hedgehogs and powder puffs

The ducklings are now over a month old and growing at an alarming rate. I still can't quite tell who is a boy and who is a girl. Boy ducks squeak and girl duck's quack but there's an awful lot of squeaking going on when either a cat appears or I pick them up to give them a bath.

This picture was taken when they were a few weeks old - now they take up the whole bath and soon I'll have to move them to a bigger outside area where I can put in the paddling pool.

Two of the white ducks have got these amusing powder puffs on their heads. As I bought the eggs off E bay I can't be certain - but I think these must have been crossed with a runner duck called a Bali Duck.

picture of a Bali duck taken from the internet.

I'm really hoping they'll be females but they both seem to have a rather high pitched squeak. I think when they grow up, if they're anything like this photo they'll look as if they've stepped out of the Restoration period.

I found this adorable baby hedgehog in the poly tunnel looking like a prickly powder puff the other day. I fear for it's life though - it's perfect snack size for the murderous cats. When I first moved the ducklings outside I found a dead mole, a dead bird and a headless mouse left right by their door. I think it was a warning.

Pixie at the wolfhound day

We attended a wonderful wolfhound day at Lake House two weeks ago. To be sitting in a glorious setting surrounded by eighty wolfhounds was almost too pleasurable for words. Not one of them barked or growled. I didn't enter Pixie into any of the competitions because actually she was on heat and I was terrified she'd break loose and run off with one of the many handsome all male dogs that were there. But whenever one took an interest in her she squeaked(a bit like the ducklings) and sat down firmly on her tail, trying to hide behind my legs.
With Beezle it's quite a different matter. With him she leaps around coquettishly, waving her tail in his face and standing patiently whilst he jumps onto her back, clinging on with all four paws. He looks so funny and when she turns with a sort of "what's that on my back" look he flies off and lands in a heap.

A couple of wolfies at the show.

I must say, inspite of all his injuries and this affront to his dogliness he remains very stoical. As Beezle and Byron would say "What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?"


He remains a little like this beautiful poem by Derek Walcott.

Love after Love


The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine. give bread. give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
sit. feast on your life

some of the clematis in the garden are looking great