For 2023, I wish you and your loved ones, far and near, health, happiness, and good luck.
May you find the way you are looking for, or at least: may your GPS never leave you stranded. May the winds of fate only make you stumble, but never bring you down on your knees. May the sun shine warm upon your face and melt away all shadows – but not your ice-cream. May the rain start falling (soft or cold, in a drizzle or a down-pour) only after you’ve reached your destination. May you find friends in unexpected places, and meet them again and again and again in health and happiness.
And throughout the year, every month, every week, every day, every night, every hour, every minute, every second, I wish for you that whatever you believe in (be it the power of the divine or the power of reason, philosophical ideals, small dreams or really big visions) may be a blessing for you, and guide you and guard you.
No matter what holidays or holy days you celebrate, no matter if you feast under palm trees or icicles, alone or with family or friends, with noisy exultation or quiet introspection, may your days be filled with warmth and wonder, with healing and happiness, and much joy.
And I hope you like the cards I did not send to you, because I spent the money on trying to save a baby hedgehog!
Sonic is doing very well so far. Fingers crossed!
He was found in October, when he must have been around five or six weeks old. He weighed only 210g at that point. Hedgehogs lose around 30% of their body weight during hibernation, which is why so many hedgehogs born in autumn don’t make it. A safe weight for hibernation is around 750g for young hedgies. There was no way for Sonic to hibernate safely. So we (my garden neighbour J. and I) took Sonic in. At first we kept him in the garden house, because it was still nice and warm at the end of October.
However… because hedgehogs hibernate, their metabolism reacts strongly to temperature, which means they stop gaining weight when temperatures fall below 15°C (59°F). That was the case here at the beginning of November. So Sonic had to move somewhere warm and safe. Luckily, S. (another garden friend) agreed to take Sonic in and keep him in her warm basement and feed him until he reaches a safe weight.
For Sonic’s sojourn in S.’s basement we bought a giant plastic box on wheels with a lid for Sonic to live in. We drilled big holes into the lid and the sides for sufficient airflow. The box is easy to clean, and most of all: hedgehog-safe. Some hedgehogs are real escape artists and manage to scale walls over a foot high! We also got him a plastic potato box as sleeping quarters, in which I cut a hedgehog-size entrance and some additional holes for sufficient airflow. This fancy hedgehog bedchamber is nice and warm, and most of all, it’s also easy to clean.
Of course we also bought an enormous supply of cat food and hedgehog kibbles and dried meal worms (as per the recommendations of hedgehog rescue organisations). Last but not least, to line the hedgehog box and fill up his bedchamber, we supply an endless amount of old newspapers. Bedding you’d use for rabbits and guinea pigs isn’t recommended for hedgehogs because some of them eat that, and in straw it’s harder to see if there are any issues with a hedgehog’s digestion. So newspapers it is! To make things a little more homely or interesting, we cut up some newspapers into stripes to stuff his bedchamber comfortably and give him something to root around in looking for extra meal worms.
Once a week, J. and I head to S. for weighing Sonic. The last time was just before Christmas on December 23rd. Sonic weighs around 640g now! He has more than tripled his initial weight and looks like a proper hedgehog by now instead of an itty-bitty ball of bristles and spines.
With a bit of luck he can move back to the garden in January and hopefully hibernate for a few weeks yet. Because that’s the tricky part of saving hedgehogs: To stay healthy, they need to hibernate. If they don’t, their metabolism and hormones go out of whack and they can get sick and die.
So here’s hoping that Sonic continues to gain weight quickly, and that he’s willing to give hibernation a chance in January!
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I wish you and your loved ones, far and near, health, happiness, and good luck.
May you find the way you are looking for, or at least: may your GPS never leave you stranded. May the winds of fate only make you stumble, but never bring you down on your knees. May the sun shine warm upon your face and melt away all shadows – but not your ice-cream. May the rain start falling (soft or cold, in a drizzle or a down-pour) only after you’ve reached your destination. May you find friends in unexpected places, and meet them again and again and again in health and happiness.
And throughout the year, every month, every week, every day, every night, every hour, every minute, every second, I wish for you that whatever you believe in (be it the power of the divine or the power of reason, philosophical ideals, small dreams or really big visions) may be a blessing for you, and guide you and guard you.
Until 2023.
As I reported, we did a lot of cooking yesterday, and spent a thoroughly enjoyable, quiet evening, just cooking and chatting and eating and chatting and listening to the radio instead of watching the telly. We did watch the sketch “Dinner for One”, as is customary in some European countries, but more for tradition’s sake than anything else.
