Genius Of The Week – Part Deux!

Another Email from Fiona who really should be concentrating on her thesis but she is using her awesome brain to email us yet more fabby ideas instead!

We would never dare chastise a fellow procrastinator … as we ourselves are fairly well schooled in the art <ahem> right now I should be unpacking the New Fleece ready for washing however I’m sat here typing this  …

Fiona Says:

My thought was… is there any way of incorporating a reinforced ‘pocket’ which can be closed securely (that could also hold the weight of a tile) in the underbelly of the hammock so that a tile or similar ‘chin chiller’ could be put in more securely? I am afraid of them knocking it out of the hammock or getting a ‘toe’ stuck or freezer burn. What do you think?? If you fancy having a go feel free to use the hammock Im purchasing and Ill pay for the extra workmanship!!

Yep it is possible to sew a concealed pocket into the base of a Hammock as we already offer this service for heat/wheat pads. I would need the dimensions of the cooling aid and some idea of weight and each hammock would almost certainly need to be custom made, but it’s certainly do-able )

However …

We trialled this idea about 3 years ago, but I wasn’t confident about the amount of sogginess that occured and was a tad worried about Chins sitting around with soggy botties all day!

Although Fleece is a great wicking agent if used correctly, it would be tricky to use the ‘nappy’ principle safely in these circumstances. I know not all Chins chew their soft bedding, but those that do could get themselves into some serious peril if they munched through a hammock holding a heavy tile! In the words of Julia Roberts … “I’m a Safety Girl !!”

When I asked Mister Chewy for advice he got all Scientific about it (not one of my fave subjects!) and I admit I might … must might have switched off whilst he was waffling on about cold air sinking and condensate but the basic idea was to have the cold stuff above the slumbering critter, whilst preventing drips.

I came up with two ideas – the Baked Bean Bridge or a Slumber Tunnel with the ChinChiller or Frozen Tins concealed in the roof.

Both of these ideas had their problems and I was never entirely convinced that the amount of cold they created made up for the rise in local humidity.  The aforementioned Mister Chewy was very taken with the Baked Bean Bridge, I can still remember him trying his very hardest to destroy it!

I should probably mention, for those not in the know,  that when I talk about Baked Beans I do mean tins of budget beans sans label and frozen. These make a safer (and cheaper) alternative to ice blocks, as they hold their cold longer and of course are nibble proof.

If we manage to come up with a Chin safe Fleecey Fridge that passes Mister Chewys strict safety regulations we’ll let you know … and of course, a complimentary bed will be winging it’s way to Fiona first!

Freebie Friday – 1st August 2008

What’s Up For Grabs This Week?

** T-Spoon Piggy not included!
She’s just helpfully modelling the Mat to give you an idea of size.

A new and improved Piggy Lap Mat! These aren’t even in our store yet so you could be one of the first to own one! We have two mats to give away.

Genius Of The Week!

I think we might start a Genius of the Week award here at Hammocky HQ as we quite often get helpful emails from our lovely customers and this week we received a beaut of an email from Fiona about our WashBags …

… you should totally sell the cool wash bags on eBay for people going on holidays to keep their dirty clothes separate from their clean clothes, perfect size and funky too, also, they’re perfect for keeping trainers in when in a gym bag! Just thought I’d let you know! ~ Fiona

What a brilliant idea! Thank you Fiona ! Consider yourself resident Hammocky HQ Genius ! Unfortunately, due to the spontaneous nature of this award we don’t have a Fancy Hat or a Trophy for you but how about a we send you a Free Washbag instead?

The original idea for the WashBags came about because Wicket was getting fed up with his human (me!) whining about his fur getting everywhere it shouldn’t during a wash. And I got peed off with wasting good pillowcases and didn’t want some skanky miserable looking laundry bag hanging limply on the back of the door! Consequently the Hammocky Washbags were born!

I remember, at concept stage, comparing the WashBags to the old Dap Bags *shudders* except my old Dap Bag was this miserable combination of a wooden hanger and the most revolting blue fabric hanging off of it with some random man smacking a Donkeys bum with a large stick, all appliqued in some kind of white linen on the blue … just how twisted were my parents? Why did I never notice the oddness of this before?

And The Winners Are …

The Winners of our First Freebie Friday are listed below (in no particular order!)

Little Brambles

Sarah at Hammocky Hammocks has kindly invited Little Brambles to join her new blog. We hope to share our news with all the visitors to the site.

Little Brambles Guinea Pig Rescue is run from our home in South Devon, we rescue and rehome these gorgeous little characters and are completely self funded.  HH supports not only us but other small furry rescues too – it is much appreciated and great to know that other people care about the work that we do.

We take in piggies for all different reasons – some are too old or too ill to rehome but we try our very best to give them the best possible care and find the very best homes for those that are fit and well. Details of those we have available are on our website  www.lbgpr.co.uk.

