I'm pleased to announce that we have two beautiful new adoptee ferrets at
our house!  Lilly is a Chocolate Mitt, 9 months old, and Milly is a
Chocolate Siamese, a little over a year old.  They both have sweet little
white faces, cream-colored bodies with dark markings, and Lilly boasts
four white boots.
 
Lilly and Milly join Patient Griselda (Grizzy), Red Hedda Hopper and
Blanche duBois, the youngest of whom is nearly 4 years old, so there are
major adjustments to be made in both thinking and furniture arrangement.
The older girls and the newbies get along great (just one squeal-fest when
Lilly and Hopper tried to use the same corner of the same litterbox at the
same time), but the little ones can easily leap and climb to places the
older ones, due to advancing sedateness, long ago stopped aspiring to:
Counters, tables and bookcases, the top of the grandfather clock, even the
fireplace mantle.  My pathetic croton plant, having finally dared grow a
few leaves back, will now have to return to the top of the fridge.
 
The repertoire of ferret-sounds has increased dramatically as well---my
old gals were down to a few sporadic chuckles, but now we are treated to
squeaks, growls, hisses, mutters and constant play-dooking, with a few
thumps and crashes thrown in when previously-safe decorative items meet
the floor.  It's all having a definite rejuvenating effect on a previously
rather staid household (if any house with even one ferret can be called
"staid").
 
Milly and Lilly came to our home in Madison, WI from The Ferret Nook in
Cambridge, WI.  After my chief ferret, Bumble B. Bobbitt, passed to the
Bridge on December 2nd, I attended a Christmas party at the Nook on
December 14th to meet all the fuzzies and their ferret-folk.  I tentatively
picked out a 9-month-old dark sable gib who resembled Bumble, but I felt
emotionally hesitant, superstitious that Bumble-at-the-Bridge might think I
was trying to "replace" him with a lookalike.  A ferret-friend guided me to
Lilly and Milly instead, but I still wasn't sure what to do, even though
L & M were the cutest things imaginable.  The shelter operator (Kathy
Fritz) also recommended L & M, so I filled out the adoption papers for
them, but was still considering the male.  A few days later I talked with
Kathy on the phone and she said she thought the male might be too big a
handful for my older sprites, and I agreed to go ahead with L & M.  (My
personal hunch is that some collusion was involved, and all concerned had
already decided that L & M were right for me, and I was going to end up
with them one way or another!  Thank you, Marsha and Kathy!) After a few
delays due to blizzards, missing vaccine deliveries and icy roads, Lilly
and Milly finally moved in with us the night of January 19th, just in time
to hear the State of the Union Address and turn the house upside down.
 
The Ferret Nook, by the way, is a wonderful place, a large farmhouse out in
the boonies, with 80-90 well-housed, devotedly cared-for ferrets, some
adopted Mongolian Polecats (lovely little beasties), three gorgeous
greyhounds, two or three fat cats, a German Shepherd guard dog who takes
his responsibilities extremely seriously, a cute but possibly confused
white rat, and Kathy and Barry Fritz.  Not to mention the goats, but they
don't actually live in the house.  It's a Wonderland for animal lovers!
 
Introductions now being over, it's time to return to the fabulous fray....
 
Signe, Greg, Grizzy, Hopper, Blanche, Lilly and Milly
[Posted in FML issue 2566]