First of all, I would like to sincerely thank all of the wonderful people
who sent us messages of warmth and caring during our Hannah's brief illness
and sudden death.  We have had a necropsy done, and it turns out she had a
very distended liver, which was the cause of death.  She also had an
enlarged adrenal gland, which we did not realize because we thought her
hair loss on her tail was due to stress from surviving the house fire.  She
was a beauty, inside and out, and we miss her with all of our hearts.
 
Shortly before Hannah fell ill, we acquired two new additions to our family.
Bilbo the Unstoppable is a dark sable male with boundless energy.  Even
after donating blood to Hannah, the boy was bouncing off the walls when we
got him home!  He was turned in to the pet store because his owner no longer
wanted him, and it is my belief that he was abused.  If I made a loud noise
or anything with the box we brought him home in, he would cower.  He is a
totally different ferret now; he's a happy boy!
 
Frodo was the teensiest little boy we had ever seen!  He's a silver mitt,
and he sure has grown fast in the two weeks we have had him!  He thinks I am
a chew toy, while Bilbo thinks I am a tree to climb.
 
Then ferret math hit again.  We adopted two babes from Troy Lynn; a male and
female (butterscotch?); Rafferty is an energetic boy, and has already nearly
given us heart attacks when he scaled the barrier and went AWOL .  Down the
top flight of stairs and into the kitchen he went, and when I heard a
scratching in the kitchen, I couldn't believe he was there!  Talk about that
teleportation business.... I've gotta see if he'll teach me to do that.  Not
very likely.  He got under the fridge, but luckily we were able to lure him
out.  Then he raced back up the stairs to their room!  I admit it, he's a
lot faster than me; I couldn't catch him!
 
Noelle is a sweetheart; she'll lick-chomp and do a hit-and-run on you faster
than you can blink.  Not often enough to be considered a problem, but still
I have to wonder what she gets out of it.  She gives me lots of kisses, too!
She and Hawat are the only two ferts we have that give kisses, and I just
love it!
 
So lets see... that brings our total to seven.  Whew!  I don't know how you
people with nineteen and all do it!  Our seven are a handful in themselves!
 
Thufir, one of our sable males, is getting very thin and his coat isn't as
soft as the others.  He's about 3 1/2 , and doesn't play as much as he used
to, unless he's going at it with the rest of them in their room in the wee
hours of the morning.  I never see him do much in the daytime except sleep.
We are taking him in on Monday to have some blood drawn; he's got a bald
strip down his tail and I'm fearing adrenals.  It's not very big, but I
don't want to take any chances.
 
Well, that's about it from me and the furrybunch.  God bless to ya'll and to
all fuzzies forever...
 
~ Telaraj and the Slinky Seven ~
[Posted in FML issue 2303]