What do you do with your dead things?

I put my deceased frog friend in the wheelie bin. DidnÆt fancy burying it incase I ever found it again by accident. Last summer I threw a dead shrew and dead frog over the wall and the hedgehog living right by me had them both. I didnÆt put the rancid frog over the wall though cos I thought it might make a hungry hog ill.

BTW, I rescued a starving hog about a week ago. Do you like it?

I also put a dead bluetit in the wheelie bin but when I found the hog I considered getting it out again to give it something to eat. I would have if the sanctuary people had come very late. The tit was caught in next doorÆs sweetpea netting and I didnÆt spot it when it was alive and feel terrible. I took these pics the day before I noticed it. Tragic.

Oh it's hard to spot BTW in case you haven't spotted it.  That's why I missed it too.

I werenÆt too eager to get it out of my wheelie bin as hog food cos IÆd have had to have cut off the remaining sweetpea netting and I was already traumatised and also I didnÆt fancy bits of dead bird left in my pet cage after the hog had gone and having to clear it up.

So what do other people do with their dead things? Does something always come along and eat dead things and itÆs a waste of a life by just sticking it in the wheelie bin?

The bluetit and last yearÆs dead frog were preventable deaths though. That sweetpea netting was a death trap, it should have been taken down last autumn and not put so near the bird feeders, werenÆt the tits fault it got stuck in it. Next door have taken it down now, I left them a note. & the frog that died was in my hut. It was a smallish one and I found it in my washing up bowl there. I think it died of starvation. I think it got in through a small hole and couldnÆt find its way back out again. I go in there almost daily but never saw it ætil it died in the washing up bowl. I felt so terrible afterwards. If IÆd have known it was in there IÆd have let it out. I sealed up the holes afterwards with silicone. I prefer it when things die for a proper reason.

What the hell do you do to the birds when youÆre holding them Ben? IÆve grabbed birds before and carried them around and they ainÆt died on me. Maybe itÆs cos youÆre more scary looking than I am. (BTW, I wouldnÆt know what a sparrowhawk looks like. Do we even have them in Yorkshire? )

I went on the hedgehog rescue website (http://keighleyhedgehogrescue.com/ which donÆt seem to be working at the mo) and on there it said not to worry about fleas. I was worried about fleas cos I donÆt want my rodents to catch them and I didnÆt want to fumigate the entire house but the site said basically not to worry about them. I had the hog in my hut for a bit but the lady said to take it indoors into the warm and give it hot water bottles to sit on so I did. That was a couple of weeks ago and so far my rodents havenÆt done any more scratching than usual. A man came and picked it up and I showed him where it had come from and said the area is top sh*t for hogs and he was pleased with it and that heÆd tell the lady who runs the rescue about it but I dunno if itÆll get released back to where it came from. The lady ainÆt replied to my long email, she must think IÆm a nutter and donÆt wanna talk to me. IÆm sure itÆll be ok with her though and it was bound to die without intervention anyway, think the site said she had about 140 of them or something. SheÆs been rescuing them for years, doubt she eats them or owt.

DidnÆt know badgers were their main predator. Well I knew badgers could have them but I just figured they didnÆt live in the country cos there ainÆt enough slugs and prefer gardens. By my house is a pretty cool place for hogs cos of the undisturbed woodland and brambles and they walk through all the gardens. They usually zoom straight through my yard, in and out in 2 or 3 seconds. I had all hell on in catching that hog. You know like if one fell in my pond, do you reckon the amount of plant rootage in there would trap itÆs legs and pull it under and it wouldnÆt be able to get out? I know they can swim but if itÆs thick with plantage like in my pond, would that make it drown do you think? I was thinking about this the other day.

I think I see more squashed hedgehogs than I do live ones. The hog I found was from a brood late last summer, one of my mates up the street rescued another cos it was too small to survive the winter. I became to really enjoy the one living over the wall from me, itÆs nice to think itÆs asleep there during the day somewhere. Well unless it was the same one I gave to the rescue.

The lake near me isnÆt deep actually. Dunno about the centre of it but from the sides it only looks a foot deep. ItÆs big though. Seen a heron only a few times, never seen any fish in there but there is actually a turtle living there. It was reported in the newspaper, I ainÆt spotted it yet though but IÆd love to see it basking. & if possible get it out of there so it donÆt eat the frogs. Might have my fingers off though if itÆs a snapper and I doubt IÆd be able to catch it. BTW thereÆs lots of carp at the golf course pond where thereÆs always spawn.

Uwe, I donÆt fancy burning corpses. I donÆt like fire, I nearly set my house on fire last week by burning a candle someone gave me as a present. I panicked when the flames went huge, thank f*ck IÆd put it on my stone fireplace and not on the carpet. It burnt my stone it did. It went black and IÆd used a wire brush on it but itÆs still black. Children shouldnÆt play with fire. Might start up my own graveyard over the wall then and I could put a headstone over it so that I donÆt accidentally do any digging there in the future.

I used a plastic bag for handling that dead tit. ThereÆs something creepy about dead things, I donÆt mind touching stuff when itÆs alive but when itÆs dead itÆs like creepy and yuck. Oh and IÆm scared of spiders. I canÆt touch them either, I scream like a girl. Well I am a girl.

IÆd never eat roadkill no matter what. A duck got splattered on the main road at Christmas. The lake was frozen and and when itÆs frozen and thereÆs no visitors the ducks wander a bit and one came out onto the road and got run over. I saw it soon after it got run over, it was still alive. I saw it move itÆs head. I went for a slightly closer inspection to see what it was and saw all the blood and knew it was a gonna so didnÆt even bother trying to help that one, I left it to die. It was dead and flatter when I passed again 1 hour 30 later. I guessed the bestest vet wouldnÆt have been able to mend it even if I had tried to intervene. Bad Dad said I should have scooped it off the road and eaten that. Grim.

Thanks for sharing your superior knowledge with me Ben, I love you and I'll love you more when I get my presents.