The apartment I moved into is the first floor of a house that only has one
other apartment/tenant in it, directly above me (ie, i have the first floor,
she has the second).  She is also a gardener and regularly cares for the
nicely groomed landscaping around our house.
 
Well, when my ferrets are out and playing, Noodle, Easel, and Friday
(heretoafter and in all my subsequent posts referred to as the Group of
Ferrets Known as NEF, or GOFKNEF) have easy access to climb up into the main
living room window and hop around on the sill.  If I've only opened the
window a few inches, a favorite game is to climb up to the top of the screen
between the screen and the glass.  This usually makes me yell something
unprintable at them, or something useless like, "You'll fall!  Get down!"
which, of course, because they understand English perfectly and always obey
me, they do.  Actually, they've never fallen, and they love this little
sandwich game, or whatever it should be called.
 
Anyway, back to the story.  So, while my housemate and her friend were out
watering the bushes directly under this window, Noodle climbs onto the sill
to look at them.  He was pretty happy, because they were making weird water
noises and staring at him with looks of total amazement on their faces.  So
Easel decides to get in on the action and see what's up, and the ferrets get
even happier, because both women's eyes pop out of their head.  One goes,
"There's another one!  Are they ferrets?!  How many does she have?"
 
At this point I wander over to the window to talk to the poor women, despite
the fact that I was more alarming-looking than the ferrets (pre-shower,
still in pajamas).  I figure I'll talk to them before they think the house
is infested by giant tasmanian vampire rats or something.  As I chat with
them amicably, Friday climbs up and decides to amuse them even more.
 
I swear, ferrets are never more pleased with themselves than when people are
boggling at them.  Noodle looked like he'd gotten to eat a cat.
 
In other news, Noodle has decided that a crumpled-up wad of cardstock is his
new toy.  He just carries it around ceaselessly, except when he sticks it
into a bag, and then he sits there in the bag with it.  Doing what, I don't
know.  I couldn't even PRETEND to guess.
 
We're an all-wood-pellet household!  Yeah!  Bobo the cat even took to them
with a minimum of griping.  I hope my housemate doesn't wonder why I've got
over 200lbs of wood pellets in our shared basement.  Note: if you're going
to use wood pellets for cats, you should only use a 1/2"-1" layer in their
pan.  They feel a bit better about it that way.
 
At least, i HOPE Bobo has taken to the litter pan.  Oops.  I hope she's not
planning on surprising me sometime.
 
Friday continues to do well and to climb up onto Potpie's cage and get
stuck.  If anybody ever read Richard Scarry books (themselves as kids or to
their kids) and remembers the short story where the goatherd had to climb a
mountain to rescue a cute girl's cow, the expression on the cow's face is
EXACTLY what Friday looks like when she's up there.  The expression on my
face is that of the goatherd's the third time he has to climb and get the
cow.
 
Favorite current toy of all three: well, toys.  One, a thick plastic bag
that they ripped off of one of my vinyl albums.  Second, a bagel-sized bag
that's too small for one ferret, much less three, so of course all three
have to try to get in there.
 
Melissa
 
 ___ Melissa Litwicki __ [log in to unmask] ___
 By the whole newsgroup devoted tennis showing
     it after scarfing fork and laughters
[Posted in FML issue 2059]