We are currently full, which is of course no surprise. However, we have just had three babies born and we have another pregnant sow here so we will be bursting at the seams very soon. Sadly, we have had to take the decision not to admit anymore piggies until the end of August as we simply have no further space available. Rehoming is very very slow at the moment, enquiries are way down on this time last year, the summer months usually being a good time to rehome guinea pigs. It is no hardship for the pigs to stay here with us as long as is necessary to find the right homes for them but we find it heart breaking when we have to turn piggies away, there just isn’t enough room at the inn!  We realise though that we need to look after those that are here and “shoving them out” just anywhere in order to make more room is definately not our style.

Anyway, hope to post more updates on the babies that have arrived here. They are just simply gorgeous and so full of fun. My one wish though is that they don’t do all their growing up here in a rescue – so if anyone is really serious about adopting piggies in the Devon/Cornwall area please get in touch.

Cheers for now, Louise @ Little Brambles

Freebie Friday – 25th July 2008

What’s Up For Grabs This Week?

An Oval Piggy Bed similar to the one pictured below (but unlikely to be the same pattern) We have 4 Beds to give away.

How Do I Get It?

If you want to be in with a chance of grabbing one of these gorgeous Luxury Beds all you need to do is Subscribe to our Hammocky News! by Email before 5pm on Friday 25th July – Don’t forget to verify your Subscription!! If you are having problems with the verification link you can try re-subscribing or it might be that your email programme has split the verification link, if this is the case carefully copy the FULL link into your address bar and try again.

How Do You Choose A Winner?

Every one that subscribes to our Blog will be assigned an individual number, and on Friday evening we will pick the lucky winner/s using a random number generator. Please make sure that you sign up with a valid email, otherwise you won’t be able to claim your prize!

Freebie Friday – New Feature!

What?

Freebies?

Surely Not!

Well yes, kinda! We obviously can’t afford to just give away all our stock,

We Don’t Pong!

I’ve managed to get rid of my Human for a few hours so thought it might be a good time to try out this new Blog thing and also see if I could make the lives of my fellow Furries a bit more comfy (and safe!)

When my Human let me out for my Evening Stroll last night I managed to run off with her new Lush Brochure and whilst I was nibbling my way through the pages I came across a small article by Auntie Pamela, on those air fresheners that plug into the wall. Luckily my Human agrees with Auntie Pamela and wouldn’t give any of those dreadful things houseroom but I have noticed that quite a few Humans use them, probably to cover up the alleged Pong that us Furries give off! Well I have news for any Humans that are reading this – we only Pong if you don’t clean us out often enough!

I remember, some years ago, somebody bought one of the wretched things for my Human and within an hour of plugging the festering thing into the wall she was knocked off her feet with a migraine – serves her right! She should have had more sense!

The problem with those so called ‘Air Fresheners’ is that they pollute the atmosphere with synthetic, headache inducing fragrance and waste precious energy (that you are paying for) at the same time. If you don’t believe me, next time check out the packaging and look at the mind boggling list of crap they have to put into these things to create the so called ‘perfume’ And if all that wasn’t enough to put you off, then it might be worth bearing in mind a fair few House Fires have been put down to one of these nasty little things malfunctioning!

Why am I whinging about this? Well I quite often see photos on various animal forums where these air fresheners are plugged in right next to our cages and it isn’t healthy for us (let alone you). You have to remember that although we are a lot smaller than you, we have a much more developed sense of smell and these things really do Pong! Given the amount of dangerous chemicals these things kick out, you are effectively gassing us in our beds !

What to do instead? Well next time you want to freshen the air, open a window! Or if there is still an unclean smell lingering then you might want to remove that 3 day old Pizza, run the hoover or mop around the floor and maybe attack that stinking laundry that has been sat in the corner for the last 3 months.

It’s no good blaming us for the Pong either, us Chins are very clean but we have to rely on you Humans to keep our cages clean, so if we smell, we blame you!

Thank you for listening to my Fuzzy rant!

It’s here!

I was disturbed from my sewing marathon this morning by a *very* loud bang on the door, but all was forgiven when I realised what was inside the box!

Our Funky Halloween Fabric has turned up and in honour of it’s funkiness I have gone to a lot of trouble to photograph it for you …

What do you mean you can’t see the Fabric?

It’s there on the LEFT of the picture … see it now? No? Quit staring at the man candy (my man candy) and try and move your eyes to the left … There ya go! Cool huh?

The down side is that now I have a shed load of washing to do and looking at the lack of useful weather we are currently having, I think I’m going to be a bit stuck for drying it!

Out with the Sheep …

… and in with the Frogs!

It’s a sad day for all Rainbow Sheep fans as the last of the fabric is about to roll off (quite literally) the production line, never to be seen or snuggled ever again *sob*

BUT! Panic not as we’ve replaced it with an equally Bargain-tastic Fleece, similar in appearance, both bright, both cheap -  but this time it’s Froggies! Admittedly the old joke about the hammocks being ‘Sheep’ and cheerful is going to be a bit redundant now but I’m sure we’ll cope