‘I’m making a hedgehog rescue ladder,’ said the builder boyfriend, who was on his knees in the farmyard, drilling a series of mini rungs into place on two mini rails.
The builder boyfriend keeps going to check but the hedgehog seems very happy, snoozing away in its comfy box
I should have known. Why did I even ask? Of course he was making a hedgehog rescue ladder. The BB doesn’t like to admit it, but beneath the gruff exterior he has such a soft spot for all living creatures that he often bends down to pick up stranded worms from pavements and roads. It is a charming contradiction in his otherwise macho personality, even though worm rescue can be a pain when you are trying to go for a walk.
I can’t explain it quite, because he is very pragmatic about animals otherwise. When he sees a creature in trouble, however, he makes a personal connection to it. ‘You really empathise with worms, don’t you?’ I once said to him, as we were walking a track through common land and we had to stop twice for him to pick up two slitherers he felt had dubious chances unless he deposited them by hand into the safety of some earth.
‘It’s good karma,’ he always announces, as he sets the worm down.
He has a bugbear about vegans not caring about ‘the millions of invertebrates slaughtered in crop production’ as well as ‘all those thousands of crop rats’. He likes to like creatures no one else bothers to like, as well as those who are up against it. He likes to side with the underdog, or indeed the under-hedgehog.
So when I found him in the yard making a hedgehog rescue ladder it didn’t surprise me. He had found this hedgehog trapped under the cattle grid at the bottom of our drive. If you’re Mr or Mrs Tiggy-winkle, apparently one of the biggest hazards of pootling about a country estate, even a small one like ours, is going through a cattle grid.
Once down there, poor Hedgy can’t get out, unless it has sloping sides allowing him to climb up, which our very old one doesn’t.
The BB had been cutting back hedges by the front gate when he heard a desperate scratching sound. He traced it to the grid and peered down to see this poor hedgehog on the flooded floor of the grid cavity, only just keeping his little head above the rainwater that was in there.
As he watched, the hedgehog managed to scramble into a small ledge or dent in the earth at one side and was clinging on.
The builder b stuck his beefy arms through the bars as far as they would go, which wasn’t far, and tried everything. But every time he got the creature lifted to the bars it would make itself into a spiky ball, too big to get through.
So the BB hurried back to the yard and there I found him making the miniature ladder. This thing took shape quickly under the snappy drilling and sawing skills of the BB, and once it was assembled I walked with him down the drive and watched as he pushed it into the well of the cattle grid, wedged it in place with sticks, and then put some more sticks into place around the hedgehog so it could not go backwards or forwards – only up the ladder.
The hedgehog sat and looked at the ladder, and we decided we had to leave him to work it out.
Every few hours I would look out of my bedroom window where I was at my laptop, and I would see the builder boyfriend, in his paint-spattered jeans and steel-toe-capped boots, nipping down the driveway to visit his hedgehog.
Each time he returned I would call: ‘How’s it going?’ And he would shake his head. Just before dark, he came back excited to announce that Hedgy had climbed to the top of the ladder, and was perched just short of the gap in the bars.
We took some dog food in a saucer and left it by the grid as an added incentive.
The next morning, the builder b was down the driveway first thing, but he came back looking downcast.
‘Is he all right?’
‘Yes. But he’s still at the top. He’s not coming out.’
A full-scale hedgehog evacuation mission was then put into action. The BB decided the only thing for it was to dig an escape tunnel into the side of the cattle grid.
He went down the drive with digging tools and dug and dug in the pouring rain, as the water level inside the grid was rising. Just in time, he managed to tunnel sideways through. From this angle he reached across and was able to get hold of the hedgehog and bring him through the evacuation channel. He deposited him in a box, placed on its side on the ground in the bushes, with straw bedding, a blanket and some more food.
He keeps going down there to see, but the hedgehog seems very happy, snoozing away in its comfy box. I guess he might winter in it. ‘Oh, he might become tame and be our pet hedgehog!’ I said, excitedly.
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said the BB, affecting a disapproving tone. ‘I don’t agree with that sort of nonsense.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Of course you don’t.’
Comments