F.R.I.E.N.D. Animal Rescue

17th July.

It’s been all go here, what with one thing and another, and little Elliot (hedgehog) had to go back to the vet. He suddenly developed a huge swelling over the primary injury site and it looked like a big, fat abscess was developing over his left eye socket.

You may remember that Elliot has no eyes and it was established between us and the vet – in a best guess manner – that birds had probably pecked them out as he had lain injured in the road following being hit by a car. Doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?

The vet agreed that the lump was most likely an abscess, the original infection had probably not been eradicated and had been lurking in the background waiting for its chance. Oh, nature, what a wonderful thing!!

The vet was helpful but not awfully positive comparing poor old Elliot’s lump to what happens in Guinea pigs with orbital abscesses which appears to be a bum-sucks scenario.
Well, not being one to give up I went for the antibiotic option and I’m pleased to say that one week on he’s just fine, eating like a demon and the lump seems to be softening and being reabsorbed. Phew, that’s a relief!!

The other day someone brought us a cardboard box with a critter in that had been found in the barn where they work. A casualty, of course, but what could it be?? It was, on opening the lid, another male hedgie-pig.
This was starting to look like a habit!!

On first inspection he had a massive scab covering most of the front of his face but, luckily, his eyes were open and clearly functioning as they followed me in beady anticipation and terror.
Big fat, grey/white ticks sat like a crown around his little head tailing off into a tiny, encrusted, black pearl necklace under his chin. Snotty bubbles blew from his nose and it was evident that this little guy was very, very ill and in desperate need of treatment.

So off we went, once again, to the vet who was lovely but not hopeful. She was very much in favour of putting him to sleep on first inspection but that didn’t sit with me as he was bright.
We agreed on a course of treatment and she took him off to administer sub-cut fluids, get rid of some of the ticks and give his scabby face a clean up. Bless her, I actually felt for her when she called me back in as half his nose had come away as she’d cleaned it. She was genuinely horrified.
I remained bizarrely chipper and totally resolute pointing out that I’d seen all this before in a pig (a real one) who had a sustained a massive facial injury as a tiny piglet prior to coming to us. He is now a 40 stone, robust and very healthy pig that doesn’t know that he looks different to the rest of the gang.

So, Piggy, as they named him at the vets came home with his antibiotics, his fleas, lice and more ticks than I’ve ever seen on one animal in my entire life and appears to be making a recovery. My tick hook is my new best friend and one by one I’m getting the devils. Bless him, he’s been dusted in hedgehog friendly parasite products and is charging around like a good’n! His face looks like it’s on the mend and he’s started munching a bit of nosh.

We really don’t know what will happen with little Piggy. Maybe he’ll survive and maybe he won’t. The only thing that I know is that his failure will not be due to lack of care on our part.
We suspect that his little face was torn open by a strimmer but we will do our utmost to get him back to a state of health where he can be released back into the wild. Given his problems that could easily be next year or he may never be fit for release. Equally he might die but that is a chance that we are prepared to take and a big financial commitment that we have made despite the odds.

We are not a fancy pants, all singing, all dancing sanctuary. We are just a small place with a no kill policy and if there is even a glimmer of hope then we run with it.

PLEASE SUPPORT US.

12th July.

I was only thinking, the other day, about just how clever pigs are. They really are quite something else when it comes down to it.

We’ve had pigs that have learnt to do all sorts of tricks based on observation which is something that doesn’t seem to be apparent in other species that I’ve encountered. Since pigs are presumed to be the forth most intelligent species of mammal on Earth then you can hardly accuse me of not getting out enough on that count!

I just love pigs and the little babies make everyone smile without doing anything in particular. They’re cheeky, funny and cute. They squeal when you touch them and jump six inches in the air for nothing but should they anticipate a treat in your pocket then that fear disappears and they’ll be over you like a rash!
If you stretch out in the sunshine and there are piglets on the horizon so they’ll be there in a jiffy and after a bit of an investigation they’ll snuggle into your body and go right off to sleep.
I can tell you that if you relax with them you may well have a sleep more peaceful than you could ever believe.

Rachel is a pig that came to me a very thin, poorly little baby some years ago. Her little bones poked through her rough, thickened skin and she looked awful. She was so small for her two months of age and really could have passed for a three week old piglet. Her little body was covered in mangy scabs and her skin hung in dehydrated folds. I knew that I had to take her.

Rachel was far too tiny, poorly and infectious to go out with the other pigs and so I decided to keep her in with me. At the time I was living alone (in the human context) in a mobile home on the sanctuary and it was an ideal way of caring for her.

Pigs are very easy to care for if they are well and even the poorly ones tend to respond extremely well to TLC. Pigs love food, comfort and cuddles. They are as simple as us! It took Rachel little more than a 24hrs to adapt to the change and very quickly she was very much at home.

