Jennifer's 365 Project

When I first moved out to Grand Rapids  I was still getting my bearings straight when I met this little girl. I had a whole business of ferrets at home and I was out picking up some ferret supplies on a January night in 2005.

I passed one of the cages and there was a little kit (baby ferret) for adoption. The previous owners had purchased her from the pet store and returned her because she was "deaf."
She even loved the cat, although I can't say that was ever reciprocated.
This type of playing is about as involved as they ever got. But she tried. A lot.
Mostly she enjoyed playing by herself in boxes we cut holes in or dyer hoses we tossed around the place.
But, as you know from yesterday's post, Peppy was quite ill.

We took her in first thing in the morning and got her on some medication to try to stabilize her.

Unfortunately, as can sometimes be the case, her little body was tired. It was time to let her go.

I will miss her noises, her weasel war dance, and her adorable kisses.

Goodbye Peppy.

We came home to a sick little ferret. Coated in small bruises and odd things in her litter pan, she still refused to admit she didn't feel too good. If you're home, she's up and ready for adventure no matter what. And licking. She loves to lick people.

We took her to the only emergency clinic I know out on Plainfield. We spent a few hours there, they did some blood work, and most things looked fine. Shes anemic, but I suppose that is to be expected with the blood loss and bruising.

Diseases were eliminated but none were diagnosed. We came home with a bottle of meds and an advisement to see a ferret specialist.

So right now she's resting in her cage and hopefully we will find the cause of her symptoms soon.

I'm going to blame the weather for the obnoxious headache I've had for the last week. Who know's if that's the true culprit. All I know is it's steadily been getting more obnoxious, and today it was too much. I spent a big chunk of the day lying around doing nothing, going from feeling fine as the headache waned to lying around trying to convince myself it's not that bad when it started to wax. I'm happy its Sunday and we didn't have a whole lot going on today.

I did get to enjoy the ferret and the cat playing around a bit.

I also made a modified version of a chicken and dumpling soup recipe I really like. We now have leftovers. Yay!
So yes, I know this isn't a photo of the chicken soup, but it is one of the cat laying on fresh laundry. Way cuter, right?

Peppy the ferret is getting up there (7 years old), and she's not quite as finicky about sleeping spots as she used to be. Mostly that means I can scoop her up from her makeshift nap spot behind the chair and she'll pass out relatively quickly if I give her somewhere equally warm and fuzzy.

This afternoon between reading and dozing off myself, I grabbed her from her napping spot and whisked her onto the cozy bed for a brief snuggle. I had intended to nestle her against Chris who was reading there, but she passed out before I got that far. She stayed put for a good five minutes, then promptly woke up and looked for the bathroom in the typical ferret fashion (frantically searching for corners).

When Peppy was younger, she ate anything. She'd munch on the special Wysong ferret food I bought Cloud (even though he wouldn't) plus all manner of ferret treats and different types of ferret food. Seriously, she'd even follow in the footsteps of Atrix and eat dog food when she could get at it. She'd eat anything.

Over the last few years the local Pet Supplies Plus has more or less always been out of my preferred ferret food, Totally Ferret. So I've been buying her Marshall Pets and she's been eating it just fine. So imagine my delight in seeing a package of Totally Ferret Monday at the pet store? I snatched it as quickly as a I could and scampered home to refill her food dishes (since she was all but out).

Fast forward to a few days later and I noticed that the food in her dish wasn't going down. Odd.

The I noticed her digging around in her cage trying to get bits of old ferret food that had fallen where she couldn't get at it. But she had a full bowl of food...

Fast forward to last night and she had confirmed my suspicion. I counted out pieces of food, put the dish back, and watched as she ate none of it. None. She was turning her nose up at the food she used to eat and love and refusing to eat.

So today on lunch Chris picked me out and we snagged some of her normal food. I'm going to slowly mix it in and try to get her used to the Totally Ferret package I bought.

While I've heard and read that ferrets (or pets in general) can be finicky about switching food brands, I've never actually had any problems with any pet. In fact, she was the one ferret (in the seven I've had through the years) that ate every single thing offered to her. Atrix came close, but even he turned his nose up at Wysong.

Weird.

But at least she's eating and I've learned that tastes change and to never assume it's ok to switch brands.

On another note - Leki is really interested in her tasty expensive ferret food.

We headed out after work to the mall. We wandered around a bit and didn't buy anything, like usual.

Once we got home I booted up some Skyrim (which I fear I am getting toward the end of) but the adorable call of a hyper ferret could not be ignoreed.

