Ferret is trying to connect to a druby process, which you can start with "script/ferret_server start -e production". Don't know if you'll be able to start up the extra process on a Dreamhost account, if you can't, you'll have to comment out the production part in config/ferret_server.yml. Do know that if more than one process writes to the index at the same time because you're not using the drb server, it'll be corrupted.
Best regards
Peter De Berdt