I think that people tend to view all of this as a one way street. All about the good old humans and what we do for the animals but that isn’t true.

One night in our caravan home I fell asleep and was only awoken by my little Rachel going mad, nudging my leg and screaming at me. At first I tried to ignore her but she was so persistent that I finally awoke and paid her the attention that she demanded.

It was only then that I discovered that our mobile home was burning down and Rachel was trying to save my life.

6th July.

We’ve had a mighty busy couple of weeks rendering me unable to write the old blog. For that I apologise.

As you will know, recently we had our own little festival with fantastic live bands that supported us 100%. It was a marvellous affair and everyone had a great time. I have to confess to being really worried about it all but everyone was fantastic and I really felt proud of the way they all came together for us.
This last weekend we were fortunate enough to be given a pitch at the Hop Farm Festival that is based just round the corner from us which is a proper and utterly professional affair.

When you don’t know anything about such things then it’s a bit of an eye-opener to see how the big guys do it and boy, oh, boy did they do it! They had Bob Dylan headlining and the list of names just went on and on with some people coming just to see the likes of Blondie. Everyone seemed to be having a ball, the music pumped into the night and the so the daftness went on.

Following paying about £130 to get a weekend ticket, getting a beer was probably best part of an hour queue (at £3.80 per pint plus £2 deposit on a glass only refundable the next day – bad luck it you were only there for the day!) and I noticed with some amusement that the queue for the toilet was almost directly opposite and equally as long. To get free water from a tap was the same again so it seemed that a sensible drinker in the scorching heat faced the eternal triangle and could easily queue for a beer, decide to pace themselves with a water then need a pee… With the best will in the world the toilets stank and the whole experience was not good. So, all of that would probably take at least a couple of hours just in time to start again! No need to bother with anything as dull as the music and, to me, it all seemed a bit mad.

I can say, hand on heart, that I’ve never seen such a horrible mess on the ground. There was a van selling spit roast chickens and the place was littered with half eaten carcasses to the point that you couldn’t walk without encountering one in an instant. It was revolting and I genuinely felt sorry for the people that had to clean up.
I felt ashamed for the human race.

All of this took me back to our beautiful event. Any of our bands would have stood proud on the stages of the Hop Farm and I say that with confidence. They looked and sounded excellent and after theirs sets were happy to have a beer with the audience. No security required or asked for. It was a truly beautiful affair and we were privileged to have hosted such an event for up and coming bands. I hope that they remember us when they’re famous!

Our toilets were clean (I had several people tell me that they were the best ‘festi’ toilets that they’d ever encountered!!!) the bands were brilliant, the food was great, as was the beer and everyone had a great time.

We will be doing it again, courtesy of our friends who care about the animals so, please, once we have a provisional date then do pencil us in for next year. It’ll be even more fun then!!!

24th June.

Over the fund raiser weekend someone delivered a group of tiny chicks to us that we’d agreed to take for a mate in the Midlands. Another school ‘educational’ tool. Six tiny fluffy little babies with no mother to teach or protect them, they sat, frightened, in the back of a huge cat carrier. It was, of course, the safest way of transporting them but they looked lost, helpless and utterly alone in their baby world.

I was at Seven Oaks market one cold, Monday, Spring morning. The market was, to put it politely, an old fashioned affair. We didn’t know that the place was drawing its last breaths as a market with plans afoot to pull it down and develop the sight. That might account in part for the lack of investment in the place but it did attract a particular type of person and they seemed to like the ‘rustic’ approach.

One side of the market was lined with small, often broken cages which held pretty well anything that would fit in the door. Usually fowl on one side and rabbits the other. It was a really strange old mix with little fluffy bunnies intended for the pet trade through to huge New Zealand white rabbits.
There was a particularly nasty character that used to put them into the sale, on being approached by a customer he’d remove a requested rabbit, walk round the back of the building only to reappear swinging its hot, lifeless body by the back legs. A trickle of blood usually dripped starkly, red on white, from the poor creatures nose.

I remember buying a rabbit from there on one occasion and when I went to collect her she had given birth on the cold, bare, steel floor of the cage in full view of all lookers. No dignity and privacy for that poor lady. No comfort or safety, no nest. Her breast tissue was like half tennis balls of pus stuffed under the skin, so infected as to render her incapable of feeding her babies. They were hand reared – I seem to recall that she died.

Brutality was part of what Seven Oaks market was. It was issued with its Trading Standards Officer who was meant to control such things but his heart really wasn’t in it and the only time he’d put down his tea and come out the office was when we complained.

