Hi again, Annie,
Bad news, I fear, for the poor hog. RSPCA couldn’t pick him up until tomorrow, so I had to go to plan f or was it g! I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving him suffering all night. He was left with the vets. The actual vet hadn’t seen him yet, but (I think, one of the animal nurses) said he would probably have to be put down as his injuries were so bad. I hadn’t seen them – didn’t want to mess the poor chap around too much – but there were apparently maggots. It looked to me as if the injury had been there for a while. I hate to think what the poor chap had to suffer. He looked very thin as if he hadn’t eaten for a while. I will ring to check tomorrow just in case, but am fairly sure what the answer will be. I don’t even know who he was – he was such a mess.
The first hog who arrived this evening was very hesitant and then only stayed a few minutes. The next couple also only stayed a few minutes. I imagine that they could smell the poor injured hog. I haven’t been able to get the smell out of my house. The good news is that I think the little female hog from last night was here again. She stayed a bit longer than the others, but by then it was raining so that might have dampened the smell. Only trouble is she seems to arrive rather late. The cameras seem to be misbehaving. They are not always filming the hogs which I have actually seen, so could not rely on them catching the hogs which turn up later.
No Digger still, but the other ‘regular’ girl was here earlier.
We had some quite dramatic thunder here too. I am quite pleased to have a bit more rain. It had been very windy here, as well as sunny so the poor plants will be glad of some rain.
Well done with all the litter collecting. A friend of mine is a keen litter collector – does regular litter patrols where he lives – and it has quite put him off humans!
I have tried to adapt my garden to non-slug-edible plants too. I used to go out on slug patrols, but decided it was easier to just get things they didn’t like. Evening Primroses do grow a bit like triffids, don’t they – slugs don’t seem to like them! I often get slugs eating the hog food. The hogs seem to happily ignore them. They are often the big ones, which I don’t think the hogs eat, but sometimes smaller ones too. What was really disgusting was when I used to see slugs eating dog poo, when I was out for a walk! Bad enough the dog poo was there in the first place.
Glad to hear Pidge is still keeping you entertained. I have a little robin in the garden who seems to be around a lot when I am out there. Usually, here, they are more wary and it is the blackbirds who are slightly braver, so it makes a nice change to have a tamer robin. The new frog is much jumpier than the old one. It is a bit bigger, so I am hoping it is a female and they will have tadpoles next year. The new one is quite dark and the original (if it is the same one) was dark to start with and gradually became spotted, so I don’t know if the new one is actually younger and will eventually become spotty too.
