Tag Archives: Ferrets

Plagues and Death

Posted on by under Food, Life, Lockdown life

 

Well, May didn’t quite turn out how I thought it would. By that I mean, even in a pandemic, where your entire life is turned upside down, you can still end up on a spin cycle that you didn’t see coming, on top of the pandemic that you kind of saw coming, but still can’t believe arrived.

Our little ferret Maisy (pictured above) got a respiratory viral infection at the beginning of May and died. She fought so hard to stay, but in the end, her little body just couldn’t take anymore and we lost her on our wedding anniversary. It was horrible, and I miss her everyday.

At the same time, I noticed black dandruff coming off our five month old rescue cat Sparkles. She literally is a rescue cat, as I rescued her from the next door neighbours garden in January, when she was a tiny, lost scrap of a kitten. I casually googled black cat dandruff and discovered she was INFESTED with cat fleas. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have a bit of a phobia when it comes to fleas, and trying to deal with that, while Maisy was so sick, was stressful.

Thank God for my washing machine. Fifteen boiled loads of washing later, the house was sanitised and scrubbed, although my friendly vet informed me that problem will be with us for years, and in fact, I’ll probably never get rid of the billions of flea eggs around the house. So Lottie, our remaining ferret, and Sparkles settled into their new routine in our very quiet house. It didn’t last. A few weeks later, hubby and I agreed to foster three gorgeous ferrets from the ferret shelter. They needed a home, and they all come with physical issues, so they can’t be adopted out. We thought it was the least we could do to help out the shelter. Lottie and Sparkles were totally unimpressed with the new arrivals, but after a lot of squealing, chasing of the cat and general ponging of their scent glands, the tribe has now come together harmoniously, so we have five animals in our care.

Great, I thought. Everyone is getting along and it looks like we’ve flattened the flea curve so things can settle down now.

But no. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Turns out, as soon as I let my guard down on the flea front, we had a second wave. The new ferrets came with their own fleas, so everyone got reinfested, and all had to have baths and be dosed with flea treatments. Sparkles sleeps in our bed, and the new arrivals had been bounding all over the bed, and into every dark corner, and couch pillow in the house. It’s winter now so I can’t possibly wash everything again. The vacuum cleaner and flea comb have become my best friend.

Pandemic dramas. They bring their own special problems. Along with the fleas, I think I’ve given myself RSI from kneading bread dough, and whisking flour into butter and sugar, because I’ve been in a baking frenzy trying to get through a huge bag of flour I stupidly purchased, thinking we would never see flour again. The flour is poor quality too, so it hasn’t been a very satisfying experience. Thankfully I don’t have a stash of 540 toilet rolls to work through too. Honestly, 2020 is just the weirdest year all round. What else is going to happen?

We shall have to wait and see. Meanwhile, our house has closed its borders to any new animals coming to visit. A third wave of fleas is not going to happen (until next summer when apparently all the eggs will hatch – dear God).

Stay safe and flea free

 

 

One Month In…

Posted on by under Life

I’m staying at home today. Very unusual on my day off as I usually run around ‘doing stuff’. But some friends asked me to look after their seven baby ferrets for the day, and it’s going to be 40C (bloody hot), so here I am with a free day. Well, as free as you can be while looking after little baby animals, who seem to do nothing but eat and poo. And I’ve been peed on by one of them, and am onto my second outfit of the day!

But I digress. So, with a day off, I was determined to let myself do some fun, creative activities. This includes writing (hello blog), and I’ve even done some sewing. A lot more unpicking than sewing, but that’s par for the course when you are learning. Reading back on my last post, I’ve realised how hard I’m finding it to let myself do fun and creative things. It’s such an intrenched habit of mine to do everything else like dishes, washing, cleaning, etc. instead of just sitting down at my desk and writing, or sewing, or working on my miniature projects. And I’m not saying I don’t want to do all the chores that you have to do to keep your life ticking along. What I’m saying is I have plenty of time to fit in fun things around all the chores, but I’m really, really bad at letting myself do it.

How do we give ourselves permission to do what we love? I never thought it would be so hard!!

I’m going to look for some solutions and report back soon. And any suggestions would be very welcome.

In the meantime, I need to go and cuddle my four fur babies. They are not impressed with the newcomers (even if I am).

A change of season

Posted on by under Life

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This is not what you want to greet you when you walk into your wardrobe, amongst your carefully collected, much loved vintage clothes. My wee ferret Lottie has a climbing fixation, and it’s driving me crazy. But I digress. Winter is drifting into spring here in South Australia, and it’s been an exciting time. We had a TOTAL blackout of our whole state two weeks ago. Everywhere!! There was chaos in the city because all the traffic lights, ATMs, petrol stations and shops were closed down. All the country towns were blacked out – we were the laughing stock of Australia. I think over 1.2 million people were without power.

