x11/xfce ssh-agent once per logon for minimal (no gnome/kde) installation

[Steve Franks]

I'm totally lost.  What I desire is to put in my passphrase for my
public key(s) when I logon to my box.  Since I usually install from
ports and use xfce, I have no infrastructure for this, and I'm getting
nowhere fast.  My Fedora box popped up a nice little "enter
passphrase" box the very first time I ssh'd to my server, and now it
'just works'.  My FreeBSD boxes (which are many - everything *but* the
laptop with Fedora), 'just don't work'.  I've installed everything
with 'ssh'  and either 'key' or 'agent' in the name from
ports/security, and gone through the manpages, and tweaked countless
environment variables, but every time I ssh on a FreeBSD box, it
stubbornly locates the terminal I started any gui's from (i.e. meld +
bzr), and asks for the passphrase a great many times daily.  Add that
I've started my gui with meld& (so as to continue using said terminal
- don't love 'panels', 'choosers', 'menus', etc - guis are for word
processors and file managers, not desktops), I can't even type in the
passphrase there.  I  generally like using FreeBSD caveman style, but
this is starting to drive me nuts.  No meld/bzr==no work from home==no
happiness ;)

Anyone have a 'standard' / FreeBSD-friendly best-practices for this?
I think I'm just cluttering up my system here.

Best,
Steve