Hello, hello --

The aerial walkway for my outdoor fert pens is in place and the ferrets
are all using it. It is a so much fun to see them trotting along up
there -- the walkway's made of wire mesh tunnels (5" square in
diameter) with carpet on the bottom. Some of the walkway goes across
the kitchen window that is in front of the sink, and another part
passes abt 10 feet from my sewing/art work room windows, so I can see
them from inside the house as well as when I'm outside. I can also
look into the pens a little from the art/sewing room.

On the walkway, they pass each other coming and going, have little
battles, turn around, back up, and do everything they do in the
dryer tubes, but I can see them at eye level and a few inches above.
Sometimes they look a lot like possums walking across the top of a
fence. I wish now I had made the tunnels bigger, because Artie tried
a war dance, but was too confined. When I make my next million!

They learned quite quickly how to get from one part of the walkway to
another, and they all come home without trouble. The walkway's in the
form of a T, with the shaft coming out of their indoor cage and meeting
the cross bar in a sort of junction box, which makes changing direction
easier for them. Jonas, on the other hand, thinks it's a fresh-air
litter box, so I guess others will follow suite. The box leads into the
cross bar, each end of which goes to one of their outside pens. They go
into the pens (and out the window) via 4"-diameter black drain tubes
that are ribbed and flexible and insert into the mesh tunnels.

Eric and Jonas, even went out after dark this evening when it was
sprinkling. They don't seem to mind having wet on the surface of
their fur. Let's see what happens in a downpour or snow.

But the biggest surprise was that, after they'd all come in, slept, and
then started moving around again in their cage, I took them out for
playtime in the kitchen. They played a long time, including with Dante,
the 93-lb would-be ballerina dog. He loves them and steps ever so
softly around them. Very gentle, even when he gets nipped on the lip.
He holds them down with a paw and mouthes them, bumps them with his
nose, etc.

So tonight after that long play, they started to setle down again, so I
put them back in their cage to sleep. Did they sleep? NO. Nine of the
ten went right out the tunnel to the walkway and they are still running
around out there, flashing in and out of beams from the neighbors' arc
lights across the creek.

It's a mild damp night, but yesterday was very cold. No problem with
anyone freezing to death. Even Phillppe, the sleep-of-the-dead guy,
came home. Of course I will be checking each night to be sure that
continues.

So now to get some pictures of the setup and put them somewhere
accessible to you all!

This has been a project that took a year and a half, and lots of things
in it are the result of help FMLers have given me. Thank you !

[Posted in FML 5428]