Digger Land

It's like Digger Land out the back of ours at the moment. A great big caterpillar tracked digger is screeching and rattling up and down just the other side of the beech hedge flattening a mini-mountain of crushed rubble to make a temporary carpark for the builders' cars, while they lay some road through the bit they're using at the moment. We are now so used to this racket and the dust (all the cars in our road are permanently pale brown!) that we don't even bother to race down the garden to shout at them any more. They should use some grease on those tracks though.

Meanwhile, excitement at Real-Dad's last night. Real dad (Hector) and bro Archie have been up to their old tricks hedgehog wrangling again. First-Dad reports that there was a real cacophony going on in the dark, and H+A charging around in the back garden with a hedgehog between them. They were barking and yelling, covered in mud and spattered with blood. First-Mum was having a fit trying to separate dogs and hedgehog with a broom

She eventually got the dogs inside (and the hedgehog outside), got everybody calmed down, and washed the dogs clean of blood and mud. Neither dog seemed to be at all injured, so she guesses that it was, in fact the hedgehog which had been wounded. But search the garden as they might they can find no sign of injured hogs, so they are hoping the injuries were more bloody than serious, and that hog skulked off to lick his wounds and fight another day.

What is it with those 2 and hogs? I've never met one, but Haggis tells me "we" just shout at them from 2 feet away. They are spiny, as every school boy knows, and not anything you'd want near your soft lips and tongue.

And, back at the ranch, although Meg is still licking her poorly foot, it's nearly back to normal flesh pink and she's putting a bit of weight onto it. Dad bathes it, and she promptly licks all the salty water off, but she is on the mend.

Have a great weekend
Deefer