Dear Ferret Folks- It's winter here in New England, and let me tell you--scenic or not, it wears on your soul. It does. Screw all those scenic stone walls with the snow on 'em, the tang of wood smoke in the air, the quaint Commons with their delightful old churches, etc. It's COLD!!! And we get tired of it. So maple syrup and lobsters are cheap here. Whopee! This time of year any *sane* Yankee is in Florida, rolling in a big pile of oranges. I do have my escape hatch, though. There is a vast and ancient network of indoor tropical greenhouses in Connecticut, not too far from where I live. Logee's Greenhouse. Think blooming citrus trees, happy fat banana trees, splashes of bright bougainvillea, tree ferns that brush the ceiling, moist, green, dripping living things that smell wonderful and invigorate our thin, freeze-dried spirits. We make several trips every winter so that you never read this headline on the bottom of the screen on CNN: "Ferret-enthusiast in apparent mass murder in MASS. Famous ferret author still at large, armed, dangerous, suspected on her way to Florida." Well, I went to Logee's with my sister, her two year old son (who was so good, ate no flowers, picked no fruit) and my sister in law, Jennifer. We wandered as if in a green dream for a long time, and finally selected our plants to bring home. I was so excited with my find--a Pachystachys Coccinea. Think two foot long green stick with a few huge leaves, and on top, a flaming red torch of a flower, a beacon of hope in our dreary winter. So red, so...alive. A complicated blossom the size of my fist. I brought it home and made a place for it in the jungle I keep in my living room--many shelves like stairs that lead to a sunny window, with plant lights overhead. Home to Christmas Cactus, Purple Oxalis, Apostle Plants, Hanging Burrow's Tails, Kalanchoe, Bamboo, ropes of Devil's Ivy, all manner of good things. I settled my marvelous red torch, watered it, gave it just the right tilt into the sun....and about ran to the computer to Google its name, so that I could learn all about it. I got lots of hits. One was particularly fine, why, it even had a Pictogram Guide at the top. A line of little picture icons that you could point to and click...icons that clearly represented water, sun, how tall it's going to get, a little butterfly icon that let me know that the blossoms would attract them outside in the summer...just point to the little line of icons, and you could learn everything you needed about the Pachystachys Coccinea! Well, lemme tell ya. There ain't NO *AMN LITTLE WEASEL ICON, IS THERE? Go ahead. Look for yourselves. http://toptropicals.com/cgi-bin/garden_catalog/cat.cgi ?uid=PACHYSTACHYS_COCCINEA There is no tiny cartoon ferret with his sneaky little paws and snout sunk deeply into the plant pot holding your brand new Pachystachys Coccinea, is there? I had NO WARNING. NONE. I went to do the dishes, my back was turned, Ping and Puma were running loose, I went into the living room and found my Pachystachys Coccinea tilting a good thirty degrees from plum in its new pot, and a MOUND of potting soil beneath the plant on the FLOOR. I don't remember the next few minutes too well, but Ping and Puma appear to be fine this morning. No, there is not half an inch of Glu-Tack poured directly on the floor of the Ferret Room to keep filthy little plant burrowing weasels WHERE THEY BELONG. Mind you, they have *TWO*, yes, *TWO* dirt burrowing boxes in the Ferret Room for their own use 24 hours a day. Not that they bother to wake up for more than about an hour a day...no...just long enough to dig up my.....I can't even say it again. How could they? How could they? *Monsters*. Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML issue 5135]