The Return of Mrs. Porcupine (?)

Do you remember Mrs. Porcupine?

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Mrs Porcupine is getting on my nerves again...

If you have been a long time follower of mine/my blog ( for at least 5 years ) the title of this post might ring a bell.

Most of you probably need their brain washed/refreshed though:

Back in the days, starting in 2019, I wrote somewhat autobiographical short stories that focused on the life of a friendly raptor named Hypersensitivosaurus.

This giant lizard was surrounded by a bunch of other animals and Mrs. Porcupine was one of them. She came to me 5 years ago and was inspired by a 3 session acupuncture treatment that I underwent in the Summer of 2020.

A year that- in hindsight - turned out to be one of the most insane 12 months of my life ( and surely many of your lives ).

I was reminded of Mrs. P(rickley), days ago, when much to our surprise - and delight - @clareartista discovered what turned out to be a porcupine quill, in the forest at the bottom of our garden.

Note to Self: Let's NOT walk barefoot/on flip flops on this part of our land ;^)

Today, Clare researched these intriguing mammals a bit more and we discovered that they are one of the biggest rodents in existence and that Italy is (basically) the only European country they live in.

This naturally makes it extra special that there might be one of those critters roaming around in our garden.

When Clare shared the porcupine quill pic with my family, my younger sister said that it looked like a murder scene, which is a bit dark but I get it.

I'm sure some of you might feel/think the same.

So let me zoom out for some more perspective...

The 'stekelvarkenstekel' ( Dutch for porcupine quill ) was photographed by Clare on her sewing table, right next to her needles and sewing machine.

It's about 15 cms/ 6 inches long and supersharp.

You gotta love the contrasting colors!

It's fair to say that we are thrilled to have such amazing wild life around us. And I mentioned to Clare that this makes me feel like investing in a little wild life camera/night cam that can observe certain spots around our land, whilst we are asleep.

Perhaps I can one day share videos like @juliakponsford took of bears in her garden, back in Canada? ;^)

Now I think of it, we heard some loud noises a couple of nights ago, during full moon.

Something knocked over our compost bucket, positioned near the tent that we are temporarily sleeping in and it was clearly enjoying eating its contents.

We thought that it would either have been (a) wild pig(s) - of which we have many here - or possibly one of our neighbor's many kittens/cats. The latter are little, sometimes cute buggers that regularly disturb our sleep.

In retrospect, it might even have been a porcupine, as they seem to like to supplement their diet with this kind of stuff.

Who knows?

Suffice to say that this discovery of Clare is pretty exciting/ inspiring and it might actually lead to me getting back into more creative writing mode ( sharing animal stories? ). Something I have felt lacking in, as of late.

Time will tell :^)

For those interested, here's the 2020 story behind Mrs. Porcupine:

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TO BE CONVINUED...