This morning, the girls opened up the cat house to give the inside a good cleaning.

Both daughters are in this picture. 😂

One is inside the cat house, clearing out the old straw and debris into the wheelbarrow by the side of it, while the other assisted as much as possible. Mostly by keeping kittens out of the way. The socialized ones REALLY wanted to get underfoot! Speaking of feet, my older daughter flipped a toenail and can’t wear closed toes shoes right now, so her sister banished her from going inside the cat house. Unfortunately, in the winter, the cats do crap in there, rather than going outside into the chill.

I tried to do my part in distracting kitties by putting out some cat treats. Which the kittens that were underfoot mostly ignored, in favour of being underfoot!

Once they did as much as they could and closed things up again, the less socialized cats started coming out of the woodwork, too. 😊

The old straw has been removed completely and, being full of cat poop, isn’t going into the compost. It was added to the burn pile, instead. The giant crochets blanket that was in there is now draped over the kibble house, where it had been hosed down on one side. After a while, it’ll be flipped so the other side can be hosed down. It get really, really heavy when wet!

We don’t have fresh straw to put inside, so for now there is another scrap yarn crocheted blanket in there. I am thinking of moving away from straw completely. Having the heat bulb is great, but even though it’s just a relatively mild terrarium bulb should be fine, I’m still paranoid about straw dust. There are some scrap pieces of high density rubber mats in the barn. I am thinking we might lay some of the rigid insulation we have left on the floor, then covering it with the mats. The cats love scratching the foam insulation, but they won’t be able to scratch those mats. Between the mats and the insulation, it should help keep the shelter floor comfortable in the winter.

I also want to give those windows a good cleaning on the inside, and before winter, we’ll be sure to switch out the battery in the smoke detector we have in there.

With so many kitties this summer, I suspect the cats’ house is going to be very full this winter!

The Re-Farmer