Hedgehogs are cool.  I like them a lot.  I’m talking about Erinaceus europaeus here, which in Britain are pretty darn unmistakeable as no other wild mammal has spines.

Sadly, in Britain they’re also getting rarer.  No-one’s quite sure why, but the most frequently-mentioned suspect is probably habitat loss through the increase in building and/or intensive farming techniques.

Not much is known about hedgehog behaviour or numbers, either, which is strange considering they’re one of the most familiar, distinctive and easy-to-deal-with wild animals out there.  But estimates put the number of wild hedgehogs in Britain in the 1990s at (very approximately) 2 million, while statistical analysis of roadkill numbers suggests that this may be declining at a rate of about a fifth of the population every four years.  There could now be a British hedgehog population of just one million individuals.

pisco is on the case though.  For the past few years, I’ve overwintered hedgehogs every year and had the special joy of sharing my home with them for several months.

Basically, British hedgehog naturally go into hibernation during the colder months to conserve energy.  The trouble with this being, obviously, that it takes a huge amount of energy to power up again from a dormant state into normal trundle-y summery hedgehog mode.  So what tends to happen is that huge numbers of underweight hedgehogs simply go into hibernation each winter and lack the energy to ever wake up again.

A hedgehog needs to be about 600g at the absolute minimum to survive winter in this country.  Most of the ones I’ve overwintered so far have been fully grown, but hovering around the 300g mark.  By the time they’re released in spring, these hedgehogs will weigh approaching 1 kg easily, simply from spending a winter indoors with abundant food supplies, warmth and limited exercise.  Easy peasy, and instant smugness gained from releasing an ever-more threatened animal into a normal ‘wild’ pattern of activities.

There are some downsides though.  Firstly, hedgehogs can be mighty picky eaters and some individuals have a very firm sense of what is and isn’t appropriate.  Some will be horrifically shy and hide from human contact as much as possible, whereas others get quite demanding if they don’t feel they’re being fed on time or offered suitably tasty food.  They also have a HELL of a bite on them – not enough to do you proper injury, by any means, but certainly enough to make for a very painful five minutes in which you’re waiting for the hedgehog to get bored and let go.  (Tip: never try to encourage a hedgehog to stop biting you.  Chances are it’ll get even angrier and roll into a ball, still keeping its teeth firmly sunk into your body part.  This means you get horribly spiked as well as bitten.)

Thirdly, they absolutely stink.  They’re pretty dirty animals and think nothing of crapping all over their house, and it’s not pleasant.  Last year I developed quite a nasty infection just from being stabbed in the finger by a hedgehog spine, and I dread to think what I inadvertantly introduced to my body with that one.

And, fourthly, no-one knows anything about their healthcare issues.  When a hedgehog gets ill, you’re pretty much on your own.  Mostly it’s fairly easy-to-manage stuff like worms and tick infestations, but I’ve had two or three now with ringworm/mite infestations that have proved a bit more tricky.

Which brings me on neatly to why I’m washing hedgehogs.  Put simply, I’ve still got one of my inmates from last winter staying in the house, and he’s been doing pretty badly.  I originally picked him up because he was underweight, active in extreme cold and had areas of spineless indicative of possible ringworm infection.  Unlike the other hogs, though, he just hasn’t responded well to treatment.  He’s had a course of ivermectin shots (which he reacted very badly to), internal fenbendazole and topical selemectin, miconozole and enilconazole.  To be honest, I feel like I’m getting to the end of what conventional veterinary medicine can offer him – simply because hedgehogs are so under-researched that it’s a case of constantly stabbing in the dark, guessing what might work on them from what works on other species and the like.  I’m starting to wonder, too, whether there might be some other disease at play here: there’ve been rumours of a mysterious virus affecting British hedgehogs over the past couple of years that causes yellowing and thickening of the claws, which he certainly has.

So, with this little hedgehog I’m now trying a new tactic of simply treating the symptoms and seeing what happens for a bit.  He’s now lost almost all of his spines, so I’m taking advantage of this and giving him an oatmeal bath (to try and soothe the itchiness), followed by painting him with melted shea or cocoa butter, which it won’t matter if he licks at.  (A lot of places recommend tea tree creams for ringworm, but in my experience they’re just too dangerous to mess around with).   And he’s on a super-rich diet of high-quality cat food and baby food, together with all-round nutrition supplements just in case.

I’ve stuck some pictures up of him being washed because he looks kind of sad and cute and we can all go awwwww and stuff, but know this: he is a killer at heart and takes on the towel every single bath he has.  One day he will probably gore me to death.

It’s also apple season, which is a fantastic coincidence because it means that, with a few windfalls and a couple of hours of blackberry picking you have the basic ingredients to make one of the nicest, freest, jammiest jams out there.  So I did.  Like so.

