Long before the furless ferret was born (otherwise known as our male
offspring), we moved into a very yuppie kind of neighbourhood in a nice
part of the area just at the edge of the housing. A mere 1/2 block away
was wide open fields and woods, part of a major river valley. In a
couple of years we had become the proud owners of at least 2, maybe
even all 3 of the ferrets. And to show our animal favs, we got the
vanity license plates, FERET1 and FERET2 for our cars. So though we
only knew our immediate neighours really well, many others in the 'hood
recognized our plates and what it meant.

One summer, we had the neighbours 4 or 5 homes away come and get us.
They were concerned as several pedestrians had been "attacked" (jumped
at) by something that they identified as being a baby ferret. Chris
helped look around their property and under their large pine tree on
the front lawn but nothing was seen. Later that night, a frantic knock
on the door and their teenaged son was excited to tell us that the
ferret had been found and was caught in their inground pool skimmer.
We grabbed shoes and hustled down the street. And sure enough, a tiny
ferret like creature (very wet and exhausted) was spinning around in
the pool skimmer. With help from oven gloves and a large soup ladle,
the helpless thing was extracted out and placed in an empty hamster
cage. It didn't have the standard colouring of a domesticated ferret
but it was definitely in the same family. With their blessing, we took
the creature home and warmed it up and gave it water from one of the
smaller old ferret watering bottles. And we fed it soft canned ferret
(cat) food. It was very small and exhausted so we kept watch over it.
It stayed in the hamster cage in our 1st floor laundry room. The pets
stayed in the finished basement as we worried about disease transfer
from a wild animal to the domestic ones. Research had identified our
new house guest as a "least weasel".

PS it is against the law to keep wild creatures and we knew it but not
knowing the size of babies vs adults, we weren't sure whether it was
big enough to be alone. For 2 weeks it stayed with us until we noticed
major weight increases. The weasel was not friendly and I coined the
phrase that it wanted to bite off my finger at my shoulder. Feeding and
watering was done super carefully. Chris was given the poop cleanout
duties. This was a major military exercise requiring full protection, a
large garbage can and thick gloves etc. It was done behind the "locked"
door of the laundry room. One time, Chris had dumped weasel into the
garbage can and the weasel was stronger then and launched himself out
of the full sized outdoor can and over Chris' shoulder and onto the
floor. There is Chris locked in the laundry with the wild beast who
tears off fingers at the shoulder! Much yelling and screaming and
swearing from within.

I was safely in the family room around the corner when chaos started.
The weasel was snarling and backed himself under the laundry room door
facing the laundry room. Oh <insert swear word>, it's now loose in the
house. But I was calm and smrt and I just picked up the little family
room paper garbage can and tipped the can over top of the weasel who
never even knew that the biggest danger was not the man in the laundry
room behind the door but the prepared woman on the outside with it.
Recapture was done and we moved the cage into the garage and arranged
for the neighbours' teenaged son to purchase extra mice (he bought mice
to feed his snake once a week) so we could test whether the weasel was
ready to be set free. But before the mice test could happen, the weasel
got himself free from the hamster cage without unlocking it. Since it
was in the garage and there were many access points for mice etc to
the outside of the garage, we accepted that the weasel was free.

Oh, why popcan. Well when we first "got" him, the song "Pop goes the
weasel" wouldn't stop playing in my brain. And more importantly, one of
the reasons that he survived several hours in the pool skimmer was that
a pepsi POPCAN was stuck in the bottom of the skimmer and lowered the
downward pressure so the weasel could stay afloat and not be pulled
down and drown. "popcan" was his name from then on and so for Chris
and I, popcan is a synonym for a least weasel.

[Posted in FML 8183]