Say hello to...

The newest member of our furry clan (and, no, it's not a fert *g*):

CODA:

He's a 9-10 week old kitten. A woman who works at our vet has fostered him since birth, and when a family friend was looking for two kittens, she told us about him (who was known as Emmett, then). Our family friend was interested, but not sure. So we told the foster mom that either way he'd have a home. Well, because of sudden RL issues, we became the proud humans of Emmett, now known as Coda.

*Here he is being stealth smelled by Sabra. They're colored so similarly it turns my heart to goo*

*Asai and Coda playing*

*Solo shot of Coda-baby. I have a sinking feeling that I'm going to spoil him rotten. HE IS SO CUTE OMG*


*Another solo shot. AWWW CODA*

So, yeah, there he is. Callie (our oldest cat) is still pretending like he doesn't exist. That is possibly for the best. The two baby girls are in varying stages of acceptance/toleration, so \o/! You can tell, though, that he's very attuned to people, having been hand-raised since birth, but he's learning and he's adjusting very quickly :)

I'm kind of smitten, and I think The Triad know it, because they don't like him. Every time they smell Coda on my clothes or hands, they ignore me. I can't pet them, hold them, or play with them. So, yeah, they're kinda taking it personally (which they've never done before, not even with Sabra and Asai, who I helped take care of when we first got them). So, I'm being very careful, now, to get cleaned up before heading in, so I don't have to deal with fert-y insecurities (oh, my babies, how are you guys real?).

Also, I plan on cleaning The Triad's room today or tomorrow depending on our plans, so I promise: NEW PICTURES OF THE FERTS SOON, and this can happily go back to being a ferret blog again!

this is what happens when I'm left alone...

So, I was getting the assorted fuzzbutts ready for the evening, and it kinda hit me. Cinder the Rabbit is a pretty sturdy guy.

What? I hear you asking. Why don't you ever make any sense?

I can answer the first, but the second part's still up in the air.

What I mean is that Cinder the Rabbit's room is 1) not enclosed and 2) is right next to the Triad's room, which - as you know - is not fully enclosed, either. So, he's subject to all the smells and sounds that they make. And I've known this, really, but sometimes it gets me, especially since I had just gotten done making The Triad's dinner (chicken thighs and gizzards/hearts), and turned around to make his (lettuce, spinach and carrots) - after, you know, proper sanitation, I'm not that idiotic, thank you very much *g*. It was weird, is all.

Also, it reminded me of Poppy - my own rabbit who died about 4 years ago. I got her when an absolutely tiny little thing, and she actually didn't know a lot of normal 'rabbit' behaviors (thumping, eating cecotropes, etc). But one day she was free roaming during dinner, and she kept jumping in my lap, and sniffing my hamburger. So I finally lowered it out of curiosity and let her investigate it. Did you know what she did? SHE ATE THE MEAT. ATE IT. AND THEN TRIED TO GET SECONDS.

I was horrified and wouldn't let her. But I would occasionally catch her eating dog food.

Okay, and well this isn't really about ferrets - except, hey, all of them are prone to wanting to eat veggies and fruits if I don't stop them. Yeah, I don't even know - but it's what came to mind (and it's possibly due to the fact that I lost her right before Thanksgiving, so this month's always bittersweet, now). Plus, I've gotta get new pictures, because Sian and Yogi blew their coats overnight and gained, like, a gazillion pounds simultaneously. YAY WINTER! Pixie is slower, and she's mainly just lost a lot of her guard hairs so that she's white down her back, with a thick black stripe down the middle. Like a skunk in reverse!

I'm like superman - only not as prone to public indecency!

*The Lovebirds eating their carnivore care/pumpkin/turkey baby food mix*

*Sian eating her pumpkin plain*

So, it's been one of those days. The kind where the completion of any small chore just leaves me so completely self-satisfied. Except today I was able to clean The Triad's room (+ cage and toys), clip all their nails, clean Cinder the Rabbit's room and clip his nails, bake cookies for my dad's return trip to Richmond (5 hours one way) and, you know, still help take care of my three nieces [okay, I got a break on this one - thanks, mom!]. All this on top of what my paranoid mind insists is the H1N1 virus (or, for those rebellious and politically incorrect souls, the swine flu), but what is, in fact, just a hell of a cold/flu thing. And my busted up hand [can't forget that one!].

Yay!

Also, Wal-Mart finally started restocking canned pure pumpkin, so I loaded up with that and chicken and turkey baby food. 'Cause The Triad are shedding something fierce and it's important to "just say NO! to hairballs." At least, that's my motto. Also, Miss Pix's stomach is acting up, so a bit of babying and tummy soother won't go amiss with her, either, I'm guessing. Don't let her hear that, though, or she'll be asserting her vast and unrelenting independence by...scaling the cage and leaping off of it, or something equally horrifying.

