Wow, it's great to be back!!!
Had a great meeting in Maastricht, The Netherlands, for five days, then took
off with my husband on our (finally!) honeymoon (we were married last
October, then I moved in December to Tucson, Arizona, for my new job,
leaving him in Los Angeles to finish graduate coursework at UCLA for his
PhD... I'm in the writing stage on mine, sigh).
We spent a week in Southern France visiting caves... natural wonders with
crystals and stalagtites and -mites, and seeing some of the fabulous cave
art done by humans 15-30,000 years ago. The power of the feelings in some
of those spaces, realizing the timespans involved, and the age of the things
we saw, is humbling.
Then off to Paris, where we had heard about the fabulous "Bird Market" held
on Sundays at the "Flower Market" stalls near Notre Dame. Not only was
there an incredible variety of birds, but lots and lots of small mammals,
including at least 5 stalls with baby ferrets. All were alert and happy,
but one was so little, its ears were tiny and the tail quite short, as
though it was still a *very* young baby.
When we finished our trip in Amsterdam, staying with friends, we drove up to
Almere to visit Ernst and Anja Vedder, who responded to my requests on this
list (back in June) to meet someone with European ferrets. We arrived after
10:00 pm, at the end of a very long day of birdwatching and visiting a park
with Przwalski's horses and Pere David deer, and almost didn't stop, but the
lights were on so we rang the doorbell. After all, in their note to me they
had said "I just read that you ... wanted to visit some ferrets. Be our
guest and please come..." and ending with "Much greetings especially from
Fredericka, Hobbel and Spook 'wow is there somebody from Arizona who wants
to see *us*?'" Twenty seconds of rustling on the other side of the door and
it was flung open, spotlighting Anja holding 3 adorable ferts! We all went
in, and spent 45 minutes adoring, petting, and playing with the 3 dolls.
They own two good-sized males (but no larger than my female, Polly, was)
Hobbel and Spook, and a little lovey female albino named Fredericka. I got
my first European kissy faces from Fredericka, and we all roared when I took
one sock off and it promptly grew a tail as the she scurried inside it to
inspect the new smells. They didn't seem any larger than the American
carpet sharks I've seen, and the little albino was smaller than most. So
much for what I've heard about huge European ferrets.
Anja buys tiny little shoes (the size you'd buy for a 3-4-year old) for them
to drag around and stash, and the looks she got when she dumped over their
hidey-box and exposed all the shoes on the rug... they promptly grabbed
shoes and began re-stashing them again. She and Ernst also have a 20-year
old cat (!!!), 3 rats and a bird, and seemed to have a wonderful, happy
"animated" (so to speak) household. They spoke excellent English (my French
is abominable yet understandable, but boy my Dutch is practically
nonexistent!). Anja showed us a wonderful ferret book, complete with great
pictures and ferret cartoons, but unfortunately for me it's only printed in
Dutch. She also had information and pictures of some really cute ferret
T-shirts and other items. I hope to order some next month once I pay off my
credit card bills from the trip... well, maybe the month after next... ;-p
My Amsterdam friends, Kaye and Ed, also enjoyed the ferrets; wonder if
ferret math will strike them? They have two cats, but have lots of room for
another critter or two.
It's great to be home, to hear of MO'BOB's latest adventures -- and *I* know
where he got some of those mismatched socks... my laundry basket was far
lighter after he left Tucson... ;-) and to catch up on what y'all have been
doing.
TATER, ODIE, MAXIE AND ROSIE: my husband Steve and I can definitely
recommend the South of France (and a wonderful little "chateau" in a tiny
village in Aveyron that we found on the Internet and spent a terrific week
using as a home base) for a honeymoon you'll never forget.
You would all *love* the caves there; plenty of room to stash all those
goodies. And, who knows, it *is* truffles country, perhaps you could all
snuffle up some truffles and if your human pets could convince you to part
with them, you could make the cost of your trip back with just an hour's
snuffling and diggling and giggling. Most truffle hunters use either dogs
or pigs, but it seems as though ferrets, who just adore all things musty and
stinky, would be great trufflers. And not nearly as difficult to move as a
full-size hog (who much prefers to eat the truffle it just found, not give
it up to a truffle-sack). Truffles are *very* costly; I paid about $20 for
12.5 grams, buying directly from a truffle hunter in his little cooperative
store he shared with 4 other folks who sold pates and truffles, and every
part of a duck or goose you could imagine (try sausage and pate-stuffed
goose necks, or morel mushrooms or cepes mushrooms preserved in goose fat).
Granted this isn't truffle season, but even in the winter time you could
make a lot of money ferreting out the "black gold of the Perigord". How
about it, any readers from Southern France know of any truffle-hunting
ferrets who could give the Fab Four Ferrets lessons???
All for now, good to catch up on my sleep and the fml.
JodyLee
JodyLee Estrada Duek 520/626-2203
Faculty Development Specialist 520/626-6707 (message)
Division of Academic Resources 520/626-4879 (fax)
University of Arizona College of Medicine
1501 N. Campbell Avenue
Tucson, Arizona 85724
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[Posted in FML issue 1640]
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