It was quite common practice in those days for men with restaurants to go to the market and buy cockerels to stew up. They were big old birds and often no more than pennies each so they’d stuff them into boxes and dispatch them at home ready for dinner that night. Often these guys would drive big, flash, new cars that must have cost fortunes and they were very proud of the shiny beasts. No status in kindness and compassion but instead buffed metal and chrome.
That day I’d watched this well dressed man collect his boxes of cockerels and disappear out the gate, his brand new Mercedes sitting by the curb a few feet away. He slid the various boxes onto the back seat and shut the door, his job done, he went to chat with his mates.
I went back to check on the birds about ten minutes later only to find myself laughing out loud. He must have had about fifteen cockerels in the boxes all of which were very large and all of which had escaped into his beautiful car.
One bird was was perched on the steering wheel, crowing. Several were along the top of the front seats some perched on the back. The rest were sitting on the seats themselves. All of theme were filthy and the interior of the car was splattered with chicken diarrhoea. It was everywhere. I know that it wasn’t going to save their lives as nothing could do that but it was such a beautiful revenge that I couldn’t help but applaud them for trying.

So, going back the original reason for telling the story of that dreadful place and what it had to do with the chicks looking lost in the cat carrier.

To see calves at Seven Oaks was normal. Sometimes there’d be loads of them and sometimes just be a few. They went, almost exclusively to slaughter. The knackerman got £15 a piece for the poor little souls, usually about eight days old and totally defenceless.

One day I was driving out of the market and I had to pull round the slaughterman’s vehicle. The ramp was down and my eyes flicked up to see inside as I tried to pass. There tied up in the back of the lorry was one solitary calf. It was tiny, not much different in size to a skinny Labrador dog. The baby was tethered but made no effort to move, overwhelmed by what was happening, waiting for its mother to come and get it and make everything all right. But no mummy for that little baby.
It looked at me and I couldn’t save it.
I drove on.
I have never forgiven myself for that.

It reminded me of an image that has never left me from many, many years ago.

What a wonderful weekend we have had with our fund raiser. 23rd June.

Saturday’s weather was a bit grim but it didn’t seem to put people off and our usually tranquil orchard came alive with music. The bands were sensational and goodwill flowed through everyone.

Quite a few people brought their dogs who were very well behaved. The only naughty one in the group was Leroy, the deer, who was quite overwhelmed with the potential of so many new friends to play with. Unfortunately, Leroy’s version of play with dogs often turns to something a little more …. er…. um….. intimate! I think that all the dogs were surprised by his direct approach and lack of fear but when they found themselves giving a deer a piggy-back they really didn’t know what to do!

Following their set I was chatting with one of the bands who were blown away by it all and actually asked me if they could come back next year which was wonderful. They were laughing at the fact that they’ve never had a deer walk into the marquee and join the audience before! It was very loud but nothing much bothers our Leroy and he stayed in the midst of it, introducing himself to everyone, throughout. I think that generally folk were rather taken aback as he most certainly isn’t what most people believe a deer to be.

We had one very serious, malicious attack, presumably from a local who slipped up a dark, unprotected footpath that lead from where the animals were grazing to the road, took a fence post and fixed their gate open letting them out onto the road. It’s a country lane but the road is straight, wide and very fast and the potential of that action could have been disastrous. It’s not unusual for traffic to travel at 60 + mph along here so animals running out into the path of speeding vehicles would almost certainly result in carnage. I wonder if they even cared that human life might have been lost though that one wicked act of hatred against me. It’s frightening to think that there are people around you that are capable of such extreme evil.

Thank God we managed to get the animals back in without any harm but we were very, very lucky. We are considering a number of actions to prevent this kind of thing from happening again. As we stand the council won’t give us permission to erect a style even though they are protecting footpaths all around us. Their reason is disabled access which is reasonable but I do think these are special circumstances and even the police are supporting me on it.

We feel that we need, sadly, to light the footpath and erect cctv at the gates. This is going to be expensive but whoever is doing this is unlikely to stop and is now directing their venom at innocent animals.

Please, please, if anyone is able to help with the cost of this then we really need your help.

16th June.

It is with very real and deep sadness that I report of the death of Matilda yesterday afternoon.

Matilda had become something of a legend at F.R.I.E.N.D. And was the first pig to come to us as a tiny little baby all those years ago.

A friend bought her from a slaughterman who had her mother, brothers and sisters who, sadly, would not have had the benefit of 15 years of life as did she. God bless them, I dare say her entire family were wiped out in a few months, dying in fear and pain. I was, I suppose, grateful that at least one little piglet survived the horror of the meat industry.

She came here in a cat box, all tiny, pink and afraid. When I opened the door she flatly refused to budge from the back of the carrier, shouting porcine profanities at me from where she sat. I tried putting my hand in but that little scrap was genuinely a bit frightening and the noise was ear shattering. I should have sensed things to come and have known that this was no ordinary pig that I was dealing with!

