Update on hamster watch

No long-tailed hamster sightings since last Thursday.  Ian put out more of our special 'hamster food' (poison) on Friday and when we checked yesterday it looked like some had been eaten.

So long my old adversaries.  'till next time.

Charles Ryder: Electioneer extrodinaire

When he's not in 'his' spot in front of the log burner (regardless of whether it's lit), Charles our grumpy middle-aged rabbit lives in the enclosed passageway that runs from our front door along the length of our house.  One consequence of this is that we occasionally come home to half chewed bits of mail, (including, on several occasions, mail for next door), giving a new meaning to the phrase 'a digested read'.  Luckily for us, Charles shows more interest in junk mail than letters, as the former tends to come through the letterbox scrunched up and so present more surfaces for nibbling on.  Recently, our daily helping of takeaway menus, adverts for gardening services, sash window double glazing, and pleadings from local estate agents seeking similar properties in our area, has been supplemented with leaflets from election candidates.  Last week, we noticed that Charles had nibbled round the edge of the Lib Dem leaflet, leaving the central picture of our local Lib Dem MP, Julian Huppert, lying in his food and litter tray.  What did this mean?  Was Charles decorating his living area, or leaving it next to his toilet in a pointed political statement?  We couldn't tell.  However, a few days later a similar fate had befallen the Labour candidate.  

I've decided that the only fair test is to leave each leaflet in the passageway for the same number of days, and then cast my vote according to the tastiest candidate.  This isn't quite as risky as it sounds as central Cambridge isn't exactly a UKIP target seat.  And if it turns out I'm wrong we have plenty of other digestive systems to put the leaflet through :)

The long-tailed hamsters...

(Mum, if you are reading this, they were definitely hamsters)..


Ian and I have encountered what we have been calling 'long-tailed hamsters' before.  When the ducks were alive, their messy approach to feeding had attracted several...hamsters who had moved into the space underneath the duck bath.  The evidence for this was mainly archaeological: piles of droppings, stolen food, and a network of tunnels underneath the duck bath.  Humans and hamsters had pretty much agreed to avoid each other until our neighbour, whose house looks onto the bottom of our garden, mentioned that he had seen them running around our garden during the day, and that they were rather large.

Sadly, my suggestion that we solved our hamster problem by buying a cat, was vetoed on the basis that this was a slippery slope to our own re-enactment of 'there was an old lady who swallowed a fly'.  After discovering that so-called humane traps get their name from the fact that they fail to actually catch anything, we eventually resorted to placing packets of poison underneath the bath where there was no danger of the ducks pecking at it.  This, coupled with a twice daily regimen of sweeping up the stray duck food, seemed to solve the problem.

Fast-forward two years and we started to see signs that a family of hamsters had moved into the big shed.  They were pretty clear signs too, if I'm honest.  These hamsters hadn't just moved in, but also thrown a welcome party and chewed their names into the front door.  In addition to the shed renovations which had provided them with a front door even when the shed doors were shut, there were also several evenings when we heard suspicious scrabbling coming from the big shed while putting Tiberius and Sibelius to bed in the small shed next door.  

suspicious....

As before, we followed a laissez-faire approach to pest control until the problem had to be confronted head-on.  This happened on Sunday morning when I encountered several hamsters head-on while rummaging in the shed for a trowel. 

The reason for the hamsters was a forgotten bag of pygmy goat mix.  This had been added to our first hay order to meet the minimum price for home delivery  and had been relegated to the shed since the boys turned their noses up at it.   Now a large hole allowed a landslide of food to spread across the floor.  Possibly we just hadn't offered this food to the boys correctly since on Sunday they fell on it like manna from goaty heaven.  For future reference, I know now that the way to make food appetising for them is to mix it with tiny nuggets of poo and spread it out on the floor.

Although this was helpful for the general cleaning up, I had to balance this against the possibility they would actually explode.  So after a few minutes I turfed the boys out of the shed so that I could move in with the heavy-duty cleaning equipment.*

*our largest brush and some gardening gloves.



My helpers 'cleaning' up

I remember thinking at the time that Tiberius and Sibelius had taken this ousting well, given their normal frenzied reaction to food.  I subsequently discovered that they had moved straight from hoovering up goat mix inside the shed, to breaking into a bag of hay on the grass outside. 

Anyway, now that all stray food has been successfully swept and poison put down strategically underneath the shed and behind the log store, hopefully the hamsters will be moving on soon...




