Too Easy

Bam! Too easy! Cyril is in the trap within an hour. Now Dad has a problem - how to keep a squirrel reasonably happy in a trap right through the night and round to morning when we can take him away from here sufficient distance.

Naturally, I offer to help - that's me looking up at the loft-hatch from the bottom of the ladder "calmly" offering to assist. (Mum says more like dancing around, squeaking and pleading to be allowed to come up into the loft where the daft humans have a squirrel in a trap which they actually want to keep alive !! How absurd is that?)

I'm shut in the loo while the animal is brought down the ladder. Mum and Dad decide to release him on the back terrace hoping he'll flee and be so upset by the trapping experience, he never comes back. Ha! He scampers right, dives back into the Albertine rose, up the back of the house, out round the soffit and gutters, and over the roof, headed, we guess, straight back to the hole (now blocked) back into his nice warm loft.

A pic here, too of him in the trap and, for good measure, one of the tiny hole down into the gable end above the bay where Dad (not a small bloke) has to crawl in order to get at the starling/squirrel hole.

A friend on one of Mum's Internet chat sites happily informs us that we have just broken the law - the release of wild animals "into the wild" is forbidden by the Countryside and Wildlife Act 1981..... oops

http://www.jncc.gov.uk/page-3614

Since the release day (Wednesday) we have heard squirrelly scrabblings only once, and we now think this is what has happened. When Dad blocked the holes on Sunday, Cyril may have been hidden up in the loft, keeping quiet. He was then effectively trapped in the loft, unbeknownst to us, round till Wednesday without food or water. When Dad set the trap, he must have been starving, and dived on the offered cheese and peanut butter, heedless of the trap dangers.

By trapping and releasing him outdoors, we probably saved his life. Anyway, so far, other than those quick scrabblings, which we now think were him outside the blocks trying to find his way back in, it's all gone quiet. My Client humbly submits m'lud, that we did not release him "into the wild" as he was set free on the very civilised terrace table and, anyway, our actions were well intentioned..... (gulp).

For now though, the trap is up there, re-set, and armed with a peanut butter-smeared walnut, and all ears are prick'd for the sound of squirrelly feet on the loft boards again.

One down-side to this, of course, is that the starling are also excluded from nesting in that gable this spring.

Deefer

He's Back !!!

Just for fun a couple of pics of a bit of successful growing - an Unwins indoor mushroom growing kit Dad got for Christmas, now pushing out resonably sized cups, very fresh, firm and tasty. Can you have food-feet instead of food miles? These walk just about 10 paces from cut to kitchen!

He's Back! Last night, any thoughts Mum and Dad had that my deterrent scamperings round the loft, and Dad's shoring up holes with expanding foam and weldmesh would stop Cyril the Squirrel were blown away by the sounds of squirrels line-dancing upstairs. Probably only one in fact (though one squirrel can manage to sound like a soccer squad on a boarded out loft space.

Plan-B. We still have, in the shed, a live-trap Dad used to use for r*ts when they (I wasn't born yet) first had chooks. I gather that Meggie became much more effective at despatching r*ts than the trap was at ever catching them, so "we" soon changed from dropping them off at the top of Detling Hill, alive and kicking, on Dad's way to work (15 miles from here!), to quietly disposing of chewed, skeletally challenged... um... corpses.

This device is now baited with cheese and peanut butter, and set up in the loft space. It will, of course, be checked regularly, but we are hoping we can export yet more livestock in the direction of Detling. Mum and Dad will be lying in bed tonight waiting for the loud and metallic "Ker-choingggg!" the thing makes when sprung.

Megan and I were. of course, given another carry up the ladder and a chance to run around in the loft, sniffing under and behind boxes just in case Cyril was in residence. He was long gone!

What fun!

Deefski

New Pond in the Forest

The 25th - Burns Night - a day for the "H" to feel a bit nervous as all these humans talk of eating haggis. No matter how many times you tell Haggis that this is a foodstuff beloved of Scots, and is spelt with a small "h" he never looks that convinced till it's bedtime and he has survived again.

Our lie-in with the humans reading the papers, is interupted by convincing squirrel scampering noises in the roof space above our heads. We've had starlings nesting up there every year for the last few, but lately there's been scamperings and rummagings too big and heavy (and too keen to venture away from the nest-hole, into the roof itself) to be starlings.

Dad and I are sent up to explore while Mum, in the bedroom is put on listening watch. The theory is that as soon as Dad pops the hatch open "it" will be heard scurrying for the entrance, and may be seen by Mum exiting the hole above the bedroom window and doing its acrobat-bit round the soffit and gutters, up onto the roof. That proves to be the case. I am carried up the ladder and let llose for a fantastic explore among the boxes and junk - it's an Alladin's cave up there! The have a devil's own job persuading me back out once the exploratory investigate is done.

Dad is despatched to B+Q for expanding filler, which he will frame with 3/4 inch weld-mesh into an effective block on the hole.

It rains all day. We do a short walk with Meggie in the Rec but later, despite the rain, we are off to the forest for a voyage of discovery. The "Friends of Kingswood" (of which Dad used to be Treasurer) have had a 4th pond constructed all the way down on the north side of the forest in the bit called "Cutler's Valley" (O.S. savvy readers might prefer "TR041521").

The forest is mainly on chalk, although bits have glacial deposits of "clay with flints", so there is little standing water for the Fallow Deer, and the FoKW have had 3 ponds built over the years to help out, now with a 4th. Previous ponds have been made with a puddled 2 feet deep layer of local clay, but now, since foot and mouth etc, there are big hoops to jump through moving soil and substrate about, so it was cheaper to embed an artificial liner - like industrial strength butyl rubber sheet.