She had a hacking cough and cold on arrival that we all caught off her – pigs and humans can infect each other with their colds and flu. When I did eventually manage to dislodge her from the box I can remember vividly her trotting round my front room, all snotty and sneezing, checking out the territory and generally being nosey. Once she’d looked around the floor so she jumped on the sofa to see what kind of human being I was made of. At first she was curiously nervous but within half an hour she was lying asleep on my lap, wrapped in my arms. It was that sort of sleep saved only for those who feel unwell. After that we never looked back and within a day she was on the bottle and feeding like a demon.

I think that it’s fair to say that when Matilda reached puberty she began to terrify our volunteers with her wanton lust and that was something that stayed with her through life. To say that no man was safe with her was an understatement!

Mark and I have often recalled when he first arrived here and was staying in a caravan. His mate who was staying with him drove his 4×4 onto the sanctuary and the lads got out to talk to me not realising that the lusty minx had seen them coming and was heading their way at speed.
Mark and his friend were new to the sanctuary and so the concept of being sexually assaulted by 40 stone pig was just a step too far. Quickly they retreated to the safety of the 4×4 and laughed.
The laughter turned to nervous hysteria as she circled the vehicle testing it for weakness.
She was a Large White pig but at that moment she was doing an excellent impression of a Great White shark checking out the intended prey.
They needed to get to the caravan which was about 50m away and they weren’t prepared to try to out run her so they attempted to drive there but Matilda was way too quick for them and was right behind. So they tried driving around but she very quickly worked out their game plan and headed them off. It was quit something to watch and was a remarkable sign of just how clever she was.
After a while they pulled the vehicle up to the caravan and climbed out the windows, along the bonnet and squeezed in through the half open caravan door only to come out again when it was safe.

Once when we had an animal rights gathering 2 photographers from The Independent newspaper thought they were very crafty and clever. By sneaking up the public footpath that nobody else seemed to know about they realised they could point their zoom lensed cameras over the fence to take unwelcome photos of us.
They hadn’t planned on, ‘Not-on-my-watch’ Matilda who lead a charge of about 30 pigs and literally chased the terrified paparazzi off the premises.
Pigs are excellent sprinters so watching our intruders gather their kit and run as fast as their crafty legs would carry them was hysterical.
I was hoping that the headlines the next morning would read something like TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP FOR PIGS but I suppose nobody would have believed them!

I remember another occasion when our ‘Till, as I fondly referred to her, gave a gaspingly impressive demonstration of the power of a pig.
We had the hunt sabs land rover here and I’ve been told that such a vehicle weighs a ton and a half, it was loaded with half a ton of animal food making a total weight of two tons.
Matilda could smell the food in the back of the vehicle and was growing increasingly more agitated that she couldn’t reach the door handle to open it.
After about half an hour she finally began to lose her temper and put her nose under the back of the two tons of Land Rover and lifted it off its springs.
Who needs a Jack when they’ve got a Matilda?

I could tell you stories all day about her but I’ll close with this one.
Some years ago I left my three door Honda Civic parked on the sanctuary over night and found it in the morning with both front doors wide open and the back seat flung out in the field. Both the driver and passenger seats had been flipped forward and there, sitting in the back was Matilda with her big, flappy ears flapping. I didn’t think it was physically possible for her to fit in but in she was!
After that she realised her potential as a thief and seemed to take pride in being able to open almost any unlocked car door that she encountered. I don’t think that people believed me until she’d walk up and open their car door to greet them on arrival.

I had hoped that she would die peacefully in her sleep but sadly that didn’t happen. Her body had failed her, over the last few days the weight fell off her, she couldn’t stand and was fading fast. Yesterday I waited for the vet to come and put her to sleep and I sobbed pretty much all day. I always say that guilt is a wasted emotion but yesterday I felt guilty. Matilda, the old reprobate, had always enjoyed a drink if she could pinch one so I sent Mark of for a bottle cider and the three of us shared it in celebration of her life. She quaffed it naughtily and went off to sleep for a while before the vet came.

I loved Matilda, my funny, difficult, arrogant, stroppy old bag of a friend that frightened most of the people that knew her. But I loved her and our special relationship will stay in my heart forever.

16th June.

It is with very real and deep sadness that I report of the death of Matilda yesterday afternoon.

Matilda had become something of a legend at F.R.I.E.N.D. And was the first pig to come to us as a tiny little baby all those years ago.

A friend bought her from a slaughterman who had her mother, brothers and sisters who, sadly, would not have had the benefit of 15 years of life as did she. God bless them, I dare say her entire family were wiped out in a few months, dying in fear and pain. I was, I suppose, grateful that at least one little piglet survived the horror of the meat industry.

She came here in a cat box, all tiny, pink and afraid. When I opened the door she flatly refused to budge from the back of the carrier, shouting porcine profanities at me from where she sat. I tried putting my hand in but that little scrap was genuinely a bit frightening and the noise was ear shattering. I should have sensed things to come and have known that this was no ordinary pig that I was dealing with!

