Blog author 24 Jun 2007 00:05 | My blog The great escape
I hope you enjoy this story from back in the days when we first had the ferrets and were still trying to escape-proof everything!
Actually the escape wasn’t really great but it sounds more exciting than ‘the mediocre escape‘. But here goes. On Saturday morning the other half went up the garden to our ferret shed, to wake up the little darlings and feed/water them etc. He must have been half asleep (easily done, he’s not a morning person) because he neglected to fasten one of the padlocks on the wire panels on the door. In the day the ferrets have fresh air and tantalising glimpses of freedom, as the shed door is open and fenced off with said wire panels. At night we close up the she door and put them to ferret beddie-byes. To stop them escaping their huge shed (housing it’s double hutch and numerous toys, a dirt box, climbing frames and tunnels - they don’t know how lucky they are; I could be milking them daily in cramped cages and selling the produce to schools à la the Simpsons) there is a security system rivalling Fort Knox. Clasps, locks, panels, bolts and catches, all very necessary as ferrets are great escape artists. They are slim and slinky and smart enough to find any weakness, and they are disobedient little sods!
So this missing padlock provided a gap large enough for the ladies to escape from, small as they are sliding through the gap and into freedom. When Saturday night ferret bedtime came we realised at the body count we were three ferrets down. Now, I wasn’t worried about them running off because they know which side their bread is buttered, they just like to go a-wandering and return when they feel like it. They also tend to get a bit uppity at being returned home before they want to. But what I was bothered about was that it was getting dark and most importantly next door have a huge loft full of racing pigeons. Ferrets like pigeons. Only too well. And my neighbour has been round to see me previously asking why my ferrets were skulking around his rockery worrying his pigeons at 5am one morning (a previous escape).
When I hastily named my ferrets all those weeks ago, I never considered that I would have to hunt round the hedgerows in the garden yelling these names out in public. The problem is, that when you’re shouting “Mum, Mum, come here Mum” while crouching down in your garden your neighbours think you're crackers. They think you’ve either got a very small Mum, or she’s recently escaped from the nearest lunatic asylum - or that you have). And we’ve only just moved here so the jury’s still out on whether the neighbours think we’re bonkers or not.
At this point introductions may be in order. Meet my ferrets:
Mum, small, bossy, spends considerable time trying to escape her five naughty, boisterous, demanding, violent kids.
Dad: a gentle soul who spends most of his time hiding from said kids. (OK, the names aren’t original but we felt they should be honoured for giving birth to such monsters).
Topsy and Turvy - the two boys. Grown to be three times the size of everyone else (even Dad), constantly rough-housing and knocking the considerably smaller girls unconscious in their goofy like enthusiasm
Mustard - they sweetest, gentlest young lady ferret, loves a cuddle and so well-behaved. Must be adopted.
Pepper and Bitey - the final two girls - truly evil. Small with big teeth. Like to get their own way. Bitey was named after a possum in the Simpsons episode ’Marge versus the monorail’ - it couldn’t be more apt. Pepper is usually shy of humans - unless she’s tasting their flesh. These two are ALWAYS the first to escape.
Mum and Dad tend to come in the house every now and again to escape the kids and at some point will become house ferrets so they don’t have to spend their twilight years haunted by outcome of that one night of passion.
So back to Saturday; Mum, Pepper and Bitey had made their escape. Mum was found quickly, digging near the shed. Off to bed she went without much bother. Bitey and Pepper proved more difficult. Minutes of hunting the garden and shouting their name went past (shouting quietly, I didn’t want the neighbours to know they were out again), Bitey finally r |
