Happy Birthday to Razzle's Mom

I had this beautiful pendant made for me of my sweet Razzle, taken from one of my favorite photos of him. The picture was taken earlier this summer when Razzle was "caught" frolicking on his wheel.

If you've never been on Etsy.com, you are missing out. I highly would recommend the artist that did Razzle's pendant. Her name is LaWatha and her shop is here. Gorgeous stuff. You can email her a photograph of your pet, yourself, anything you want, and she can turn it into a cool pendant or a magnet. Super cute! Also makes a sweet and thoughtful gift - even if it's for yourself!

Razzle pendant & magnets

Razzle is always with me where ever I go, but now everyone can see him. Happy Birthday to me!! I sure miss you, Snifferoo.

Little signs

I want to keep a running record of all the "signs" I have received from Razzle! I already posted about some of them, but here are some examples of little things that have happened over the past couple months:

* The day after I posted my tribute video to Razzle on YouTube, I went out to CVS at lunchtime (already weird because I usually go to Walgreens, which is right around the corner). Not looking for anything in particular, I wandered over to the makeup section and was drawn to a particular shade of lipstick. The name of the color on the lipstick: RAZZLE.

Neutrogena Lipgloss - Color: RAZZLE

*On September 18th, Steve was picking me up from an appointment and noticed a store across the street that had tons of little ceramic figurine animals on a table. From a distance, he noticed one of the figures had fallen off the display table and was in the shop window on the floor. He got closer and looked at it: the one animal that had fallen was a hedgehog.

The table of animals

The "fallen hedgie":

*One night while lying in bed, I thought I heard "Razzle noises." I told Steve, "Shh! Listen! It sounds like Razzle!" Just then, Steve's iPhone, which was sitting on the bedside table - lit up all by itself (which has never happened). Even more ironic, the wallpaper on his phone was a close up picture of Razzle. So in the total darkness, a Razzle face illuminated just as we thought we heard him making noise.

*For some unknown reason, every once in a while, Steve's hands will itch they way they only did after holding Razzle.

*After talking to Razzle one morning and telling him I miss him, I was cleaning and lifted up something on top of a high dresser and found a quill. <3

Memories of Razzle. A Tribute to my Baby.

Hedgies in the News!

Orphaned hedgehogs adopt cleaning brush as their mother

Four tiny orpahned hedgehogs are snuggling up to the bristles of a cleaning brush - because they think it's their mother.

The four inch long creatures are being hand-reared by staff at the New Forest Otter, Owl and Wildlife Park in Ashurst, Hants.

Workers say Mary, Mungo, Midge and Slappy get comfort from playing with the centre's cleaning brush and enjoy rubbing against it.

Daft as a brush: These orphaned hedgehogs snuggle up to thier adoptive brush mother

The smells on the brush, which is used to sweep a yard, remind the hedgehogs of their natural habitat while the texture reminds them of their mother.

Manager John Crooks, 41, said: "They are a bit like human babies - they need activities to keep them busy.

"Because they have very poor eyesight you have to appeal to their sense of smell and touch by giving them different scents and textures.

"They like natural scents and have enjoyed playing with our cleaning brushes, soil, leaves, flower pots and the like.

"They particularly seem to enjoy rubbing against the brush.

"It may sound odd but I imagine the bristles feel a bit like their mum."

Tiny: Two of the little hedgehogs

He added: "Three of the hedgehogs came to us because their mum was sadly crushed by a council palette truck at one of their depots.

"They are only a couple of weeks old.

"The fourth one is a little bit older and was found wandering around a back garden in the middle of the day.

"The home owner left it alone for a while to see if it would find its mum but after a few hours it was still by itself so she brought it into to us."

The hedgehogs will be fed until they are full-sized and then they will be released back into the wild.

John said: "We are feeding them milk powder mixed with kitten food - but they don't like fish flavour - they prefer nice meaty chunks.

"When they get older they will move onto proper cat food and will occasionally be given slugs and snails as a treat.

"There has been a real surge in slugs this year because of the wet weather so hopefully that will mean a good year for hedgehogs too.

"I would urge people not to kill garden slugs with pellets because the poison will be passed on to hedgehogs and a build up of poison could be fatal.

"If the weather is good they could be released in a month or so, otherwise we will feed them over the winter so they do not hibernate and then relase them in spring."

Playtime: The baby hedgehogs enjoy themselves with their 'mother'

He added: "They are quite a handful and each has their own character.

"One is quite snappy and another fairly sleepy."

More Signs from Razzle

This past weekend, Steve and I went up to Albany, Wisconsin for a little get-away. As mentioned in my earlier post, our first stop of the morning was to grab that cute hedgehog bag.

On the ride up to Wisconsin, I had my new bag in my lap and kept looking down admiring it. Steve would look over at me periodically and laugh saying, "You really like your new purchase, huh?" How could I not? The print so perfectly captures the little poses of hedgehogs that it looks as though they were drawn from photographs I have of Razzle.

The 2-1/2 hour ride up was very relaxing and we were enjoying the views of wide open spaces, horses, cows and corn.

As we were nearing our destination, I heard Steve say: "Oh. My. God." I looked out my passenger side window and saw the sign: Edelweiss Golf Course ahead.

Edelweiss!!! hee hee! :)

We got to our Bed & Breakfast too early to check in, so we decided to go exploring around. The Inn Keeper suggested a cute town that was only a few minutes away, where there were coffee and gift shops. We drove over and walked around all the cute shops, deciding which one to go in first. One in particular caught my eye, and we went inside. We didn't see the name of the store until we were already at the threshold of the doorway:

Edelweiss Bath & Body.

I had to get one of these!

Smells so good, you want to eat it!

On the way home, Steve asked if we could stop off at a store - he wanted to check out a line of lamps that his company reps. We walked around the store, up and down the aisles, looking for the lamps without any luck. Suddenly I spied a bunch of ceramic hedgehogs on one of the shelves and beelined over to it. Strange item to be in this particular store, so we just had to laugh. Steve didn't really like the look of these hedgehogs. I admit, they were no Razzle, but a hedgehog is a hedgehog!

We still were not able to find the lamps, however, and we continued to look around the store. I went back over to the hedgehogs to pick one out, trying to find the "cutest" one of the bunch, when I noticed one of the hedgehogs was facing in a different direction than the rest of the pack. I straightened them all out and then looked behind me to across the aisle: there were the lamps we were looking for! They were across the aisle from the hedgehogs....in the same direction that the one hedgehog was "looking". Steve had a new respect for the "ugly" hedgehogs.

Of course, one came home with us:

Coincidence? Was Razzle with us? I'd really like to think so. :)