She had a hacking cough and cold on arrival that we all caught off her – pigs and humans can infect each other with their colds and flu. When I did eventually manage to dislodge her from the box I can remember vividly her trotting round my front room, all snotty and sneezing, checking out the territory and generally being nosey. Once she’d looked around the floor so she jumped on the sofa to see what kind of human being I was made of. At first she was curiously nervous but within half an hour she was lying asleep on my lap, wrapped in my arms. It was that sort of sleep saved only for those who feel unwell. After that we never looked back and within a day she was on the bottle and feeding like a demon.

I think that it’s fair to say that when Matilda reached puberty she began to terrify our volunteers with her wanton lust and that was something that stayed with her through life. To say that no man was safe with her was an understatement!

Mark and I have often recalled when he first arrived here and was staying in a caravan. His mate who was staying with him drove his 4×4 onto the sanctuary and the lads got out to talk to me not realising that the lusty minx had seen them coming and was heading their way at speed.
Mark and his friend were new to the sanctuary and so the concept of being sexually assaulted by 40 stone pig was just a step too far. Quickly they retreated to the safety of the 4×4 and laughed.
The laughter turned to nervous hysteria as she circled the vehicle testing it for weakness.
She was a Large White pig but at that moment she was doing an excellent impression of a Great White shark checking out the intended prey.
They needed to get to the caravan which was about 50m away and they weren’t prepared to try to out run her so they attempted to drive there but Matilda was way too quick for them and was right behind. So they tried driving around but she very quickly worked out their game plan and headed them off. It was quit something to watch and was a remarkable sign of just how clever she was.
After a while they pulled the vehicle up to the caravan and climbed out the windows, along the bonnet and squeezed in through the half open caravan door only to come out again when it was safe.

Once when we had an animal rights gathering 2 photographers from The Independent newspaper thought they were very crafty and clever. By sneaking up the public footpath that nobody else seemed to know about they realised they could point their zoom lensed cameras over the fence to take unwelcome photos of us.
They hadn’t planned on, ‘Not-on-my-watch’ Matilda who lead a charge of about 30 pigs and literally chased the terrified paparazzi off the premises.
Pigs are excellent sprinters so watching our intruders gather their kit and run as fast as their crafty legs would carry them was hysterical.
I was hoping that the headlines the next morning would read something like TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP FOR PIGS but I suppose nobody would have believed them!

I remember another occasion when our ‘Till, as I fondly referred to her, gave a gaspingly impressive demonstration of the power of a pig.
We had the hunt sabs land rover here and I’ve been told that such a vehicle weighs a ton and a half, it was loaded with half a ton of animal food making a total weight of two tons.
Matilda could smell the food in the back of the vehicle and was growing increasingly more agitated that she couldn’t reach the door handle to open it.
After about half an hour she finally began to lose her temper and put her nose under the back of the two tons of Land Rover and lifted it off its springs.
Who needs a Jack when they’ve got a Matilda?

I could tell you stories all day about her but I’ll close with this one.
Some years ago I left my three door Honda Civic parked on the sanctuary over night and found it in the morning with both front doors wide open and the back seat flung out in the field. Both the driver and passenger seats had been flipped forward and there, sitting in the back was Matilda with her big, flappy ears flapping. I didn’t think it was physically possible for her to fit in but in she was!
After that she realised her potential as a thief and seemed to take pride in being able to open almost any unlocked car door that she encountered. I don’t think that people believed me until she’d walk up and open their car door to greet them on arrival.

I had hoped that she would die peacefully in her sleep but sadly that didn’t happen. Her body had failed her, over the last few days the weight fell off her, she couldn’t stand and was fading fast. Yesterday I waited for the vet to come and put her to sleep and I sobbed pretty much all day. I always say that guilt is a wasted emotion but yesterday I felt guilty. Matilda, the old reprobate, had always enjoyed a drink if she could pinch one so I sent Mark of for a bottle cider and the three of us shared it in celebration of her life. She quaffed it naughtily and went off to sleep for a while before the vet came.

I loved Matilda, my funny, difficult, arrogant, stroppy old bag of a friend that frightened most of the people that knew her. But I loved her and our special relationship will stay in my heart forever.

16th June.

It is with very real and deep sadness that I report of the death of Matilda yesterday afternoon.

Matilda had become something of a legend at F.R.I.E.N.D. And was the first pig to come to us as a tiny little baby all those years ago.

A friend bought her from a slaughterman who had her mother, brothers and sisters who, sadly, would not have had the benefit of 15 years of life as did she. God bless them, I dare say her entire family were wiped out in a few months, dying in fear and pain. I was, I suppose, grateful that at least one little piglet survived the horror of the meat industry.

She came here in a cat box, all tiny, pink and afraid. When I opened the door she flatly refused to budge from the back of the carrier, shouting porcine profanities at me from where she sat. I tried putting my hand in but that little scrap was genuinely a bit frightening and the noise was ear shattering. I should have sensed things to come and have known that this was no ordinary pig that I was dealing with!

