Soupies Recipe

Well, long time no post.

Here's the thing: I really care about what my ferrets eat. I mean, really, REALLY. If I could buy raw, frozen prairie dog, I would- no matter the cost! I won't feed my boys any raw meat that is out of their "natural hunting range" (ie. I only feed them raw animals that are small enough to be killed by wild ferrets or weasels). Therefor, I feed my guys alot of chicken: as much as I hate it. Chicken continues to be the most available form of animal protein on the market. I have no problems with feeding my boys a diet with chicken, but I do want them to have variety! For some reason, animals like rabbit and quail and duck, are harder to find at local pet stores in Ontario.

Black Footed Ferret reintroduced in Canada!!

This is a great article full of adorable photos! Check it out!
It was featured in a recent Canadian Geographic magazine.

Back to school!

Well, this past Monday I left my beloved Northern Ontario to go back to school at the University of New Brunswick. Every other time I have made the trip with my Dad, in his Big, Red, pick-up truck. This time, though, we decided that I should fly, in order to save Dad the time that it takes to drive me from point A to point B and back again (13 hours each way).

The only problems were that (A) I had my ferrets with me, and (B) I could only bring two suitcases, each weighing no more than 50 lbs!

The latter was simply a matter of deciding which crafty thing I would spend most time on throughout the school year, so I left my clays and acrylic paints back home, and I can play with them next summer. I decided to bring my fabric paints and my jewellery making supplies with me. This impedimenta, along with my clothes and other necessities, just barely made it onto the plane (one suitcase weighed 50.6 lbs- but the nice lady let me on the plane anyways).

Getting the ferrets back with me was quite a complicated matter, although it needn't be. In Canada, a travel law was recently passed, allowing passengers to bring their small dog or cat with them as carry-on, in one of those plastic carriers, so long as it could fit beneath the seat. Well, my ferrets easily fit in a small cat carrier (that is how we go to the vet) and they would have happily slept through the short flight.

However, the only animals allowed to ride as carry on are cats and small dogs. Furthermore, since ferrets are in the same family as weasels and skunks, they are (naturally) voracious and ruthless, and will gnaw their way through one of those plastic cat/dog carriers. /snicker

Well, so what was I to ship the poor creatures in then? I looked online, and nobody sells or even manufactures cages appropriate for shipping ferrets. The airline sent us specs, though, and luckily my Dad is a truly wonderful Handy Man, and he built the wee buggers an appropriate cage.



The thing had to be built of wood and had to be completely lined with chicken wire. It had to be waterproof (that liquid rubberizer stuff that I got at the hardware store for my jewellery pliers came in handy), had to have airholes, fastened food and water dishes, etc. To top it off, the cage needed to have not one, but TWO locks, so that the ferrets had no chance of escape!!

If anybody else out there is looking for info on how to ship your ferrets (within Canada, anyhow), I'd be happy to help you out.

Besides having to build the cage, the ferrets needed to be dropped off at the cargo depot four hours before my own flight. They flew on the same plane as me under the designation of Live Cargo (their cabin is pressurized and cozy I'm told). When I arrived in Fredericton and went to pick up my Parcel of Joy, their water was all spilt out of the dish, but they were ok. It was only a 2 hour flight. Next time I would definitely use a water bottle, and not a dish.

I got a rental car, brought the ferrets home, released them to wreak havoc in the house and chase the cats, while I went and picked up a second hand Ferret Nation cage, took it apart, stuffed it in the car, brought it back, and assembled it. Anybody who's put together a Ferret Nation before knows what a difficult task this can be... I'm now an expert.

Needless to say it was a long, hard day, and it wasn't even over for me. That was just the ferret's role. They're happy to be back in Fredericton!

What happens in Fergus, stays in Fergus... unfortunately

Jeff and Sean- Crazy Buggers

On Friday morning I left North Bay and headed down to Fergus, Ontario in order to attend the Scottish Festival and Highland Games. As I'm a student, I have had to work full time throughout my "summer holidays", and consequently have had Not Much Fun all summer. So I was really looking forward to this weekend!

