Dear Ferret Folks-

I've been on the road a lot over the last few days and that's unusual,
I don't travel much anymore. This time of year my husband's work calls
him up north to Bar Harbor, Maine. It's a beautiful place, and all the
more beautiful this early into the tourist season. By mid-June, the
crush is brutal. My husband's boss is happy to have the two of us go up
in our camper, it doesn't interfere with my husband's work. Paying for
a few nights at the Bar Harbour KOA is a lot cheaper than paying for
my husband to stay in a hotel by himself. We bring the motorcycle, zip
around. It's a good time. We go nearly every year.

My excellent niece Sarah, now nineteen (how did THAT happen?) stayed
at our house to look after the dog, the Noble Allis Chompers, Sterling
the Silver Cat, the chickens, and the ferrets. Sarah is a fine ferret
sitter, having been introduced to them as a little shaver when I
brought my first two home. She gives them lots of out time, plays
with them, and in general just uses good sense where the ferrets are
concerned.

Well, She has never dealt with the likes of Caff-Pow before. There is
a reason I named him after the ultra-caffeinated beverage on the crime
show NCIS. He is around ten, eleven weeks old and we all agree that he
is a "Woodland Piranha." He is a mustelid buzz-saw, it's tiring just
to watch him run around. Leap around. Climb around. Fly. Levitate. His
daily routine makes me think of those aereonautic daredevils of the
Roaring Twenties, the guys who would stand on airplane wings and hold
on while the plane swooped and looped over an awe-struck crowd.
Caff-Pow? Energy to burn. At this stage in his life he has no guile.
Everything is right in your face, unapologetic. Immediate. If he
wants it he does it. Or tries to.

It was very *hot* today, up around ninety. Too hot for comfort when you
are wearing a mink coat. We called Sarah (we were driving home) and
asked for a special favor. Last year I grew a small crop of pole beans.
I'd never tried them before. I set two wooden pole tripods on the edge
of the garden, and the vines obligingly climbed up the poles. Long,
dangly green beans followed. What I didn't understand was that you have
to pick them young, or they are as tough as plywood. I got a great crop
of plywood pole beans. I put them in Ziplocs and stored them in my
deepfreeze out of Yankee guilt. Don't think we actually *ate* any.

We spoke to Sarah and asked her to go get one of the icy bags of pole
beans and wrap it tightly in a T-shirt with some duct tape, and slip it
on top of the topmost shelf in the boy's cage, right below the topmost
hammie. That gives the boys a cool place to sleep, they really enjoy
that on hot days. Apparently she could not find the duct tape. She
thought that she could just make a few knots in the T-shirt and the
one gallon Ziplock would be secure.

Hah.

Caff-Pow had *nothing* better to do this afternoon than untie the
T-shirt, and wreak havoc. This is one of those telling events that
separates the ferret lover from the ferret admirer. The author Mark
Twain once tried to define what *experience* is. Experience is the
difference between carrying a cat upside-down by the tail for a mile,
or simply imagining doing so. Only one of thses actions yields palpable
experience. Sarah lacks some fundamental ferrret experience. There is a
big difference between duct tape, and a few knots.

We got home, and I went to check on the boys. Sarah had gone out. I
could not help but notice the shredded, limp pole beans on *every*
shelf in the cage, all seven plastic levels. Then there were the
shredded, limp pole beans in the three hanging hammies. There were
shredded, limp pole beans on the bottom of the cage, in the litterbox,
just below the spout of the water bottle. There were shredded, limp
pole beans in the round fleece bed. In the hanging sack. In front of
the J-feeder. I don't think that much pole bean material had been
consumed, it had simply been masticated. Great word, that. A fancy word
for cheeeewed. Every one of those beans had been cheeeewed. And spat
out, and left for dead.

(Sigh.) It was the great Pole Bean Massacre of 2009. The horror, the
horror.

Alexandra in MA

[Posted in FML 6340]