(with thanks to Julianna Quadrozzi for having posted our "all okay" on
the FML for us) This is Susie Lee of the Ferret and Dove Sanctuary, Inc.
still in our brick house with a somewhat airier back yard.
 
The very early hours of Sept. 16th saw us before midnight with the power
down all over the county.  So we used flashlights to check on the doves
tied against the south side of the house, under the patio, in sturdy
rabbit's and guinea-pig cages (heavy guage wire, three times thicker than
the usual wire on the ferret's cages) ...and they "weathered" the entire
incident without losing a single feather.  The dog, Mulan, and the cats
were all brought inside.  Nervous, they were, to be sure, as were all 49
ferrets, but each was as safe and secure as we could make them.
 
At 2:30 a.m. I heard a tremendous, triple groan, like the groaning of
three giants in terrible sudden pain, then a rattling series of crashes
with three great heavy THUNKS and the sound of lots of beaking glass.
It was pitched black, the storm a-hooting its 130-mile-an-hour self,
and I had been lying down in the bedroom near the 3 cages of seven
special-needs ferrets I keep aside (to feed frequently for ulcers/
insulinoma and/or medicate for whatever they have ordered, etc)...and
my first thought was the tall cage must have crashed-oh-no!, but then
I'm thinking...there's not any glassware of any sort either on top of
or near either of them, so what's with the breaking glass?
 
Grabbing the flashlights Wes and I both see that all the ferrets are just
fine, though scared straight-tailed, and there's a huge tree-limb-end
sticking into the bedroom window just a couple of inches but has severely
bent the entire double storm-window frame ...suggesting that the rest of
it is a big and heavy mutha.  Wes thought fast and took down a closet
sliding door and nailed it right over the whole window...it was on the
North side whence the storm's main force was a-blowing and pelting.
Checking on all the others, everyone was okay, and so I stayed with the
special-seven through the rest of the night.  Come the morning's daylight
we saw that a tornado had twisted the top halves off of three of the
local hundred-foot-tall longleaf pines and tossed them all into our front
yard with the offending limb having actually come to rest into that
bedroom window...they were indeed each big, Heavy Muthas!  From what
sounded like a second rooftop "Thunk" with a rolling-down-the-roof kind
of sound (what it would have sounded like if Santa's sleigh missed and
skidded down!  :) that turned out to be a neighbor's 50-foot-tall cedar
tree that had got split in half and the falling-half thunked on our rook
and then rolled down to a still-hanging-on stop on the gutters.
 
There it stayed for the next day and a half keeping the special-needs
ferrets' bedroom more relatively cool from out of the sun's 90 degree
pounding than was the rest of the place.  For a wonder, we had phone
service for just a couple of hours the first morn, the 16th, during
which we made as many calls as we could, for we could see , one house
away, a huge longleaf pine lying across the road, over both sets of
wires...everyone was without power, but why we still had basic telephone
even for two hours with the wires bowed down to the ground, like that
was a plain miracle, right there.  So, the first day, I put the small
ice-packs I had pre-fixed over the most needy ferret's cages and misted
them and all the others down to keep them cool through the heat.
Couldn't spare ice after this first day, though.  On the 18th, a friend
of Wesley's came into town from Biloxi, Miss.  with some life-saving
ICE!, as well as three cases of bottled water and some food he'd picked
up...later in the day, he and Wes found a pair of kindly and brawny young
men from Arkansas who chainsawed and helped cart the heavy chunks, most
as big as tree-stumps you could sit on, out to the curb-side.  two
miracles!  On the third day, my daughter and our cdar-tree neighbor
brought life-saving ice and people-food.  So each day, Wes and I had our
early-moring routine still going on to clean and change all the cages and
let every ferret out to exercise (the cool terrazo floors were Heaven!)
and the life-saving ice kept my "duck soup" jars fresh, with those four
who were hand-fed and the rest who just plain liked it, learning fast
to like it cold because cool food is Good when you're hot!  Wes set up
a hibachi outside to make coffee and our expensive kitchen-counter
water-filter-er was pure gold when the water was back on by the 17th but
undrinkable without super-filtering or boiling.  Come up to today, a team
of electrician pro's from the state of Oklahoma came through to fix the
main electrical wiring now that the huge trees were cut up off of them.
 
Power's on!  We made it!  Not a single ferret nor dove sufferred any harm
over the last how-many-days-Has-it been, anywho?!  I have got to make
more duck soup.  we need Mazuri Ferret Food, have just under half of a
25-pound bag.  I'm using ziplock bags to freeze Big blocks of ice...Just
in Case, because bogger blocks melt more slowly...little bittly ice cubes
are for drinks, not for keeping your fur-kids' important stuff cold!
 
All's well.  Susie Lee signing off for the Ferret and Dove Sanctuary,
Inc.  If anyone wants to, send donations, send checks or money orders
(include your return address so that we may send you a tax-reciept and
a "thank-you", Please) made out to The Ferret And Dove Sanctuary, Inc.,
3815 Tom Lane Drive, Pensacola, Florida, 32504.  Phone's working again,
so we're at 850-475-0780
[Posted in FML issue 4641]