Prickle's Progress

This is probably Harriet Hedgehog's sister. Yes, I found another one in my garden.
It turned out to be a girl as well.After a night in a box cuddled up to a towel covered hot water bottle the second Miss Tiggy was taken over to the Burnley receiving post and by now is probably tucked up at the Rochdale Hedgehog Resue Centre. It makes you glad you can help a young creature survive. Apparently the usual life span can be seven years but is more likely to be about two. Hedgehogs face many hazards in their short lives.Normally they will have one litter of hoglets a year. But if disturbed or the nest gets washed out, as so many must have done during the past wet, wet year, then they will have another go. But this makes them late in the year and hence the young ones cannot put on enough weight to survive hibernation.
If you shop in Asda, buy a tin of cat or dog MEAT (not fish ones) and put it in the Hedgehog Rescue Box provided. It will be gratefully received by Tina and Kevan at Burnley, who care for the hoglets and injured adults until they can be collected by the Rochdale people. many thanks. Greencrumblie

PUMPKIN SOUP.

Hi All. At last we have the recipe for Sue's Soup!
Greenfield's Special Pumkin Soup.
INGREDIENTS:
1 pumpkin
2 medium sized onions
Salt & Pepper
2 vegetable stock cubes
Small single cream
2x 142gm size tins of tomato puree

METHOD: Cut pumpkin in half. Remove all the seeds and loose fibres, cut into wedges. Place in a large roasting tin, skin side down. Drizzle with cooking oil(whatever you have to hand,but a nice olive oil would be good). Roast in oven for approx. 30mins.at Gas 6 or Electric 200C or 400F. Remove from oven and set
aside to cool(cool enough to handle).
Peel onions and finely chop,cook in large saucepan with small amount of oil.Cook until soft but not brown.Use
moderate to low heat to prevent burning.
If pumpkin is cool enough, remove skin, chop flesh into small pieces and place in saucepan with the onions.
Add water. How much depends on your taste for thin or thick soup. In any case cover the pumpkin. Adjustments to liquid can be made later.
Add the tins of tomato puree and add the 2 vegetable stock cubes.
Cook until soft 15 to 20 minutes
Liquidise the soup with a hand blender. Be careful , do not liquidise if soup is too hot! If you spray the kitchen we can't come round and re-decorate! If you don't have a blender use a good old potato masher.
Return the soup to a clean pan. Now's the time to adjust the liquid to thinner or thick by adding water.
Add the single cream to your taste. Don't forget to season with salt and pepper. Taste before adding!
Heat and serve with crusty fresh rolls.
We made two large pots of this soup for our Hallowe'en evening and only one child said he didn't like it.

Just goes to show there is life after Heinz ( with apologies to the Brand!)

Tales from my garden

The Saga of Harriet Hedgehog.Those of you who saw the November Newsletter will have seen the photo of a small hedhehog that I have been feeding over a number of weeks, with assistance from my neighbour when I was away.One of our members kindly phoned me and said that if the hedgehog weighed 400gms or less it would have to be cared for by the Hedgehog Hospital to get it through the winter.So tonight I left food as usual and hey presto, there was tiggywinkle hogging down the nosh(pun *hogging* not intended). So donning a pair of gloves I captured the blithely unaware hoglet and quicly checked its weight on my kitchen scales. 5oogms!! So immediatelyI phoned Tina and Kevan of the Burnley Rescue post who said it needed to be at least a pound and a half if it was to survive the winter. They said put it on a towel in a high sided box and get it over to Burnley pronto. So I did.What a lovely couple they are! Kevan is a retired Burnley Parks Ranger and ex-lifeguard. What they don't know about hedgehogs and their care wouldn't cover a one pence piece!
Harriet, for it turned out to be a girl, will be collected by Rochdale Hedgehog Resue which runs a hospital for them and cared for until she is big enough to be released back into the wild.If you want to know more, look upwww.hedgehogrescue.org.uk