I went by myself, and I really wasn't worried about being alone. I have always enjoyed doing things by myself, and I also happen to know that Scots are generally a kind and hospitable, as well as highly entertaining breed of people. You simply couldn't ask for better drinking partners! So I had no qualms about the thought of attending the games alone. I knew I'd have a great time regardless.

As it was, the first night I was there I met a wonderful, kind, and hilarious group of people, with whom I ended up spending most of my time for the rest of the weekend. Several MacDougalls were especially kind to me. This family kept me fed, and warm and dry. They even gave me a dry blanket on Sunday night after my tent was crushed by an especially nasty, thrashing storm, and all of my bedding and clothing were soaked through ankle deep in water.

The music was amazing, and it was a rare moment that you would suddenly stop and go: "Hey! I don't hear bagpipes anymore." They even played throughout the night, and you would only notice if they stopped. I left the festival grounds on Saturday morning to go swimming in the river, and even though I knew I was surrounded by silence, I could still feel the pipes thrumming in my head.

I realized that in Fergus I was happy, Really Happy, in fact. I hadn't realized until this weekend that I haven't been happy for quite a while. It is scary for me to know that I won't be able to go back there probably until next year. That seems like way too long of a time to spend away from people I have come to consider good friends in just a matter of days. I cried upon leaving this morning for home. I think now that I am going into a sort of withdrawal of happiness, that I was riding on a high of fun and friendship, and now I have to be prepared to brace for the low of returning to my normal life. Well, what a fucking drag.

I feel like I left something behind in Fergus, but I know that I have everything I brought with me (I just unpacked it all- soggy as it was). But I have the feeling nevertheless, that I MUST go back. I believe I will make this trip every year from now on. I think that with the quality of the company, I would have a blast everytime, and hopefully continue my new friendships.

I am an Auntie!

The above picture is of my sister in law Kayla, my brother Michael, and their newborn daughter, Haven.

It has been a while since I've had anything worthwile to post about, but I think my brother's new baby is quite deserving of her own feature on my blog.

Her name is Haven Gloria, and she was born early Saturday morning, July 25th, 2009. My goodsister has since announced that she is Done Having Babies and quite frankly I don't blame her.

It will likely be a while before this baby has any cousins on our side of the family, so she is getting terribly spoilt! Just today I saw some books that I couldn't resist getting her. One of those Spot the Dog books with the flaps that you lift up, and a dinosaur colouring book! Her dad always loved dinosaurs when he was little. I imagine that's a genetic trait.

I still like colouring books though, so by the time she's old enough to hold a crayon, I will maybe have coloured some of the dinos for her.

This next picture features myself (Caitlyn), and my wee niece, Haven!

Canada Day and Pantalaimon Steals a Sandal

I had today off thanks to the stat holiday, so took some pictures and videos and I decided that it would be a good idea to start up a YouTube account for all my videos. I put a few videos up already featuring the ferrets and the dogs. You can see my YouTube page here: http://www.youtube.com/user/feminabifrons In the meantime, check out this video of Pantalaimon stealing a sandal!

My little "helper"...

So this morning my parents left for Vancouver to visit my sister for a while, leaving me in charge of the 3 ferrets, 2 dogs, and 2 horses. My brother promptly arrived to drop off his dog, Guiness, so that I wouldn't get too lonely. Thankfully, because it's Canada Day, I have today off to spend with my furry family.

Now, because my parents were gone, I thought it would be a special treat for the ferrets to get to run around upstairs (which they normally aren't allowed to do). Things went smoothly at first, so I decided I would be safe to leave them unsupervised while I hopped in the shower.

WRONG. When I got out I found Jean Luc digging frantically in the Aloe Vera pot! He had uprooted about 6 Aloe babies, and dumped all the soil on the living room floor! I'm sure my mom is cringing if she is reading this.

In all fairness, I had been meaning on doing this myself, namely, removing the Aloe babies and transferring them into their own pots to be given away. So Jean Luc was really just helping me *g*.

Too bad I didn't take a picture of Jean Luc before throwing him in the shower, he looked like quite the little rascal, with his muddy paws and face. He had rings of dirt around both eyes from sticking his face right into the soil. Alas, at the time I didn't find him cute.