She had a hacking cough and cold on arrival that we all caught off her – pigs and humans can infect each other with their colds and flu. When I did eventually manage to dislodge her from the box I can remember vividly her trotting round my front room, all snotty and sneezing, checking out the territory and generally being nosey. Once she’d looked around the floor so she jumped on the sofa to see what kind of human being I was made of. At first she was curiously nervous but within half an hour she was lying asleep on my lap, wrapped in my arms. It was that sort of sleep saved only for those who feel unwell. After that we never looked back and within a day she was on the bottle and feeding like a demon.

I think that it’s fair to say that when Matilda reached puberty she began to terrify our volunteers with her wanton lust and that was something that stayed with her through life. To say that no man was safe with her was an understatement!

Mark and I have often recalled when he first arrived here and was staying in a caravan. His mate who was staying with him drove his 4×4 onto the sanctuary and the lads got out to talk to me not realising that the lusty minx had seen them coming and was heading their way at speed.
Mark and his friend were new to the sanctuary and so the concept of being sexually assaulted by 40 stone pig was just a step too far. Quickly they retreated to the safety of the 4×4 and laughed.
The laughter turned to nervous hysteria as she circled the vehicle testing it for weakness.
She was a Large White pig but at that moment she was doing an excellent impression of a Great White shark checking out the intended prey.
They needed to get to the caravan which was about 50m away and they weren’t prepared to try to out run her so they attempted to drive there but Matilda was way too quick for them and was right behind. So they tried driving around but she very quickly worked out their game plan and headed them off. It was quit something to watch and was a remarkable sign of just how clever she was.
After a while they pulled the vehicle up to the caravan and climbed out the windows, along the bonnet and squeezed in through the half open caravan door only to come out again when it was safe.

Once when we had an animal rights gathering 2 photographers from The Independent newspaper thought they were very crafty and clever. By sneaking up the public footpath that nobody else seemed to know about they realised they could point their zoom lensed cameras over the fence to take unwelcome photos of us.
They hadn’t planned on, ‘Not-on-my-watch’ Matilda who lead a charge of about 30 pigs and literally chased the terrified paparazzi off the premises.
Pigs are excellent sprinters so watching our intruders gather their kit and run as fast as their crafty legs would carry them was hysterical.
I was hoping that the headlines the next morning would read something like TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP FOR PIGS but I suppose nobody would have believed them!

I remember another occasion when our ‘Till, as I fondly referred to her, gave a gaspingly impressive demonstration of the power of a pig.
We had the hunt sabs land rover here and I’ve been told that such a vehicle weighs a ton and a half, it was loaded with half a ton of animal food making a total weight of two tons.
Matilda could smell the food in the back of the vehicle and was growing increasingly more agitated that she couldn’t reach the door handle to open it.
After about half an hour she finally began to lose her temper and put her nose under the back of the two tons of Land Rover and lifted it off its springs.
Who needs a Jack when they’ve got a Matilda?

I could tell you stories all day about her but I’ll close with this one.
Some years ago I left my three door Honda Civic parked on the sanctuary over night and found it in the morning with both front doors wide open and the back seat flung out in the field. Both the driver and passenger seats had been flipped forward and there, sitting in the back was Matilda with her big, flappy ears flapping. I didn’t think it was physically possible for her to fit in but in she was!
After that she realised her potential as a thief and seemed to take pride in being able to open almost any unlocked car door that she encountered. I don’t think that people believed me until she’d walk up and open their car door to greet them on arrival.

I had hoped that she would die peacefully in her sleep but sadly that didn’t happen. Her body had failed her, over the last few days the weight fell off her, she couldn’t stand and was fading fast. Yesterday I waited for the vet to come and put her to sleep and I sobbed pretty much all day. I always say that guilt is a wasted emotion but yesterday I felt guilty. Matilda, the old reprobate, had always enjoyed a drink if she could pinch one so I sent Mark of for a bottle cider and the three of us shared it in celebration of her life. She quaffed it naughtily and went off to sleep for a while before the vet came.

I loved Matilda, my funny, difficult, arrogant, stroppy old bag of a friend that frightened most of the people that knew her. But I loved her and our special relationship will stay in my heart forever.

9th June.

I haven’t had the brain capacity to write anything for a couple of days as my poor, old brain has been consumed with thoughts of our coming fund raiser and what I’ve got to do for it.

I’ve never chopped so many vegetables in my life as I have over these last few days. Chopping and freezing, chopping and freezing and now even the freezers look like they’re going to be sick, attempting spew food out the door every time I open them to cram yet more chopped up veg in! Poor freezers. I used to say that I was kind to animals but cruel to cars as I always viewed the red light as an indicator that maybe I should put in more water, petrol or oil in. Now I’ve realised that I’m cruel to freezers, too, shoulder charging them to get the door shut before it all starts spilling out. I do realise that I’m rapidly running out of freezer space so I’m going to have to start being extra nice to the neighbours and see if I can’t rent a room for a week or so in theirs for my chopped veg. What a nightmare!

