Dear BIG, I'm just as computer stupid now as I was when a Rocky's volunteer set one up in my home in 1998. Thank you for having me, for caring about me and Rocky's all these years. You've saved my ass so many times, and keeping it focused on ferrets...safe to say, literally thousands of those furry critters have been saved and rehomed thanks to you and the FML! I was so scared to talk to...who?. . I just didn't get this internet stuff. I'm an old lady today, but many years ago, and in hindsight, I kind of relate it to when my family got it's first telephone. It had a party line. Everyone could hear what was being said by just picking up the phone. I was a young woman when I started this journey. I've done many small and large scale rescues since joining the FML, I'm not sure what year I joined. I just know that in 1995 I did a backyard breeder rescue of 200 ferrets and it was just me. No internet. No FML family. How in the world I vetted them and found homes makes me crazy thinking about it. I don't know how,...word of mouth..but I did! Fast forward....and they kept coming. My forte became rescue. Once I found a home base of like-minded folks on the FML, I stayed glued. There were more crazy ferret folks like me. I continued to do rescue for many years, but I just didn't know I could share, that I could reach out. ask for help. On the FML. I learned so much that helped me as a ferret owner and as a shelter op. The new and continued knowledge drove me to reach out and rescue and shelter. Because of the FML I only then learned about how great a need there was for what I was doing. But I so needed to learn more and more and more, and the FML gave that to me, it was my only source of valued information! Many years later, 2003...I reached out for help. The Hagerstown Rescue was documented in word and picture and the world was set afire with what can happen with a breeder gone bad. I was able to chronicle the entire event from day one to the very day the perpetrator was tried and convicted, right here on the FML. The entire rescue, start to finish, I shared on the FML. If you are to go back in the archives there are wonderful accounts from those that rescued and adopted, showing how hope can come from something so very horrendous. We were a team that accomplished this rescue. I met the most wonderful folks that threw everything aside to come and tent out here at Rocky's to work this rescue. One of my most precious memories is a woman from South Carolina that I'd never spoken to, came and stayed a week to triage and help out. We are the most dear of friends to this day, Diane Campbell/Ferret Guardian. So many friendships from all over the country happened because of this network of rescuers. All happened because of the FML. http://rockysferrets.org/rescues/hagerstown.html Then a year later, a hoarder rescue. Again, the FML gave the the members a window into the real world of what a ferret hoarder was, the conditions, and the mercy and miraculous grace of loving these animals and rehoming them. It also gave a venue for the rescuers to speak out. The world got to see first hand the conditions of a ferret hoarder. http://www.rockysferrets.com/rescues/abington43/abingdon43.swf Those are just two of the dozens of rescues we here at Rocky's have done. It's my calling, to do rescue. God as my judge, I know these words are true. There is no way I could have done any of these rescues without you, without the support of the members of the FML, without the volunteers that found their way to Rocky's via the FML. Think about this, Rocky's has done nearly 5,000.....FIVE THOUSAND rescues since 1995 because of you and the FML, each and every one of you. Each was loved and cared for and rehomed, loved to their end. You who have supported us throughout these years would never have heard about these rescues, had it not been for the FML. The FML. We're not done. There's still so much to be accomplished. Thank you Bill Gruber for giving us a forum where we can focus, be contained and organized and documented with our agendas. The FML, this where the cool kids meet, talk it out, and work it. Thanks Bill. Love ya bunches! Affectionately, Barb Clay Dir of Shelter Affairs Rocky's Ferret Rescue and Shelter Parkton, MD 21120 www.rockysferrets.com [Posted in FML 7648]