The food turned out amazing, and up until the dessert, I stuck with the planned menu. Then I was just too tired and too full to cook the pudding and switched to a rainbow of fresh fruits with some of the sorbet we had had earlier with champagne. That looked amazing, and it was fresh and light and fun, and we were done at exactly midnight, ready to welcome the new year.
Different from previous years I didn’t do any meditations or journalling or “unwinding of the year” or 12 nights rituals. I realised that I had experienced them often as more stressful than helpful, and I wasn’t in the mood at all to reflect on anything. So I simply skipped all of that. The result was one of the most relaxed end-of-the-year periods I’ve had in years, and I’m really grateful for that. I need to remember that all of those things are supposed to nourish me, not make life even harder to bear. Maybe I’ll feel more introspective and ready for rituals at some point in the future, for other holidays or holy days. Maybe not. For now I’ll go with the flow and hopefully continue to feel more grounded and content.
No matter what holidays or holy days you celebrate, no matter if you feast under palm trees or icicles,
this year (again)
many things will be different.
You may be stuck at home, you may feel alone. You may be struggling instead of juggling (gifts and dates, dates and dinners), instead of hugging (friends and family, near and far).
Still, even this year, – no, especially this year, here are my wishes for you:
May your days be filled with warmth and wonder, with healing and happiness, and much
joy.
And I hope you like the cards I did not send to you, because I donated the money instead:
to the Bund Naturschutz in Bayern e.V. for the protection and the support of Bavarian wild cats
to Ärzte ohne Grenzen in Deutschland (Doctors Without Borders Germany)
I wish you and your loved ones, far and near, health, happiness, and good luck. May you find the way you are looking for, or at least: may your GPS never leave you stranded. May the winds of fate only make you stumble, but never bring you down on your knees. May the sun shine warm upon your face and melt away all shadows – but not your ice-cream. May the rain start falling (soft or cold, in a drizzle or a down-pour) only after you’ve reached your destination. May you find friends in unexpected places, and meet them again and again and again in health and happiness. And throughout the year, every month, every week, every day, every night, every hour, every minute, every second, I wish for you that whatever you believe in (be it the power of the divine or the power of reason, philosophical ideals, small dreams or really big visions) may be a blessing for you, and guide you and guard you.
No matter what holidays or holy days you celebrate, no matter if you feast under palm trees or icicles,
this year
many things will be different.
You may be stuck at home, you may feel alone. You may be struggling instead of juggling (gifts and dates, dates and dinners), instead of hugging (friends and family, near and far).
Still, even this year, – no, especially this year, here are my wishes for you:
May your days be filled with warmth and wonder, with healing and happiness, and much
(If you’ve been wondering what’s going on with me and you want to catch up, I’ve been actually blogging a lot this year, about lockdowns and Ausgangssperre, state of emergency and Kontaktbeschränkung… but only over on Dreamwidth. I simply didn’t have enough energy to x-post.)
State of emergency has been declared in Bavaria, so schools, universities, and daycare facilities, as well as malls, pubs, bars, theatres etc. are closed, church services and club meetings and such are prohibited, and many people are working from home.
I guess in two weeks we will know if those measures are effective enough and if they were implemented in time.
At the moment there are no plans for general curfews. However, I guess we will get that, too, because people are bloody idiots – the police already had to break up two big “corona parties” (with over one hundred participants in one case!) because young people figured open air parties are no problem (or because they just don’t give a fuck about other people, who knows).
Since I’m a hermit by nature and working from home anyway, my daily life hasn’t changed a lot.
I must admit that I’m very much amused at all those articles and posts about the hardships of staying home and working from home, and how to survive a few weeks like that. Finally people understand how difficult my life is! :-P Seriously, though: I get that this is hard if you’re not used to it, and harder if you’re an extravert or if you have kids etc. It’s just the first time ever I’ve seen my life style discussed like that, as if it’s a real challenge. XD
The only thing I’ve had to give up on is visiting my Dad every other week via public transportation – we’re both high risk, so that’s a risk we just won’t take. Thankfully my Dad is doing really well right now, and he has supportive neighbours who have already offered to do his shopping. And of course we can drive over every weekend if necessary.
Sadly, the rest of my family is also high risk, because of age and/or pre-existing conditions. HH had to be quite forceful to convince his mother that she is indeed high risk, too, and should stay at home as much as possible – she’s over seventy and has COPD. *sigh* However, she has a sensible partner and solid network of friends and acquaintances, so for now she should be okay. My mother and her husband are thankfully being very sensible and very careful for once.
Moving on, because there’s life beyond the Virus, spring seems to be here at long last! I’m very much looking forward to spending more time in the garden, where all kinds of things are sprouting and growing.
I hope all of you are happy and healthy. Take care, stay home as much as you can, and wash your hands!
