Dear Ferret Folks- My mother spent most of her childhood, years ago, in Greenwich, CT. It was a quieter, gentler place then (as so many places were). She remembers a hillside that some gardener must have loved, long before she was born. At one point, it must have burst into the phrase "Spring is Here!" in brightly colored crocuses every year at the proper time. The letters were each several feet high. By the time my mother was a little girl, and literate, it had faded, and only announced the rather gap-toothed, cryptic message "Ping is He!" every April. She never forgot it. She used to look forward to it every year. Well, when we lost Switch the Kit, I knew that we had enough love for another ferret in our household. It was just a question of finding the right one. Imagine my astonishment when I surfed the following http://www.maferrets.org/shelter/foster.php It is entitled "Wondering Weasels", a site sponsored by MaFF, the Massachusetts Ferret Friends. I knew that I wanted a shelter ferret, but aside from that I had an open mind. I was sort of hoping for a male, as we had never had one before. I looked at all of the beautiful little faces.Some of them had been rescued from terrible situations, I knew. I knew that if I met them, rubbed their ears, I would know that each of these weasels was special. But which one was *the* one? How could I tell from just a picture? Then, the twelth picture down, I saw him. No. No way! Couldn't be. Here is what I read: "Ping" Ping is a handsome blaze male - around 2-1/2 years old. Poor Ping has already had two homes, so we want to make sure that he goes to someone who will give him love for an eternity. I thought, of course, PING IS HE!! He is the one! So today, my husband, Hurricane Lily, and I drove down to New Bedford, Ma, to the home of his foster Mom, Trudy Jo Wallach. We visited for about an hour. When we left, she still had the small black dog that wanted to be carried under her arm like a loaf of bread, and the little white dog that couldn't decide if it was scarier to be alone, or scarier to be too near people. Just hasn't made up its mind yet, so its sitting on her sofa, thinking about it. Its been there for weeks, apparently, without coming to a conclusion. It's not anti-social or anything, just thinking, deeply. Trudy still had the cat that was P.O.'d because it'd just had surgery and it was in a cage, trying to pretend it was a jungle panther in order to salve its dignity. Well, I wasn't fooled. Jungle panthers don't have one side of their head shaved bald, bucko, but nice try. Yes, she had all that, and more. Trudy has many small friends. But Ping, well, PING is HE!, with us! And Lily? Well, she is not entirely delighted. She has already explained to him in the strongest possible terms that he may sleep in her nesting box, but he may NOT sleep with her in her small cat carrier. (She has abandoned the nesting box since Switch died.) She has explained many things to him in (ahem) ....what shall I call it...Wolverine Idiom? Polecat Street-Talk? It is strong language, indeed. After he found a poop in the corner of her rice box (I had no idea it was there) and he ah, ate it, she just silently stood at the plexiglass barrier, begging to be released from the ferret room."Please. God. Help me. Anybody." Her eyes said. (Crunch-crunch-crunch in the background. Imagine Ping saying around a mouthful of the unspeakable "This is so cool, dude. Poop! Are you like, a caterer?") It will be so interesting to see what develops. Alexandra in Ma [Posted in FML issue 4844]