Look at those adorable teeth!

Peppy is 7 years old. In all that time I can count on one hand the number of times she's curled up and slept with someone. Usually she'll take a mini-nap on Chris (aka wait him out then run like a crazy kit). When I caught her passing out behind the chair (as she often does) I tossed her in a sleeping sack and put her on my lap. She hung out for quite awhile with me while I played Skyrim.

Eventually she woke back up, ran around like crazy, and passed out behind the couch.


Once she got up I took that opportunity to make som hot chocolate from scratch. I found a really tasty and intense recipe. It's good, but you can't drink it like powdered hot chocolate.it is thick and very chocolaty.

Peppy, our adorable white little ferret, is 7 years old. Leki, the lovable sausage-shaped cat, is 3 1/2 years old. It takes about this age difference for the ferret really to slow down and hang out a bit with the cat.


And by a bit, I mean more like takes a swing, realizes the sausage-shaped cat won't play, and then dashes off into the distance for more adventure.

Sometimes the cardboard hotel is not enough entertainment.

Two fuzzy monsters just taking a break.

Peppy was out and about a chunk this evening, trying once again to entice our lazy cat to play with her. Normally this is what happens. He ignores her and she gives up, bored. Just look at his indifferent expression and her sad, dejected eyes!


But today was different! After we finished eating dinner things livened up. She ran back and forth through her tunnel and a little bit later I pulled out some toys for her to play with, which she quickly got to stashing!

Although...I'm honestly baffled as to why she thought in front of the slider was a good place to stash things. Weird.

This little 6 1/2 year old is still able to race around like a hyper kit (baby ferret) for small bursts at a time, which is all kinds of awesome.

I grabbed a few boxes this afternoon, cut some holes in them, taped them together and dubbed it "ferret playground."

So far its small, as we get a few more boxes I'll make the playscape more complicated and interesting for her. That is, of course until the playground grows too large or too unmanageable, as has happen in the past.

Then I'll just have to make her a new toy.

Ok, so it's not exactly time to say good-bye (tomorrow morning would be). But after all the packing and cleaning for tomorrow's trip, I figured it would be a good time to give Peppy some extra out-of-cage time and romp around harassing the cat one last time before the long weekend.

She enjoyed a fun run around and was perfectly content being moved home into her bed (after discovering her napping behind the couch). She's a good little ferret.

Downtown Grand Rapids had a fair amount of snow piled around town. I decided to head out on lunch, knowing full well there might be untouched sidewalks I'd have to trudge through.

Luckily nearly every sidewalk I had to take was clear of snow, and those that weren't had only a little snow. Someone even cleared part of Veteran's Memorial Park (though as you can see from the top photo, not all paths were cleared).

In the evening we took Peppy to the vet to get checked out. She's got a small cyst on her foot and I just wanted to make sure all was good - it was. She's still crazy active and certainly doesn't act her 5 years old.

About a week ago, Chris created a comic strip with a combination of apps from the Apple app store.  Among them were ToonPAINT and ComicStrip.  Since then he has created several quick comics of the days goings on (as well as a video slideshow), and they're just really cool.

They're cool for a couple of reasons:
1) He's got a creative mind and an eye for composition
2) He snaps these little comics together quickly. Partially because he's awesome, and partially because the apps are pretty fast and easy to use.
3) He's making them on his iPod Touch. You know, that little thing the size of a cell phone?

Anyway, here's a few comics he's made that I just think are neat.  You should totally check out his website, Chris-Karath.com, for future interesting links, articles, photos, and general nerdiness.

Flickr Link

Flickr Link

Flickr Link

Thanksgiving is coming up, and that means baking some tasty pies. Chris's favorite pie is Pecan Pie, so I always try to make sure he gets that around the holidays. Then my mother asked me to make pumpkin for Thursday. So here's my cache of supplies we picked up today.

This evening was full of some amusing pet antics, including this odd posture Leki sat in for several minutes. You would have thought I'd interrupted grooming, but I assure you I didn't....

So today was kind of like a freebie day.  Neither Chris or I had to go in to work, so we turned the day into a pretty lazy day.  We slept in, we unpacked, we hung out and watched a bunch of TV shows and movies.  It was great.

Peppy and I even got some quality time in together.  I may not have taken a photo, but I did get some video of here. Here's just one of them.

Spent a little bit of time with Peppy - letting her run back and forth on the couch and in the living room a bit.

She's still got spunk but she's slowing down a little from her younger days.  Still, at 5 1/2 years old, she's doing good.

Also, today is Dragon Growth day 7.