Well, I'm off to Ca Ca Land for a few days to see my Mom and to take care of
Horse.  Elizabeth is flying out with me and will be the end of a
three-person climb up Half Dome.  I've been in Missouri so long I've
forgotten what granite and white water looks like.  I am so stoked.
 
I'll be off the medicine (that makes mt eyes blurry) for the next month,
then another month of treatment.  I'm already starting to see better, and
when I get back form Ca Ca Land, I'll be sure to dig into the 400+ mail
messages Elizabeth has filed away for me to answer.  May take me a day or
two.  In the meantime, if you asked to reuse any ferret-related thing I've
done, assume you have my permission and use it.  It's nice to get a copy,
but no biggie.
 
I want to send special thanks to my special NZ friend and am looking forward
to your fright.  I can't wait to write an NSF proposal.
 
Q: "...how many references on ferrets do you have?"
 
A: 10 real ones and 5000 fakes.  I do the Ca Ca Fish and Gestapo trick and
   make them up!  Lets see, "ferret eats baby dinosaur's face..."
 
Not.  Actually, there are more ferret references than moderately possible
(or affordable) to obtain, dating back quite literally thousands of years.
The oldest stuff is probably the metaphoric use by Aristophanes, who
mentioned ferrets (or at least semi-domesticated polecats) in a series of
different plays about 2400 BC.  The pickings are quite lean through the
Middle ages, and start to pick up in the late 1800s.  Natural science
interest peaked in the 1960-70s, but the real interest has been in the
medical and laboratory field.  I have an Endnote file containing more than
5000 ferret-related references, and have about half on hand.  Some have
abstracts, most don't.  I hope to someday have all my ferret files
completely scanned in and electronically stored for easy computer access,
but the time and effort will delay the task's completion for several years.
Yes, I'm serious.  It will happen.
 
Much of the stuff is actually quite repetitous.  Lots of similar stuff on
teeth, lots on adrenal disease, lots of stuff about what has already been
described or investigated.  Lots and lots of medical research using ferrets
as the guinea-pigs.  A few really good ecological studies, some excellent
physiological work, solid anatomical work.  Some really bad stuff as well,
and not just from the Ca Ca Fish and Gestapo either; some of the worst is
from ferret fanactics with good intentions and poor research skills.  It
only contains items that have been bona fide published in newspapers,
journals, books, magazines and the like; not included are club newsleters,
mailing lists, gray literature, etc.  (I put those in a separate data base
for my own pursual, but don't cite them).  There are a few published ferret
bibliographies, but nothing very complete and all dated.  Personally (no
brag just fact) my data base is the best I've seen.  But then, its the only
one I've seen.  I expect the abstract scanning should be done by March, and
the article scanning by next summer.  I'm looking for better OCR software to
speed the process up.
 
Bob C and 20 MO Ferreticks.
[Posted in FML issue 2137]