Marder invasion!
The Marders are what we would call Stone Martens, not the cute and cuddly Pine Martens that live in Scotland, but a larger fiercer brand. We’ve heard a lot about them, they’re part of folklore. The name in German means a small tank -quite appropriate I think! They are great chewers, especially of cables in the engine room of your car, cables in your attic and anything they fancy really. The main way to stop them is apparently to put chicken wire under your car, and block the way into the attic. They move in and you’re stuck with them, destruction and all. We stayed with some friends (Hi Andy and Heather) and their residents decided to come into the attic above us and have a family punch up at about 3 am, complete with growling and what sounding like small bodies being floored! We found it really amusing, but the thing is I’ve never actually seen a live Marder. They’ve become in my mind the CHAV of the small ferrety creatures. No one wants them, they fight all the time and plunder everything they can. Then yesterday as I went to feed my birds, there were trails of multiple creatures all over the garden, under the bird table, towards the compost, and random directions all over the place. Linda said they’d visited her compost too. The five-toed prints confirmed who it had been. I wish I’d seen them, all we have is the footprints, and its interesting to see a lot of them have footprints doubled over- going in Gandma’s footsteps to keep warm maybe, they’re not so stupid! Our car’s safe in the garage,and we share our attic two floors up, if it weren’t so maybe I wouldn’t be so complacent!
So where's the snow? 