Anyway, that's it. This post was mainly to articulate how AWESOME A FERRENT I am - so,
yes. I am.

yeah. I know.

Okay, so posting here's been sketchy lately. There's really no good reason, except - well, the evil that is Facebook. I've been over there writing on walls and getting into comment wars with my sister. So, yes, Facebook has - temporarily - seduced me away from blogger. What can I say? It's shiny *g*

But, not entirely, though. In fact, I just got out of The Triad's room with NEW PICTURES, of which I was in desperate need, let me tell you. But, more importantly, I had one of Those Moments (tm) - you know, the sappy, make you sick to your stomach moments of PURE LOVE? Yes. One of those.

I was just sitting on the floor with The Triad [because the great thing about having ferrets is that they are so smart that they don't need you to actually play. They make up their own games and really just want you to watch, because they all know the Smelly Human wouldn't be able to do it right, anyway], and they were crawling all over me. Well, okay, Yogi was sitting in my lap [curled up and giving me kisses - awwwww, my ickle little boy], Sian was attacking my pant leg and Pixie was spazzing out if I so much as tried to pet her while she was sniffing your hand, jeez mom, and why does it smell like bananas? <===that would be because I had just gotten done making Cinder the Rabbit a salad, just so's ya know.

All that was going on, and suddenly I was just happy. I remembered what it was first like, being a ferrent (because sometimes the day in, day out chores just wear you down like with anything else): excited and enthusiastic and completely devoted to the little furry things intent on destroying every inch of their living space. Just watching them do their thing and include me because they wanted me there. It was - sweet. The most relaxed and calm I've been in a long time.

So, yeah. I love my guys. They're the best.

head count, please

I've been meaning to get on here and rave about how Pixie is turning into a little hellion in her longer years. Maybe it's a mini fert-y mid-life crisis or something, but lately my even-tempered, mild-mannered Pixie is a spunky, take no-nonsense, make 'em cry terror.

Which, you know, I adore.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, apparently, when Miss Pix gets hungry, she wants her food immediately. So much so, that if I'm late, she will escape out of the ferret room and come find me. Yay, new tricks.

So, yeah. She has no qualms about taking advantage of ferrent-y weaknesses. Case in point: The ferret room "door" is made out of two pieces of plexiglass (you'll see it a bit in the pictures I am posting). One is the bottom and one is the top. Generally, I slide the top in and out of its tracks whenever I go in or leave The Triad's room. Sometimes, though, I am a lazy, lazy person (who, me?), and will leave the top plexiglass propped against a wall. I did that tonight, and, Pixie, being the shark she is, thought hey, I can work with that. From the look of it, she pushed some boxes to the "door" then balanced on their rims and jumped. Kept jumping until she could hook herself over the bottom piece of the door.

*the ferret room from the outside*

Then, she mosied all around the downstairs, I guess (she was covered in dust, so she must have gotten into the storage room with our moving boxes and such, plus hay so she nosed around in Cinder the Rabbit's supplies); then she wandered her way into my bedroom, at which time I thought for a second that I had some kind of rodent thing ON TOP OF SNAKES. Then I realized "oh, hey, that's a ferret. Oh, look. There's Ben." So, Ben woke up wondering why I was holding his muzzle closed, and Pixie had scampered under Ben's chair (which is a recliner, and a danger in and of itself).

I finally coaxed her out (with Ben licking his chops when he saw what I was holding, the snot) and deposited her back into her room. This is the point where I got their foodbowls, put the top piece of plexiglass into the tracks and got to see Miss Pix repeatedly thump into it face first. The noise reminded me of some of those weird horror-flicks. Creepy.

Anywho. That's my story for the day. Now on to pictures. Here escape artist!Pixie is sad because I thwarted her attempts the second time around:

*Alright, here's Pixie not so much moping as plotting. But.*

*Here she is moping in the background, while The Twins are clueless*

*Classic mope!face. Aww, Pixie*

Happy Birthday - to ME!!!!!

So, yay! It was my birthday today, and I had a yummy brownie sundae thingy. I am now sickeningly full, and coming off of a major sugar-high, so I thought I should spam everyone with Triad pictures!

Here goes:

*And since it's my b-day, I thought I'd post one of my ickle little boy and me posing all nice for the camera bg*

Egg Eaters

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

So, after an insanely long time, I finally got blogger to upload the vid of The Triad eating raw egg for the first time!

So, yeah, here it is (and, yes, surprisingly they DID eat the eggshell. Who knew?).