Someone asked so I'll get to mention the Ferret Poem Book again.  Hee hee.
The Second Edition of the Ferret Poem Book was made available last
November.  The book is entirely maintained electronically and can be
downloaded by anyone with an internet connection.  If you want to see
your poem in print, you will need to print the .pdf file (sorry about any
confusion).  The Poem book depends on readers making a donation to a local
shelter for what they perceive as the value of the book.  All of the poems,
songs, stories and sketches have been donated by the wonderful readers of
the FML.  To download a copy, visit my ferret's web page listed below (you
will need to visit the backup server).  Some shelters have made copies and
sell them to help their fuzzies also.
 
I had been planning on putting out the third edition May 1st (Oops, thats
today!).  Well, it looks like I'll have to delay a bit.  I have quite a bit
of new material, but I still need to go through the process of getting
permissions and editing.  I've been very busy recently (pay attention and
I'll tell you what I've done), so I'll probably wait a few months to put
together the third edition.  Get your creative juices flowing, because I'll
try to get everyone to submit more usable material soon.  As incentive,
I'll have a few prizes available.  As a hint as to what they might be, my
hobbies include acryllic/oil painting and stone sculpture.
 
As to what I've been busy doing... Myself, four ferrets, one cat and one
wife purchased a home in November.  Since the February (even with snow),
I've been outside digging, and digging, and digging.  Around a rather large
section of the yard I have set concrete blocks 16 to 18 inches underground,
and wooden palisade fence 6 feet above ground.  This weekend, all seven of
us (ferrets included for the first time) went outside to plant seedlings
and perennials.  The cat watched the birds, ate the grass, and bopped the
ferrets.  The ferrets had a blast with no harnesses.  The yard is large
enough that they thought that they had escaped outside through an open
door.  Mint thought it was great fun to run around the pool with me chasing
her.  Esef carefully inspected the fresh wood chips, then trampled the
lobelia my wife (Sandy) was planting.  Albi terrorized the cat then seemed
facinated by the leaves floating in the pool.  Merri was definitely Merri
when she dumped a glass of soda on the carrier and turned their hammock
into a small suspended swimming pool or perhaps a lap pool ;-)
 
Don't panic.  The outdoor area is for supervised fuzzies only.  We are
still working on the area, and will constantly be adding additional safety
features.  Next on our list are about 1/2 dozen ferret sized ladders out of
the pool.  I fully expect Esef to entertain herself by pushing the other
ferrets in ;-) She used to do that with the bathtub (where we also had a
ladder to get out).  When it is warmer, we'll doing swimming lessons so the
ferrets know how to get out of the pool.  I used to teach rats to do it,
and everyone knows ferrets are smarter than those dumb rats ;-)
--
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                   Bryan P.  Coffey -
                      Sudbury, MA
      [log in to unmask] http://www.gis.net/~bpcoffey
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                  Weasel Warriors -
             Albi, Esef, Merri, and Mint
      http://www.gis.net/~bpcoffey/furball.html
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[Posted in FML issue 3039]