I spent most of yesterday chopping garlic but I have to say that I wasn’t bothered by a single vampire last night so I guess that everything has its bonuses. Not content with smelling of garlic I also chopped about a million onions so I guess I will probably never catch another cold again in my life! I was veg peeler and chopper, washer up and general dogs body to another artist that was creating a wonderfully, aromatic curry.
You’ll probably guess that our chef was a lad when I tell you that I had to pick up every bag of spices and put them back in the cupboard, chuck away every empty packet and generally clear up after him. Bless him, he makes a mean curry, though, so we forgive him.

I know that some (surprisingly few) people don’t like curry so we’re going to have lots of different styles of food over the weekend to accommodate everyone. It’s going to be quite a task for all of us to bring it together but there is so much goodwill amongst our friends that we know that this is going to be a fantastic weekend.
We’re going to have an exciting fire show and great music, a raffle with amazing prizes and this fund raiser is going to make a massive difference to the animals.

Please support us.

6th June.

Chickens, just like many of us, have a desire to reproduce and in some of them and us human beings it seems to transcend anything else.
They will go to any lengths to have their babies and I have seen some remarkable acts of commitment occur between a cockerel and a hen in an effort to fulfil that instinct.

Often (because I’m used to observing fowl) I’ve been alerted to where a hen is laying her eggs based on the cockerel’s unwillingness to move away from the box or undergrowth where she is. He just hangs about outside like the expectant father awaiting her safe delivery of another one of his eggy babies and sometimes becomes overwhelmed with pride when she gives the shout that the job is done.
He will call and cackle, strutting around with pride as she emerges from her hidey-hole. They always remind me of the new dad, down the pub, buying a round in and handing out the cigars.

It’s quite lovely to watch and makes any argument about their lack of emotion, inability to form relationships or conceptualise life’s bigger picture to be a waste of oxygen. Whilst one might argue that it’s merely instinct then I really have to laugh. The cockerel becomes so excited that he can actually give the game away as to where his wife is, inadvertently putting his family in danger but it’s as if he is so swollen with pride as to find the emotion overwhelming.
A pint and a cigar, anyone?!!!

Thank God all birds are very clever about their nests (with the exception of some cocky cockerels, of course!) and many females will sneak off, make a nests and then cover her eggs when she’s done. That will go on most days until she has a clutch to sit on and then she will simply disappear. This can be rather a problem when the animals roam completely free over a large area and, inevitably, they will successfully sit from time to time.

I remember once again a time when a different species of male gave the game away. This time it was a goose. A female had disappeared and we didn’t have a clue where she was.

When birds are sitting so their nature changes. They won’t move, no matter how close you are. They don’t make a noise unless you become a serious threat and it’s unbelievably easy to walk within a foot or less of them and not see them sitting there. It seems ridiculous but, believe me, nature can make a multicoloured bird disappear into a green and brown background as if it’s invisible!

Anyhow, this goose was gone and then suddenly, a few weeks later, the gander started to hang around this spot in the field and just wouldn’t leave it. It was only on closer inspection that we found his mate sitting on eggs which she successfully hatched the next day.

My question is, how did he know that they were about to hatch? He hadn’t indicated that she was sitting until she was ready to leave the nest with his babies so I guess that they didn’t meet up till we weren’t looking (Romeo and Juliet… ahh!). Did she tell him – you can hear the chicks calling in the egg some hours before hatching?
It’s all a beautiful mystery to me and I love the fact that they have these wonderful relationships with each other that, frankly, are non of our business.

Sadly, we do have to take measures to prevent our birds breeding but I have to say that they are more a question of nature’s forces rather than us.
Since we have very few hens but lots of cockerels then dealing with the breeding of the chickens isn’t a major problem. Every day the pigs and dogs hunt out the nests and eat the newly laid eggs. They love them and seek them out, sometimes removing the hot-off-the-press egg from under the disgruntled hen. It’s a lovely idea to let them sit but we have no place in the breeding business.

I used to take the eggs away myself as I thought that if we had room for more chickens then we should rescue them and not breed more. I would break the egg open to be sure that the animals wouldn’t eat a chick (thank God I never found one) and that would salve my conscience. It wasn’t until one day when it did my usual cracking open trick that I saw something that I will never forget.

Inside the egg that looked so innocent existed a mass of cells that you couldn’t identify as anything in particular. It was very vascular with a mass of blood vessels networking over the area. There was however, right in the middle of the mass, a tiny beating heart. I watched it, helplessly, as it thumped rhythmically for about ten seconds and then as it’s final attachments to the shell broke away so I watched the vessels tear and the blood run from its little heart as it stopped beating.

