Hi Annie
Really sorry to hear about your Dad. Him being 91 doesn’t make things any easier at all. It just means he was around for more of your life and so leaves a bigger gap. It takes a while, probably longer than many people imagine, but I hope you are beginning to feel a bit more like yourself.
Sounds like you’ve got a right one there with that cat. Very considerate of someone to abandon a potential hog feeding box. I think it’s a good idea to have two entrances. I know it gives the cats more chance, but also the opportunity for a smaller hog to make an escape, if necessary. I suspect someone got caught in my feed box last night. The ‘furniture’ had been a bit re-arranged. I think hoglet definitely needs a notice on ‘his’ feed box! Depending on how big your box is, could you fit a small brick inside the doors with a hog sized gap, so the cat couldn’t reach the dish? I’ve been using up so many bricks for hog related reasons, I think I am going to have to get some more from somewhere.
I’m having trouble coming up with a name for hoglet. Usually one comes to me fairly easily, but none have semed quite right for hoglet, somehow. The latest is Horace. Horace Hog has a bit of a ring to it. I will have a think about it for a few days. I was looking it up in my Grandad’s old ‘Complete Book of Fortune’ and came across ‘Omens derived From Animals’. It says ‘Hedgehog. – An animal of good omen. To overtake a hedgehg is lucky, while to meet one going in the opposite direction is more fortunate still.’ Rather lovely, I thought. As the book is quite old, I don’t imagine they were thinking of cars, but probably more likely being on foot. Lucky people – there must have been loads more hogs around in those days.
If you are interested in the progress of the petition keep a look out tomorrow afternoon. They are doing a thunderclap thing. I didn’t really know what it was, but apparently they send messages to all the people who support it’s twitters or facebooks or whatever. Then all their followers would have access to it. The initial target for supporters was 500 and last time I looked it was 1,222 supporters with a social reach of over 2 million! Hopefully the Petition will get a good boost as a result.
I think you definitely need to get your camera out. If nothing else to catch the cat on film pulling the feeding dish out. But I really hope you get lots of hogs this year.