Us oldies knew what to do though. Luckily my muse and I have a gas powered stove. We hung a torch above the oven and proceeded to cook every evil, fattening, fabulous thing in our deep freeze and fridge (because by the morning it would probably be off). We had a feast of curry puffs, minced beef with bacon and a bottle of tequila. On reflection, the tequila probably would have kept if it had been thawed a little, but nonetheless. I still have an ancient landline, connected to a phone that doesn’t run off electricity. I called friends interstate, and they told me what was happening from their news updates on the TV. It was great. I also sat in my car in the garage (I wasn’t going out into the mayhem of the roads), and listened to the AM radio, which was still broadcasting. A fairly early, fat-fuelled, drunken night was had by all. I’m thinking the maternity wards will be very busy nine months from now…

Last week we had a week of hot, hot temperatures. I packed up my winter wardrobe – dry cleaned all my coats, washed and packed away all my winter tops and dresses – only to have us plunge back into freezing temperatures this week. I’m wandering around in the only two outfits I can be bothered to wash again. Life is so unpredictable.

So, as we slide into summer and Christmas, I’m left to ponder yet again, where did the year go? And what did I do in this year? But before I answer those questions, I need to figure out how I’m going to keep Lottie from climbing up the Christmas tree next month. Yup, I put the tree up on November 1st. I bloody love all the decorations and it takes so long to put them all away, I want to enjoy them. I’m thinking I’m going to have to find a really big box to perch the tree on. I wonder what Jesus would make of it? And Lottie! Well on that note…

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The end of the road…

Posted on by under Life, Uncategorized

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Hmm, I could have done with a camel recently. Two weeks ago I was sitting in my car at the end of our road, waiting to turn into the main street, when some hoon (for non-Aussies, that’s a person in a car who is driving like an idiot) came barrelling into the back of me, ripping off the bumper and wrecking the boot. My trusted car of eleven years was promptly written off by the insurance company, and taken to the scrap yard. The stupid driver of the other car was whinging at me about his insurance excess (being a 19 year old. Yes, it was $1,500), but I wish I had said to him, ‘hey dickhead, I’m on foot now.’

I’ve been catching public transport ever since.

Still, I wasn’t injured, and I’ve found a new car which I get tomorrow, so all is well in the world! This experience came shortly after we lost two of our little ferrets to cancer and old age. They passed away together on the same day. We’ve had a lot of change happening around us lately, and it’s made me think about the whole idea of letting go of things, and moving into new phases of your life. Not the easiest thing to do.

Sometimes you simply don’t get a choice. The best thing to do is try and accept the situation and make the best of it. While I hate public transport, I’ve rediscovered that 30 minutes to work is the perfect amount of time to get stuck into a smutty book a friend has lent me. And two new fur babies have found a home with us, from the animal shelter.

It’s hard to trust that the future will work out, but these last few weeks have shown me just that. And I got a great new car to provide it.

 

Nourishing Broth for Small, Unwell Fur Babies

Posted on by under Food

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI thought today I would share a recipe we make for our beloved ferrets, when they are under the weather. When an animal is sick, it’s so hard to get them to take nourishment, but we have found that this broth will be almost universally eaten by ferrets, kittens, cats and small puppies or dogs. You can even grind up medications and put them in the broth, to get them to take it, and we have often put Bach Flower and Bush Flower remedies in to a warm bowl of this, when our fuzzies need it. We keep our freezer stocked with the broth, frozen in ice cube trays, then stored in a container. To be honest, our little fur balls get a bowl of this to share every day… It takes a while to prepare, but as with anything to do with pets you love, it is never a chore. So, here we go!

Ingredients:

1 chicken (for boiling)

2 chicken breasts

1 or 2 cups of rolled oats

4 eggs

Method:

So the basic idea is to cover the chicken with water and boil it in a large pot for approximately 1 hour until all the meat is cooked. Remove from the stock, and allow the chicken to cool. Next, add the chicken breasts into the broth and simmer until they are cooked. Set aside. Into the broth add the rolled oats and eggs.  Allow to simmer for a while before adding back in the meat, removed from the chicken carcass, and the chicken breasts, cut into small pieces. When it is cool enough, blitz it with a blending stick, then when it is totally cool, put it into ice cube trays, and freeze for future use. If you animal is sick when you make this, then offer them small, regular amounts until they recover. We make it into a thick broth, by adding more oats, and add kitten milk to it, to make it thinner. Our ferrets love it!