I had killed it.

From that day I have never removed an egg from an established nest.

3rd June.

We had a lovely/terrifying moment a few days ago. The woodpeckers were just romping around the pen, eating well and looking fit to go. I’d taken advice from Tiggywinkles on them because I was worried that they wouldn’t know about hammering on trees as they’d simply been picking up the food that I’d been pushing into the cracks of the wood.
Tiggywinkles are brilliant for advice on any wild animal if you’re not 100% confident and are patient, kind and very knowledgeable. Their opinion on the babies was to let them go as instinct would kick in and they would know what to do. Ohhhh, errrrrr!

So I fed them well in the morning and made a deal with myself that if it was gone in the afternoon then I’d open the door….. I suppose there was a bit of me that wanted it to be left and then I’d have to deal with it tomorrow. God bless tomorrow, it never comes!
Unfortunately for me when I went out to them at lunch time and not a scrap of food remained I realised that probably the time had arrived. So, with a little fear in my heart I opened the door and stepped back and ‘whoosh’ with a flutter and a flourish it was over and my babies were gone. One paused for a moment on the fence before launching into the heavens and so they disappeared, indistinguishable from the other birds that soared off into the distance. It was beautiful to see something so tame and friendly transform into a completely wild animal. My job was done.

I looked down at the empty pen, still wide open and there in the doorway was one little woodpecker who looked out at the world, turned round and went back in. He obviously didn’t think he was quite ready for the great out doors!
I closed the pen and will keep him for a few more days until he feels confident and strong enough to fend for himself.

I was slightly worried that the solitary woodpecker would wane and stop eating but that evening we heard loud cheeping out in the garden. A distress call from a bird. Thankfully the young bird had the sense to sit dead still in the grass because it was being watched intently by two cats. They hadn’t touched it, the game hadn’t begun for them at that point and they were just waiting as if they had all the time in the world. When I grabbed the youngster their sense of disappointment was palpable.

It was a thrush, a very lively, large thrush that tried to kill me every time I put my hand anywhere near it’s beak! It was obviously a very well fed fledgling that wasn’t standing for any nonsense from me. I tried offering it some food but he mistook my fingers for lunch and just seemed to get madder and madder. I knew that it was rather unconventional but I thought he and the last woodpecker might enjoy each others company so I popped them in together in the avery.

I’m pleased to say that both of them seem to get along swimmingly and hop about on the branches together. I’m really hoping that the pair will be ready for release at the same time. I’m sure that they’ll go their separate ways as soon as they are released but you can only dream……..

1st June.

I’m a bit befuddled by the fact that we’re in June (halfway to Christmas!) and I’m still wandering around in a coat or, at the very least, a heavy top only for the sun to come out and we boil.

It’s that difficult time of the year for the sheep as we’re getting a few really hot days where they look exhausted from the heat and then it turns really cold. It would be awful to imagine them freezing cold, stripped naked having spent the winter wrapped up in a big, soft blanket. Some of the fleeces are so thick that they must feel like lying on a wonderfully spongy mattress when the sheep plonk themselves down in the field. I’ve always thought that it must be handy to have a warm, cosy bed available at all times on a chilly day or a bitter cold night!
However, as usual, the sheep that doesn’t naturally shed it’s wool is very much a man made monster that is just about as unnatural as it gets. Once again it’s the poor old animal that suffers for the fact that we’ve designed a creature that the human race can maximise for its meat and wool potential.

Originally, and much more naturally, sheep were a much lighter, smaller animal that shed their fleece each year. When you think about it, everything else moults as the weather warms up and that is the only healthy option for thermal control. Otherwise they would die of heat exhaustion very quickly. To have to shear sheep is something brought about by mankind. If they aren’t shorn, the weather warms up and then it rains you can almost guarantee that the fly will come calling. Without the benefit of seriously toxic chemicals so the warm, sweaty fleece provides a perfect environment for them to lay their eggs and within 24 hours will have hatched into maggots and have started making a dinner of the living sheep. It truly is a sickening sight to see maggots crawling through living, healthy flesh. It’s a sight and a smell that you will never forget or get used to. The maggots cause the area to heat up massively and become wet so attracting more flies until, if left untreated, the sheep would die a horrific death.

If ever you happen to be watching a flock of sheep during the warm weather and you notice that one is perhaps isolated, maybe lying down or moving in an odd, jerky way then consider flystrike. If they have a dirty rear end or a wet mark across their fleece then you may be certain that it needs to be looked at urgently.

Isn’t it typical of us human beings that we take a sheep that naturally moults and breed that capability out of it so that its fleece grows eternally longer and hotter. Then we mutilate the poor creature by cutting off its natural fly swatter which takes the form of a tail because we’ve made its wool grow into an environment that suits maggots better than sheep.

And then we have the cheek to talk about good husbandry and animal welfare!