed and preserved.

Butternut squash soup, soda bread and foraged chestnuts for dessert!

Six full flushes of blackerries in the garden...I was picking them for weeks

The foraging opporunities in the countryside have been amazing as well, and I've enjoyed many walks foraging for mushrooms, chestnuts, crab apples, hips, sloes, damsons, bullaces and hazelnuts.

Foraged mushrooms...

...and crab apples

:: We'd done so well stockpiling money to prepare for my redundancy, including making the wrenching decision to pull out of a holiday to France in August to celebrate my best mate's 40th birthday, and then our estate car decided to spring a plethora of faults all in one go so the money we saved ended up being spent on a replacement car. After four years of doing over 350 miles a week it had just had enough. However it has worked out in our favour in the end, as we've gone from a 1.6l estate car to a little 1.0l city car and reduced our petrol spending by 60%.

I can't help feeling however that money-saving in the last half of this year has rather made my life a lot less interesting. I would have preferred France to being so sensible, but it would have been a tough one to rationalise if we subsequently defaulted on our bills because I couldn't find a job and the savings ran out.

Sophie getting old and fragile

:: We nearly lost Sophie to a kidney infection. At 17, she's now got dementia which means she forgets to eat and drink now and then, but we didn't realise how bad the problem was until suddenly we were in the midst of a full-on crisis. The vet pronouced renal failure after a blood test and pointed us towards expensive renal cat food until such time - and he said it would be soon - as she needed to be put to sleep. As testament to her staying power and sheer bloody-minded obstinacy, she got better and the 'irreversible renal failure' disappeared along with the need for renal food. Her dementia worsened after the crisis though. She's more aggressive than she used to be and quite unsteady on her feet (scratching her ears too vigorously can result in her losing her balance) but she's not doing too bad for an old girl. She just needs a lot of love and a very gentle guiding hand.

Me and a gloucester old spot weaner in July 2011

::And finally, a change of life. Part of my life plan has always been to buy a smallholding and raise some animals and crops, and Martin is happy with that because a smallholding come with barns and that means space to park his classic cars! But it ocurred to me that if I wait until we have a smallholding to practice smallholding skills I'll be in my fifties and possibly too tired. So, this year marks the start of me expanding my repetoire of skills. I want to know which ones will work for us and which ones won't before we buy our smallholding. Everything I need is around me already. If I need extra space I am surrounded by farmers who let their fields, and there are dozens of hobby and commercial farmers in the area I can find support from. This will be the start of five years of experimenting.

Making my own cumberland sausages this evening from shop bought pork mince. One year soon I'll be making my own pork mince and sausages from our own pigs.

To help me on my quest to forge a different and better future for us both, my amazing husband pulled a rabbit from a hat this Christmas. I found this under the tree - a complete surprise.

How does he do it?