Hedgehog Days of Summer

Well I feel bad about lapsing so much on the blog as it has been about a month since I last posted, but the truth of the matter is that not much of consequence has happened other that visits from my parents and Tenny's mom. Having our first visitors definitely brought a breath of fresh air into the trip, as the last month has been spent mostly making as much money as we can and playing as much softball as I can. I am happy to report that we have managed to save up a decent amount of $$ for the 2nd leg of our travels, and I have managed to correct the deficiency in my batting stance that led me to strike out an embarrassing amount of times. Plus I have finally gotten used to the infamous 'riseball' that was causing me fits. Since fastpitch is underarm the ball comes at you in an entirely different angle, and a good riseball can start at the waist and end up at neck level.

On the home front the summer weather has finally arrived and our house is even more beautiful now that we can keep all the windows and doors open. A couple of days ago we also earned the honour of being the first tenants in 30 years to save a hedgehog from the fish pond. To be fair hedgehogs are kind of stupid little critters and every so often they come down to the pond looking for a drink and get a swim instead after slipping on the plastic lining. Tenny's mom spotted this one paddling madly and trying to get up out of the water, and after some discussion we initiated a hedgehog rescue effort by fishing him out with a garden rake. The water was so cold he was shivering pretty badly so we made him a little recovery bed in the trees with a towel for a blanket and worms from the compost as a snack. He wasn't in any shape to eat so the wormies made their escape but sure enough after 2 hours he had gotten his body temperature back up and disappeared into the grass. Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of him before he left us, so you'll just have to imagine how cute it was.

We did however take a picture of our cat wearing this hat.. which is even cuter, so you can feel like it wasn't a complete waste of time reading this: