Pine cone in production

Mrs Tiggywinkle Goes for a Walk

I saw this little creature on our neighbour's lawn first. We went out later in the day and we found her on our drive. The next day, she was walking up the middle of the road, following the white lines. Amazingly she wasn't flattened when we came back from our trip out. Phew!

Golden Brown

Nectar of the gods

Autumn Leaves

Frog on the blog

When our water tanks were cleaned out last week, the technician found a live frog swimming around inside. So all our lovely country water was pumped out and the tanks scrubbed. Horrid old mains water was used to top them up again.

And earlier this week, J found a frog hopping around the perimeter of our house - looking for a way back in? Hopefully not...

Remains of the Day 2

We knew that there was a small mouse population in our house after seeing mice and trapping them in the garage, the kitchen and the living room. So we hoped that we'd find the holes where they were entering the house when the cladding was stripped off and then we could block them up. We didn't quite expect to find ancient nests inside the walls.



We know that this nest must pre-date us as we don't recognise the fabric that they've used for a carpet.



We found this little mouse graveyard in one of the kitchen walls.



The skulls are fascinating - check out the front fangs and the tiny molars.



And you can see each plate in the skull too.



No wonder mice can get through such small spaces.

Mousehole

When I cleaned out the chickens, I found the woodlice pictured yesterday. When I cleaned out the rabbits, I found this mouse.

Unfortunately for him, he didn't have a decent escape route planned out and ended up trying to pretend he wasn't there in the top corner of the hutch. That good old flawed theory - if I can't see them, they can't see me.

Hedgehog

When we were sat in the living room the other evening, we heard a squeal from outside. I confidently identified it as a hedgehog, not expecting J to believe me and not expecting to be able to prove it.

So I was amazed when I returned from yoga later to find a spiny little creature tip-toeing across the drive and making a beeline for the aloe.

Here he is, trying to hide from my camera.


Sadly, hedgehogs are a pest in New Zealand. They munch through native birds' eggs and other native treasures like weta and skinks. I didn't feel inclined to drown him in a bucket though and J's suggestion of rolling him in mud and baking him for dinner would have taken too long so we settled for a quick pasta dinner instead. Next time...

Toadstool

This is the toughest, woodiest, biggest piece of fungus that I have ever seen. And it's in our lawn. I'm not even tempted to find out if it's edible. It would need pounding and marinading for days.

Mousetrap!

Shamefully, when the draughtsman came to visit last week, the garage mouse showed himself. And then as we watched TV on Friday night, the living room mouse appeared. Something had to be done! And so a humane trap was purchased from the farm shop and we set it with a little morsel of Vogel bread.

It worked a treat and we had our first prisoner within just a few hours. He was an acrobatic little beast, running round and round the trap.



We took him up to the road to release him and then re-set the trap.



This little creature, rather more subdued, was found this morning, cowering in the corner.



How many more to come?