Dear Ferret Folks- My home is a war zone. Yes, a war zone. Who are the combatants? It's the war of the ferrets VS. Sterling the Silver cat. Let me give you an idea of what it's like here in northern central Massachusetts as I write this. It is a stunningly bright and fresh day. Every branch, every twig is frosted with a coating of snow. I don't mean a light dusting, I mean that every surface in the mixed hemlock and and hardwood forest that *can* support snow cover is currently carrying a thick burden of it. The evergreens usually shake the snow off when their boughs become too heavy, sort of like a giant half-closed umbrella shaking off the rain. But it snows every day, a few more fluffy white inches, and we're starting to see freshly broken boughs here and there that couldn't carry the weight anymore, even among the evergreens. Sometimes it's hard to tell when it's actually snowing, and when the breeze is sending cascades of silvery crystals through the trees and surrounding air. When the wind blows gusts of snow billow out from the edges of the forest. The world is wrapped in the deep stillness that only a heavy snow cover brings, and the shadows on the surface of the snow are that special blue color that is only the color of shadows on snow. It is beautiful here, beautiful. But not to Sterling the Silver Cat. He stands, what, seventeen inches tall at the tip of his soft gray ears? The snow cover here is deeper than that, much deeper. In my yard it comes up to mid-thigh on me, and I'm about five foot four. It's not that nasty granular end of the season snow that has largely collapsed down flat, and is layered with hard crusts of ice so that it will support your weight when you walk on it. You can't walk on this powder. You can drag yourself through it, wallow through it picking up each leg with care and effort, one at a time. If you are Sterling, you simply sink into it, dragging your belly, and having to rescue yourself by hopping a yard at a time until you get to the thin circle of hard-packed snow surrounding the house and driveway and wood pile. His world is limited to those areas, and to the road out front. From his perspective, it is a barren expanse devoid of mice. Sterling is a hunter. Spring, summer and fall, he spends each dawn and dusk in the forest around us, looking for prey. And now, he sits forlornly in front of our doors, looking out through the glass, and wishing that he were racing through green stands of summer mountain laurel and curling ferns, chasing....something. Anything. He is starting to crack. He blasts in and out of his cat door, racing from one end of the house to the other. He bounces off of the furniture on these runs, knocking over his green carpeted two story cat tower. He runs the length of the house and comes to a skidding halt at our bedroom door. Then he turns like a Harrier Jet, and blasts off to the other end of the house, and out the cat door again. Three minutes later, he is back. If he is not engaged in this manic racing, he is flat in his armchair, dead asleep and exhausted and strung out. I think he would have lost it completely were it not for Ping and Puma. They generally don't mind a little game of chase and "Tag! You're It" with Sterling. Puma especially enjoys a game of "Hide and Seek" with the *much* bigger cat. Sterling has only once that I know of been rougher with them than I would wish. He once left a few scratches on Puma's belly when she had his neck firmly grasped in her teeth, and the two were rolling across the floor, knocking into things while Sterling howled. I yelled and he let go, instantly. Not thirty seconds later Puma started the game again, she was obviously not fearful of the cat. Actually, neither Ping nor Puma is in the least fearful of the cat, despite his much greater size. And from time to time, it is obvious that the cat has a*great* deal of respect for the physical prowess of the weasels, who are even faster than he is. I have gotten used to the ever-present war games between the three of them, ever since Sterling had to give up hunting outside. Many times a day, CRASH! THUMP! Patter-patter-patter BANG! Dook-dook-dook HIIIIS!HIIISS! CRASH! Sometimes *both* of the ferrets lurk beneath a big piece of furniture, and wait for Sterling to pass by. Ambush! Other times he silently stalks them as they run like greased lightning from the protective cover of one piece of furniture to the other. A frustrated Sterling just sits and waits futilely for a ferret to venture out, his tail slapping on the ground. A sly, pointed snout regards him from beneath the sofa, the piercing regard of the Carpet Shark. And the next pitched battle begins. I'm really waiting for spring. Really. You have no idea. CRASH! THUMP! Patter-patter-patter BANG! Dook-dook-dook HIIIIS!HIIISS! CRASH! Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML 5840]