Progress?

I've got half an overdress. Now I just need the other half and the underdress... but at least there are hedgehogs :) 

Thoroughly laaaazy

Really not doing very much with my week off at all... Which is exactly how I like it! 

Here's the promised AC hedgehog... 

Works very nicely as a town flag :) 

And a bonus skellington, who I think looks rather like the dude from the funnybones books! 

Aaaaaaand finally, a dress design I came up with. This is a "pro design" so it's in 4 parts... 

If you put it altogether, it looks like this: 

Have a nice day everyone, hope you get to enjoy the sunshine! I made a schoolgirl error and booked a hairdresser appointment, so I'm off to roast in Cardiff... 

Hedgehogs

I've posted some things about out prickly garden visitors before, but I thought you might like to see our current regular.

I think this is a she, and I think she may be the late overwinter hedgehog we were given to release by a local charity.

Scoffing the bird seed.

Beautiful, isn't she?

Love how she's got seed stuck to her nose. 

If you're currently in the UK and enjoying the heatwave, remember your garden birds and mammals. A shallow bowl of water in the garden (even an upturned frisbee with a puddle in it!) could really make a difference at this time of year.

Hedgehogs shouldn't be out at all in the day. These photos were snapped after 9PM with the aid of a fast lens and low-light settings. If you see a hog in your garden in daylight, and if it looks wobbly and unwell, put it in a cool, dark place with a bowl of water and call the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for some advice. They'll put you in touch with a local representative who can help you out.

If you're looking to attract hedgehogs to your garden, providing food, water and shelter is the best way. Have a look at the BHPS website for some tips.

 I'm off to make my Animal Crossing town flag into a hedgehog!

YOU GUYS!

Dudes, I'll interrupt your regularly scheduled Makie Mischief to announce that I've been invited to the best wedding ever! 

One of my oldest friends is getting married in September which is in itself epically cool. But the coolest thing yet is that she's having a sort of 'pick your own historical costume including LARP and Steampunk and oh, there are PENALTIES for not dressing up' theme for the wedding which means, oh yes, I GET TO DRESS UP. 

I'm plotting already. 

I could rock the Steampunk look? 

Perhaps a bit Victorian?

Or... well. There's not contest really, is there? There's a certain lady who's been completely rocking the cosplay scene this last couple of years, and I reckon she's my greatest fashion inspiration at the moment... 

HELL YES CERSEI LANNISTER

I know. I KNOW. Short, rather plump things like me shouldn't even bother trying to out lion the lioness, but I've got a corset, a few months to think about it and some plans involving hedgehogs... oh, and dressing the long-suffering boyfriend up as Littlefinger. Har. 

This space, you should watch it. 

Aaaargh! Another hedgehog!

...number 7 appeared rocketing around the garden yesterday at dusk. Only 320g. We thought the last two would be our lot for the Winter, but it appears they're just going to keep on coming! 

Oh no... more hedgehogs!

We're rather fond of our local wildlife, it has to be said. As well as providing food for various bird species and squirrels, we've been feeding and keeping an eye on the local hedgehog population... Plink even managed to snap one of them wandering around the garden. We've blossomed out into two hedgehog houses, which the Bloke visits of an evening to provide food and report back on occupation status and the health of the residents.

Unfortunately, this year the hedgehogs have been rather late in breeding and producing young. I think this is probably due to the very wet Summer that we had. This means that the juveniles aren't getting to a weight where they are likely to survive the Winter. So far, we've scooped up 4 microhogs who don't look like they're going to make the weight, and I have to say that we were expecting that to be our lot for the season. Given the recent rain and the cold snap drawing in, we were pretty certain that any sub-par hogs wouldn't have made it this far into the year.

So when the Bloke came in from the garden today and announced that he thought there were two tiny hedgehogs in the house, we were pretty surprised. The kitchen scales were usurped and the weigh-in completed...

...and both of them came in at less than 350g. This is no way near enough to make it; you want your hoglets to be pushing 500-600g by now, which makes them about the size of a football.

We've taken them both inside for tonight; they're currently in a box in the downstairs loo. In the morning we'll get in touch with the excellent City Wildlife Care, who will arrange for them to be de-ticked, wormed and provided with a cosy living space for the Winter.

They provide this as a free service. Obviously, we'll be sending them a Christmas present (as well as offering the garden as a release site for hedgehogs in April next year), but if you've got a couple of pennies in your pocket, please have a think about making a donation to Operation Hedgehog. They're an entirely voluntary organisation, cover a massive area and need all the help they can get.

Plinkography: Wildlife Edition 2

"Hulloes!

Hullo!

Well, the human is completely zoned out on anti-histamines*, so I stole her 70-300mm lens and went outside to track some hedgehogs!

Here's one:

Spiky

Hrum. Hedgehogs are tricksy, and it would appear that most of my photos are blurry. I know! I'll do what the human does with mediocre photos and turn them black and white!

Blurry?

Bang and the blur is gone!

Schnurfly!

Oooh, classy.

Spiny!

Hey! This next one is in focus! We'll leave it in colour!

Spectacular!

If you're a fan of hedgehogs, check out the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, who do cracking work in the areas of hedgehog welfare and research. They also sell fantastically cool hedgehog-themed merchandise. Woo, hedgehogs!"

*I have, at last count, 18 separate mosquito bites on my body, ranging from places ordinary (stomach, calf) to completely unmentionable (unmentionable) to utterly weird (back of ankle, right thumb). Chlorphenamine and I  do not get on well, I'm currently having difficulty both focussing my eyes and not falling asleep. Ahahahahahahaaaaaaaa... this Blog post is brought to you by modern pharmaceuticals and the letters 'z, o, n, k, e and d". It's quite frankly a miracle I got to the end of it.