Mrs Tiggy-Winkle

A little girl named Lucie lives on a farm called Little-town. She is a good little girl, but has lost three handkerchiefs and a pinafore. She questions Tabby Kitten and Sally Henny-penny about them, but they know nothing. Lucie mounts a stile and spies some white cloths lying in the grass high on a hill behind the farm. She scrambles up the hill along a steep path-way which ends under a big rock. She finds a little door in the hillside, and hears someone singing behind it:


Lily-white and clean, oh!
With little frills between, oh!
Smooth and hot – red rusty spot
Never here be seen, oh!


She knocks. A frightened voice cries out, "Who's that?" Lucie opens the door, and discovers a low-ceilinged kitchen. Everything is tiny, even the pots and pans. At the table stands a short, stout person wearing a tucked-up print gown, an apron, and a striped petticoat. She is ironing. Her little black nose goes sniffle, sniffle, snuffle, and her eyes go twinkle, twinkle, and beneath her little white cap are prickles! She is Mrs. Tiggy-winkle, the animals' laundress and "an excellent clear-starcher". She keeps busy with her work.

The laundered clothing is tied up in bundles and Lucie's handkerchiefs are neatly folded into her clean pinafore. They set off together down the path to return the fresh laundry to the little animals and birds in the neighbourhood.
At the bottom of the hill, Lucie mounts the stile and turns to thank Mrs. Tiggy-winkle. "But what a very odd thing!" Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is "running running running up the hill". Her cap, shawl, and print gown are nowhere to be seen. How small and brown she has grown – and covered with prickles! "Why! Mrs. Tiggy-winkle is nothing but a HEDGEHOG!"

This weekend we found our own little Tiggy-Winkle, but alas there was no pinny, shawl or cap.
What we had instead was a very live hedgehog lying on the driveway by the car.
It still moved when touched and was sniffling around.

We do have hedgehogs in our garden, seeing as the garden has 2 great big hedges down either side, then it is not a shock to find one in the garden, usually we hear them scurrying around in the night.
However we were quite concerned as this was 4pm in broad daylight and that is unusual for these creatures.
We showed the boys and they were quite interested in our new found creature.
When Steve appeared from the garage with a large spade, I was quite shocked especially as he was in the process of telling us that "all these creatures need is a good whack with a spade!" turns out he was getting the spade to be able to move the hedgehog to the hedge in the garden.

It was fascinating to see the defensive mode it manages to go to when feeling under threat.
Its head and feet well protected under its spiky outer.
We moved the hedgehog but it still seemed a little unsure of where to go or what to do.

Eventually, after we had shoo'd the cat away several times, it scurried into the hedge and we left it to its own devises.

However this morning Steve informed us that our little friend was now curled up in a ball, still breathing, on the front lawn.
It strikes me as very odd and weird.
I myself sadly do not think that it will be alive when we get home. I do not think the cats will get it, but for it to be out in the daytime and in the open space as well strikes me as not good. I think something is wrong and sadly it is dying.
So we may have to have a little burial in the back garden tonight, otherwise the cats (mainly the other ones not ours) may play and the last thing we need is a played with hedgehog on the front lawn.

Mice

We have a mouse!

No it is not the nice kind that the kids have as pets in a cage in their rooms, no, we are talking the uninvited kind that visits you during the night.

We knew we had one several months ago when we started to notice droppings in the cleaning product cupboard under the sink in the kitchen.

There is a hole at the back where some water pipes come through and so we knew how they were getting in.

So we went through the usual treatments.

First Steve said he was not poisoning it, so we cleared the cupboard of all the bottles and laid a trap with food on.

Unfortunately we have a very wise mouse/rat because they proceeded to eat the food of the trap BUT never set the thing off! Including when Steve put thread round the food for the mouse to get its teeth caught, it still managed to get the food but leave the string and the trap!

After about 2 weeks of this Steve finally said to me "Get some POISON"

So we laid some poison traps at the back of the cupboard and left them to it. Over the last several weeks they seem to have eaten all the poison, poo'd green, but still come and visit us in the middle of the night!

Here you can see the hole, with the poison trap and that we have activity there.

Apart from the fact we can tell that they are back through the cupboard we have also noticed some strange going ons in the kitchen.

I came down the other morning to find an apple by the dishwasher.

Now I know this wasn't there when we went to bed, and the boys had not got up yet, so it was strange to find it there.

What was even stranger was the little bites all over it.

2 nights later we came down in the morning to find the banana half eaten. The black on the bench is banana skin, nothing else!

What amazes us about all this is just how they are getting up onto the bench? We can only assume they are climbing up the new curtains beside the bench.

2 nights ago we came down in the morning to find most of the apples in the bowl with lots of teeth marks over them where people had had little chews, and it is definitely not the boys, although I do know Alex likes to have a wee chew and put it back, but it is the wrong size and shape for him. Again the bits in the bowl are skin nothing else!

Steve informed me today that when he came down this morning there was another apple half chewed over by the dishwasher again.

The mouse can get under the dishwasher as it is next to the kitchen cupboard under the sink.

So we have now invested in an even bigger meaner trap, which I have been assured should work.

You load food, in this case we will use apple as he seems to have a liking for it, on the plate with the circle bit on and then when they step on the plate part to get the food the lid slams down shut, either trapping them or something worse!

Although Steve can be the one to come down each morning and check it.

And if I hear it go off in the night he will be the one that gets kicked to wake up and go check it out!

We will also look at ways to close off the hole under the dishwasher and maybe blocking the hole under the sink with temporary filling, as we do need to get to this hole if there is a problem with the dishwasher.

So I will keep you posted with our success and if any of you have any tips on how to get rid of our unwanted visitor then please leave a comment to let me know.