It was so stiflingly hot last night that I decided to sleep downstairs. Buried under a sheet in the vain hope of fooling the mosquitoes, I finally drifted off, only to be wakened in the early hours of the morning by a loud bang in the garage. I leapt out of bed, turned the garage light on and just caught sight of Mr Black Possum hightailing it out the cat flap. I think the possums make regular visits to the chook food bins - which I have learned to seal fast. This time, in the hope of getting some more, undisturbed sleep, I dragged a small chest across the cat flap and crawled back into bed.
Sometime later I heard a commotion down the hill in the chook enclosure. I raced upstairs, found a torch, scooted downstairs, removed the chest to get out the garage door and stumbled downhill. The big girls were all roosting quietly in their house. Amber and the 11 chicks were on the move in a very agitated fashion. My biggest fear has been that one of the cats would get into the enclosure and pick off chicks. However no cats were visible. Since all the movement was away from the A-frame where Amber takes the chicks at night, I shone the torch in there and discovered - a little hedgehog!! All that fuss for a hedgehog not much bigger than the chicks and probably way more frightened.
I decided to let Amber sort it out and made my way back to bed. The moral of this story? Sleep upstairs in the heat or get earplugs...
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