Good news and we do need help

Friday morning I got call from the shelter's attorney, Jeff Holland. He received the dismissal papers from the attorney that was representing the ferret/mink farm in southern Ohio.

THEY agreed to dismiss the suit. Though they do have one year to reconsider suing. But at this point in time, I'll take what I can get. Trust me, I am very grateful.

Well, my magical, magnetic personality did it again. For some reason the USB ports would not work, but after 16 hours of reinstalling XP and finally talking to a tech at Dell who is AWESOME. We are back on line, the machine isn't right yet, but I can get some things done.

Do you have some time December 23? We need help running the gift wrap table at the Borders Books in Strongsville, from 10 AM to 10 PM. They provide the paper and tape, we provide the wrapping skills, and the customers provide donations.

Ideally there should be three to four people on duty at a time, two or three to wrap, one to wear the ferret costume. Shifts should run three hours each. Not too long, but long enough to make it worth the drive. According in to the store this is one of the busiest days they have, so there is a great potential for some donations.

Here is my dilemma. Normally I would be there start to finish, but my son wants me to be at his house in Virgina. He wants to go buy a tree and ornaments (he never had a tree up at his house before, so this is a biggie) on Friday, have a dinner Saturday with his friends and Marine buddies (yes I do know some of them) celebrate Christmas and then hubby, dogs and I would come home.

For any normal house hold that wouldn't cause any type of problem. For this one it does. Unless I can make sure that the day at Borders is covered, and people keep there word and show up to wrap, and get the shelter covered for food, water, and clean up checks, I can't go.

Now, even if we get the whole man power thing covered, unless the shelter has donations come in to cover it's own expenses, I have to find a way to cover it, which means what every husband brings in, and what I can scrape up goes to cover, and again, it comes down to giving up family needs for shelter needs. Many times through the past years my family has taken a back seat to the shelter, and I have missed many things with my children because of the shelter.

It so needs to be in it's own building. Do you know anyone involved with the "Green" builders? I have been trying to get some, involvement with the building from them, a way to show case what an environmentally friendly shelter can be, and what is possible. But I haven't had much luck. So, if you have a name or two that I can directly contact, I would be most grateful. Did you know that there are several grants available to build a "green" building?

So, if you have time to cover, or a spare dollar or two it would be greatly appreciated.

I understand it is the Holiday Season, and things are tight for everyone. This is when we need the help the most. It is when it seems all avenues dry up.

So, please help, if you can.

An Update (About time I got to this, don't you think?)

I have been meaning to do this for awhile. Like over a million times. I get side tracked by projects, litter boxes, and the un ending effort to become more organized. In other words, putting 50 pounds of stuff in a 10 pound box. I have several thank you cards to mail out, and other items to deal with, hopefully it will get all done this weekend, since the computer seems to be working fine since XP was put back on it.

The shelter we were bringing supplies to in Lynx, Ohio has placed 98% of the ferrets. All within several weeks. The last official count that I had seen a few weeks ago was 589, that doesn’t count the babies that have been and are being born.

I have been asked several times whether or not the shelter will be getting back or be reimbursed all of the items that we took out of our inventory. The answer is plain and simple. No.

A donation is a donation. You do not give a helping hand and then ask to be reimbursed. What we had in storage that could be used for this massive rescue went to help. If the roles were reversed, she would have done the same.

What you put out into the world comes back.

Now, on to what is happening here. We certainly can use some help. Financially, volunteer wise, and fund raising wise. (BIG HINT: We are doing the gift wrapping at the Borders Bookstore, 17200 Royalton Road, Strongsville, OH 44136 Map. December 23, 10 AM to whenever they close, and I will be there the WHOLE time!)
Currently we have fourteen ferrets that are in need of surgery. Two of the nine are from the DMK rescue in southern Ohio, girls. The last of the thirteen we brought back that need fixed. The others are adrenal, spleen, and two are exploratory. The vet bill is running $3400.00.

We have five old timers that need Lupron shots. We haven’t been able to bring in a full prescription of Lupron in a few months. Lupron runs $518 from the Canadian Pharmacy that we deal with (they have a vet on staff).

Just got one of our orders of food in yesterday, $531.00 (delivered, love delivery), and I will be picking up the balance later today from a different distributor which is another $250.00. (Not to mention the litter that I will be picking up there too)Yes, that does seem a lot for food, but it is the best they can be fed, and do wonderfully on it, and right now they are eating their way out of house and home. This shipment will last ten to twelve weeks. They average eating about $100 a week.

Remember, we buy wholesale. The delivery from Wholesome Pet Distributor is a God send, saves me time, money and gas. I have to pick up from the second distributor; they deliver in semis, not a good thing to drive down this street, gets a little tight. Even with picking up in Brunswick, I save money.

The total amount saved on the food alone is $312.34. Yes, I keep an eye on the market. Basically, if you were to go into a store and buy this, you would get only food, the way we shop, we get the food, litter, and a few extras, like ferretone. Trust me; we get a GREAT price on ferretone.

Yes, we have many more kids here than are on the website; I hopefully will get it updated next week. I want to get pictures done Tuesday, which will mean no litter boxes done, but we’ll get them done on Monday. Again, hint, hint, hint. This involves holding ferrets. So if you have a couple of hours Tuesday morning, or afternoon, I could use help. Once thing I learned, doing once room, posting the pictures and printing the cage cards at a time is sufficient. So the second room would be worked on the following Friday.

I’ll be working on a list for our Web Mistress to update our needs list. A few things have changed over the last couple of years, so if folks want to bring us goodies, they can see what we use and need.

You wouldn’t know it, but I just spent the last hour and a half doing this, so it is time to close, and go back to the organizing and cleaning. Sheesh, it is never done!!

So in closing, I would like to ask everyone who reads this to please try and make a small donation. We really need the help. The holidays are coming, and that means fewer people helping, and fewer donations. Donations this year have been WAY down. It is understandable, the economy, the uncertainty in the political structure, but we could use your help.