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Fruit trees part 1- correcting rookie errors

High up on my mental 'to-do' list has been to correct the major issue with two big planters I bought last year.  I'm sure all gardeners, and most normal people, would have thought to check whether there were holes in the bottom before filling them with soil.  I didn't.  Consequently they have spent most of the winter full of water. So long ceanothus and my hopes of a floral archway over the back door.

I was left with two extremely heavy planters full of soil and water.  Removing it wasn't really an option, so I decided that the only thing to do was to drill holes in the bottom of the planters as they were.  The first plan was to tilt the planters and drill through the bottom with Ian holding them. However, they were so full and so heavy that it was impossible to tilt them enough to allow me to get underneath with the drill.

Plan number two was to raise the planters up on some type of stilts.  Luckily we have a zillion breeze blocks in the back garden from our old front garden wall. 



Sibelius on the stilts

Two planters of mud

Lifting the hugely heavy planter on to the stilts was most definitely a two person job. Once there we realised that the only way for me to access the base with the drill was to have the stilts biased towards one side, thus making the planter massively unstable with a tendency to tip in the direction of the unsupported side (i.e. where I was with the drill).  At this point Ian left to continue his own project, the wildlife pond née bath.

So with one hand pushing against the pot and one foot stopping the boys from nosing open the back door, (cracked open to allow for the drill cord), I lay on the floor and drilled up into the planter.  What happens when you make a hole in the bottom of a heavy planter full of mud and water I hear you ask?  Why, a stream of  freezing muddy water hits you in the face, you swear and move out of the way and in the process momentarily shift the foot that is keeping the back door shut and a goat runs into the house. I was left on the floor with one hanging on to the collar of goat number 2 and sort-of-holding the drill and the other still propping up the heavy planter which was still gushing muddy water.  At this point Ian asked if I knew there was a goat in the house?

Success!

Anyway, one we were back to a two-man team I was able to shift the planter and make more holes in the bottom.  This stemmed the flow and half an hour later I had two slightly soggy, rather than sopping, planters.

The guys watching with what I am choosing to assume is admiration.

Tomorrow the plan is to plant them with some new fruit trees. Apart from the plum tree, which is looking a little worse for wear after being used as a goat climbing frame, the fruit trees we planted last year are looking really healthy and seem to be the only 'crop'  that we can grow in our garden. .

Morning has broken...

I don't often get to participate in the morning ritual that is 'waking the goats'.  As a frequent insomniac I've normally just dropped back into the deepest of deep sleeps just as Ian is getting up.  In the absence of any human company for the next few hours he has been known to take his laptop into the goat shed and start working. 

Anyway, the other morning marked the coming together of two rare events- me getting a good night's sleep, and Ian oversleeping*, such that we were both up and wearing our goat trousers at the same time.    At this point I should note that the idea of 'waking' the goats is totally wrong.  Those boys have been awake with their ears pressed to the inside of the shed door for hours.  Probably since they were shut in the night before.  I know this because on the (many) days that I arrive home from work post goat-bedtime, making even the slightest noise when bringing my bike into the garden results immediately in a questioning 'meehh?' from the shed. Ongoing or louder noises (such as me accidentally dropping my bike), results in a louder and more enthusiastic 'meehh!' while I call apologetically down the garden to explain that it's not morning yet.



Tiberius breakfasting

Anyway, we managed to creep down most of the way to the shed before we were rumbled.  I tried to take a picture of the happy moment of opening to door to allow two tiny goats to tumble out, but it was just a blur of wagging tails.



Sibelius, the smallest goat

*to a time more in line with mere mortals.

Welcome!

First post on the new blog! 

This is intended as a record of our attempts to live 'the good life' (sort of) in the centre of Cambridge with our two pygmy goats; Tiberius and Sibelius, and Charles Ryder the rabbit. The rogues gallery is below...


Tiberius looking hopeful for a treat

Sibelius sunning himself on baby goat mountain (the old wall from our front garden)

Charles Ryder at rest

 Now, with two goats in the garden, it's difficult to pursue the main activity associated with running a smallholding- growing vegetables.  A pair of fruit trees have so far largely escaped the nibbling, and we have a well established cherry tree which we fight the pigeons for every year and occasionally manage to make a jar of jam; however, in general we are viewing this time as livestock practice for smallholding #2, which will hopefully be measurable in acres, not footsteps!