Meanwhile, poor ol' Mum is struggling through the weekend with an OU assessment involving producing a profit and loss for a "case study" business. It's not going smoothly and she occasionally emerges muttering "Gah" and dark swearings to any dog foolish enough to cross her path. Sums is Hard, she opines.

Being a dog is sometimes the easier option ...... zzzzzzzzzzzzz

Deefski

Let that be.....

...a lesson to all of you. You doggie readers... This is what happens to a dog if he doesn't heed the warnings to not nibble at his stitches after an operation to remove a small cyst (Rags followers will be pleased to know that the cyst was benign), and then tries to tear off his lampshade and rub his wound raw on the hard furnishings in the house.

Quite gruesome in the end, according to Diamond; the wound is in a fairly mobile flexible bit of the leg, so when he sat in one position the de-stitched wound would close up almost invisibly, but as he moved it would gape open revealing lots of red and pink biology that the non-medical eye should never see.

So now the "brave soldier" (we're sworn against saying "poor-poor-bunny") is reduced to a re-fitted, tight-to-the-collar lampshade, and a tee-shirt to stop him rubbing the re-stitched wound back open. Only for another week, though Rags - just think of the relief when the vet clears you for take-off and you can do away with all that paraphernalia and be free to have a damn good scratch.

For some un-accountable reason, I was the perfect patient when I had my spay, and never even so much as licked the wound or the stitches. Mum and Dad were supplied with a lamp shade for me but I never even tried it on. I know. Most unlike me to have a chance to smirk in a superior manner at old chum Rags. Even more unlike me not to capitalize; but the sight of the brave soldier charging round trying not to destroy the house with his lampshade even had me sympathetic.

The other pic is first flower from a recovering orchid in the stairwell. Over a year ago Dad was given an orchid in full flower and, as usually happens, the flowers eventually finished and all looked lost. But by careful nurture and husbandry, Dad eventually encouraged new shoots to appear and now... well look!

Deefer

Global or local?

Mum is mad keen on American (or any other) politics, so she's home from work early to watch every minute of the Barack Obama inauguration. Dad knows his place, and that's to shop for suitably celebratory victuals, so he turns up with good Fizz, cheese and spring onion "Pringles", Green and Black's "Maya Gold" chocolate and, for that American flavour (to drive Meggie wild) blueberry muffins.

Yes, Barack - we toasted you with Piper Heidsieck's red label Brut. Good luck ol' fella. We especially liked old Rev Lowery's prayer at the end

"....help us work for that day when black will not be asked to give back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right."

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/religion/post/2009/01/61651854/1

More parochially, Dad is off to the local "In-Bloom" Committee meeting, where the town's comp itself is safe enough but where Swale Borough budget cuts have done for the town's South and South East in Bloom entry.

Meanwhile, two of Dad's work colleagues have independently snuck out to buy Staffie pups. Photo's soon. One of these is Xena, or "Keira" fame - see earlier posts. Keira grew rapidly into a big black shaggy bouncy GSD, which was all too much for live at home grandson (3). Xena made the hard decision to rehome Keira. Now the grandson is a bit bigger and the staffie will be smaller, so they are fervently hoping that the two get on because, says Xena, this time it will be the grandson who gets re-homed! Go Xena!

Deefski

Toy of the Month

First a nice pic of the stream running through the Abbey Fields. That's me down on the right bank. Dad is standing on the flat concrete bridge to take the pic. It's a walk we do quite often, and in the Summer we nip down a little earth "slip-way" for a wade. It's a good stream for water cress as it's so clean.

The disreputable ball thing in the 2nd pic is current favourite toy. I spend hours chasing it when it's thrown about by Dad, take it to my bed, and get so distracted when it's taken off me that I can't concentrate on supper and Megan steals my food. I think it was once roughly spherical, but it's previous owner has chewed one of its three rings off, so I'm left with an axle bit and 2 rings. It's all stipply, so it's presumably mainly for teeth cleaning.

All the best

Deefer

New Steps

A beautiful sunny morning, but now after the thaw, very sloppy underfoot. We go for a gorgeous walk all round the Abbey Fields and behind the allotments. Sunny it may be, but still rather chilly in the wind, so why then does Megan still like wading in the puddles. When it's hot you can understand it, cooling off the dusty, foot-sore pads, but in January?

In the "No accounting for dogs" department, it's up there with "Why does Haggis take himself off upstairs to the humans' bed as soon as they sit down to eat, only trotting back down when he hears the meal ending noises - scrapes of chairs and crockery/cutlery?" No-one has ever told him to or even asked him to. The humans just got used to the start of each meal being synchronised with him disappearing, and a quick search would always find him up there, curled up.

As part of that walk, there was always a bit of fun at the end, negotiating the hazardous steps back up from where the monks' carp-ponds used to be, up to the allotments level. The steps were uneven, faced with mud, fronted with protruding wooden risers and "protected" with a very dodgy looking scaffolding-pole hand rail. The steps were all of different heights and of very different depths, and everyone was always amazed there were not more accidents.

Many people over many years complained to the Kent Rights of Way dept to try to get something done and finally, this Christmas, a size-able crew of guys showed up with machines, wood, concrete and a porta-loo (!) and a week later we have this magnificent, solid, even, safe flight, with treads of grooved, non-skid concrete and a nice wooden handrail either side......

And that's me at the top, checking them out

Deefer