Sauntering Vaguely Downward

The box had to sit in the dark for three months for the mycelium to form inside the black plastic, but once released, the mushrooms grew to edible size in just over a week!

Here's what they looked like just before harvest:



(You may have to click the top image through to Flickr to view the time lapse video. For some reason the YouTube version uploaded as a short and I can't work out how to get to the embed code.)

"Stop laughing, human. I'm going nowhere near that armoured rat."



Hedgepig continued to browse the seed bonanza in the garden for at least an hour with a brazen nonchalance that must have been infuriating to our resident feline.

I don't know about you, but I need these today.


Three home-grown pumpkins. Foot for scale (a UK 4). We are very proud.


Two children in a garden waste bin. They like jumping up and down on the branches.


A chorus of happy Pokemon.

We are all well and truly fed up with lockdown, but there are a few redeeming features. Keiki and Humuhumu have made some smol frens.

First up is Newton.


Newton on Keiki's fingers.


Humuhumu and Newton inspect each other.

Tomorrow: Moar smol fren!

[YouTube video, 00:19 long, infrared capture of hedgehog]

Last week, I remembered that we still have a motion-triggered video camera, which was gathering dust in the bloke's office. Figuring that our hedgehog was probably awake now, I dug it out, replaced the batteries - it takes eight AAs and it munches through them at a rate of knots - and asked the children to choose a place to put it.

We tried it up by the playhouse at first, as we're pretty certain the hedgehog hibernates and lives either under it or very near it. That didn't net us any footage, so we moved it to point at the ground beneath the bird feeders. Bingo! Hedgie every night. We have a lot of clips now, which I want to stitch together over the bank holiday weekend, but for now, please enjoy this little gem. Poor Mr Snuffles has got an itch that needs scratching.