Fine feral ferrets

After yesterday's entry about my concerns that Jack will one day fall victim to a deadly snake, it was with a sense of dread that I released him into the yard at 7 am to do his morning ablutions, while I went off to complete my own.

I became engrossed with a book, then realised Jack hadn't made his standard low growl to ask, "Let me back in", so I went to find him. There he was, peering into the house from the other side of the flyscreen door, but when he saw me coming he scarpered back into the yard, hoping I'd relent and let him down into the pool area so he could sniff out any nocturnal visitors who'd left him a wee-mail on a tree.

Then: we both saw it at the same instant! A huge, pale yellow ferret was rummaging in the garden! Jack went instantly ballistic, of course, barking and carrying on, although the cheeky ferret seemed to know that Jack was still behind bars. It spent several minutes twisting through the agapanthus, finishing up whatever it'd been up to and finally selecting its favourite exit hole under the fence.

I think I've now solved the mystery of our most recent regular visitor, whose mission, should it choose to accept it, is to drive a poor little Jack Russell beresk (sic)*. Who knows what the wee-mail said? Probably the furry equivalent of "Your mother wears army boots." I wonder if Jack even knows the local ferret dialect?

In the past, we've had a fox, two different blue-tongue lizards, many suicidal frogs, crappy birds, next door's cats, and now a feral ferret! Welcome to the jungle.

* With thanks to Dorrie Evans, "Number 96".