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gabriel
Love and ferrets and pretending to be a writer.

2004-01-24 8:49 PM
new ferret!

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Mood:
tired but happy

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The ferrets are: no longer single girls.

Weather: wet. There was (and is) rain on our end of the 233-mile trip, sleet on the way up the river, and nice on the other end, but very windy and cold. There's still a lot of snow on the ground at Kennewick.

Reading: Singularity Sky, Charles Stross

Listening to in the car: Saint Maybe, Anne Tyler

Today we went up the river to Kennewick where a girl breeds ferrets. I bought this big one she called Chub that is a year and a half old. Really, she gave him to me, except I reimbursed her for having him neutered. We are his second owners. The first ones didn't take very good care of him and his two sisters and gave them back to the breeder.

Chub was neutered just last week, so he got his full growth, unlike most of the ferrets in this country who get spayed or neutered at four weeks or so. 70% of the ferrets in the US come from Marshall Farms, a ferret mill that also raises mink. Chub is, well, a chub. We will rename him, not sure what yet. Rampant speculation below. He has little dignity -- he jumps and plays and keeps up a running commentary no matter what he's doing. He chuckles constantly. It's very cute. He won't be easy to lose, all we have to do is listen for a few seconds.

The girls like him, and Maui seems to, too, though she is staying out of the way of the heirarchy establishment. I think she knows that she is really the head animal -- she has no beefs with the ferrets.

The ferrets are getting through this dominance thing that animals have to establish with one another. He grabs them and they drag him around, or else they are running and he is connected by teeth to whatever part of them he's grabbed, depending on your point of view. They are not getting hurt, and they give it back to him, tackling him however they get a chance to. There's a lot of sniffing and licking going on, too. It's hard to say for certain who will end up being head ferret, but they'll work it out. I am not letting them sleep together tonight. They all need a rest. We have a cage that can separate into two by just hooking a ramp up that is normally down.

Heck, I need a rest. So does Gregg. He hasn't got any ferret pics yet, but will probably take some tomorrow. He took some pictures on the way up the gorge. There was snow to look at and ice and sky and river vistas and an interesting war memorial modeled after Stonehenge in England. A good day.

We kicked around ferret names all the way home. We like the idea of an ironic name for Chub. Something with dignity, possible some literary presence. We were reviewing myth names and people names and silly names. I dont' think he'll be Chub. Maybe it will come to us like a flash of lightning, all brilliant with insight and purpose and dignity and stuff.

Gregg put a small amount of water in the bathtub and dumped all three ferrets in. Chub, as the girl who sold him to me said, didn't like water very much. Gregg showed him that the little ones didn't mind it and gently eased his front feet back into the water when he was standing up on his back feet, pleading to be set free. He reconciled himself to it after awhile, and Gregg bathed him with a good ferret shampoo. The girls like to get into the tub. Last night I had water in for me, and left the bathroom for a few minutes. When I went back in there, they were swimming. Tazo and Sally don't get bathed with shampoo mostly, just wet down as they please. Shampooing dries out a ferrets' skin, so you don't want to do it much. Chub needed the full treatment.

Nah. Not Chub. Oberon. Hagar. Raphael. Garfunkel. Beowulf. Kowalski (ever notice that in every military science fiction story there's a soldier named Kowalski?) Magnum. Colonel Sanders. Sargent Pepper -- he looks like one. Faramir. Roland. Professor Dumbledore. Biggs. Gallagher. Gilligan. Montgomery. Roscoe. Booker. Shilo. Sebastian. Falcor. Madison. Aloysius. Rocky. Diesel. Stoner. Samwise.

I went out and checked on them a little while ago. Chub was looking out at me, and I opened the door and petted him. I started to move my hand away and he followed it. He let me pet him to sleep. He's very nice.

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:: JOURNAL HOME :: SUBSCRIBE TO THIS JOURNAL :: Click on Kathy Gabriel and read my stories :: 2-in-1 Romance by me (but the back cover's misspelled!. grrrrr.) :: November is National Novel Writing Month! :: The Feel Good Manual - happiness can be learned :: Mugs with the wet ferret :: Fractured Frugal Frieds - the best frugality site around :: The ferrets, and other pics by a talented local (very local) photographer :: Kettins_Bob's journal :: Clarion SF & F writing workshop :: Genevieve's journal (Clarion classmate) :: Phil's website (Clarion classmate) :: Nnedi Okorafor's blog (Clarion classmate) :: Online magnetic poetry :: Dave's interactive html tutorial :: Make a snowflake here - WARNING: Addictive! ::