Last week we got quite a bit of snow here, 50 cm or so and one of these little fellas, called a fouine or stone marten, decided to weather the storm in the ancien grange out the back.I first saw him in evening around 6pm,I heard some scrabbling on the wooden staircase of the grange and thought it was one of the local kittehs.I made some noise and the fouine stuck his head through the railing and gave me a serious once over.He was surprisingly big, like an otter or the size of a large, long cat.Fouines have a reputation for being destructive, so much so that there is a 'fouine insurance' here in Switzerland.Apparently they have an appetite for the electrical cabling on cars (BMW's in particular). The kittehs were aware of its presence earlier, I suspect fouines have a strong scent and refused to come outside without me for 2 or 3 days.I saw him once more scuttling from the hedge to the grange and when the snow stopped he was gone.The kittehs did some cautious sniffing around and have declared the yard fouine free...for now.
It's snowing again.
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