The first rule of jam is always, always use superclean jars.  Wash them and make sure they’re totally dry before you pot the jam.  I wash mine (even if they’re clean and sealed) and stick them under the grill at about 100 degrees C (373 K) to help sterilize them a bit.  It also helps to avoid thermal shock when you come to put super-hot jam in the jars.

While you’re at it, stick a couple of saucers or plates in the fridge for later on.

Then, you get your apples.  I used Bramleys, because they’re ace for pectin and have a nice taste.  I also used more than three, but forgot to take a photo until I only had three left.  Peel them, cut out any nasty bits and chuck them in a pan with a bit of water.

Stick about twice the weight of blackberries as apples in too.  (Most recipes will tell you to do this in two separate pans but there really is absolutely no point).

Simmer it until the apple starts to mush and the blackberries leak their juices.  Once it’s getting pretty liquidy, you add the sugar.  It’s about equal parts sugar to fruit by weight.  All you need to do is add all the sugar at once, keeping the heat low and stir it in until it dissolves.

The minute the sugar is stirred in, though, you’ll notice the jam-to-be going distinctly more glisten-y.  I’m not sure it shows up particularly well, but I took a photo just in case and have stuck it in the gallery above.  For jam porn purposes.

This is the tricky part.  Once all the sugar’s dissolved, you need to boil the jam vigorously until it reaches setting point.  It’s about 10 minutes into a boil, or when it hits, say, 103 degrees C or so.  The best way to tell you’re getting there is to listen to the noise of the boil: little crackles is how it starts, and it’ll move to big plopping boiling noises as it progresses.  Once it starts making this noise, you can test for setting point by taking a teaspoon of jam and putting it onto your cold saucers that are fresh from the fridge.

Wait for the jam to cool a bit then push at it with your finger.  If it’s reached setting point it’ll wrinkle on the top and probably not rush back to fill the gap you’ve just poked in it.  If it’s not at setting point it’ll still be really liquidy, in which case you just have to boil it longer and keep testing every few minutes.  I’ve put a picture in the gallery to try and show what it looked like in this particular jam.

Once you’re at setting point, take the jam off the heat: if it keeps boiling for too much longer it’ll go solid and scary and everyone will laugh at you.  Unless you like your jam in slices.

Give it a few minutes to cool down slightly and then you’re ready to pot.  Ideally you want to pot as hot as you possibly can in order to kill bacteria etc, so consider the virtues of wearing rubber gloves to let you handle it much, much hotter than you otherwise would be able to.  Potting’s simple: get your jars out from under the heat and, um, pour the jam in.  Life is made easier if you have a jam funnel and a pyrex jug you can ladle the jam from the pan into.

Now it’s just a case of getting the clean, dry lids put/screwed on as soon as you possibly can.  Again, preferably when the pots are way too hot to handle with your bare hands.

And you are done!

If everything’s gone ok, the jam should pretty much keep indefinitely as long as its unopened.  If you want to be absolutely certain, you can sterilize the full, sealed jars in a pan of boiling water for 10-15 minutes but, if you’re planning to eat the jam over the next year or so, it should be fine as is.

As long as you stick it in the fridge once it’s opened.  Otherwise it will KILL YOU.

So, I thought I’d try and add something maybe a little more constructive to this blog.  This is a crochet blanket I’m working on.  It’s based on a very, very simple pattern of three treble ‘stitches’ seperated by one chain and repeated.  (I think I’ve seen the pattern described as ‘Old America’ elsewhere on the net but it’s all over the place and ideal for a beginner – or just someone who wants to crochet while concentrating on something else!)  My plan is to expand the yellow section slightly and add an orange followed by a red one.

I will, effectively, create a giant square rainbow of approximately 2 miles in diameter.  Go me!

The pictures work!  I am surely some sort of internet guru! Wooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Today has been very dull.  The most exciting thing to happen is that my cat got stuck up a tree.  I took some pictures so you can all appreciate just how very incredible it was that this superbly exciting event happened to me.  The evil tree of kitty doom is above, though unfortunately the teeny tiny cat you might see in that picture is not the one that got stuck.  The one that got stuck is the cat in the second picture with the spoons and the plastic bag.  As you may already have discerned, he is no longer in the tree.

In other news, I am sending off for a leaflet on ‘the many uses of Soda Crystals’. I’m living the dream.

Ha! The pictures don’t even work. This blog programme thing LIES to me. I will sort it and be back, do not fear!

this is the blog where Stuff will Happen.  the blog to beat all other blogs.  the blog to make tim’s house o’ culture look like a bungalow of cheese.

all this will be happening as soon as i can think of something to say.