My turn. We lived in southern Wisconsin at the time. I had seen the occasional ferret with other owners while at the vet's with my cats. Nice, I thought. Then my oldest son's then- wife came home with one tiny white girl that she got from someone taking it in the humane society in Milwaukee where they lived. She was taking in a cat because they were not supposed to have pets in their apartment. She had known ferrets before they met so was happy to take her in and give it a home. At first they made a tiny cage out of hardware cloth but I could see it needed something larger so I helped buy a decent cage. They could get by with that pet because it was a caged animal but of course it was let out to run. A couple years later, they divorced, my son decided to join the Air National Guard and had to go to Basic Training in Texas. I got to take care of the ferret. That was it, I was hooked. I soon found a free female, then a few more, total five. Oh, son also had a few issues of the fledgling (RIP) Modern Ferret magazine. There was an article about Ferret Math. I was warned. I also had seen a photo in the paper of Kathy Fritz of The Ferret Nook so contacted her for some advice and help. I learned a lot there. About that time my husband had been retired and wanted to pursue other ventures out in Arizona. We had to clean up all the house and put the ferrets in a Kritter Koncepts playpen in the basement while the house was shown. Also about that time I got my first computer and found ferret advice from the FML. Eventually we landed in Tucson; I looked up Ginny Childs whom I had as a reference to find here. She had started Ferret Friends in 1985 and had a good number of people involved with the club. She later asked if I would start fostering. When she passed away in late 2005 all the fostering fell on me and a few others. I have learned by doing, was kind of shy at first about going to a symposium but went to the St. Louis one first and haven't missed one since. I have dealt with many hundreds of ferrets since taking over, from all kinds of situations. And I must mention the great help from Jo Ann McBride who helped out a lot for a few years until she had to step down. It's been fun and a lot of hard work and I've met so many people, everyone I know is a ferret person. The FML is a must read every night! Thanks for keeping it going, BIG! -- Carol J. Owens Ferret Friends, Inc. Tucson AZ [Posted in FML 8182]