I’m happy to say the kibble shelter set up seems to be working just fine!
I found one of the food containers under the kibble house this morning. I was able to reach it to get it out, but even if it had got pushed back further, that’s okay, since the floor boards can be lifted to reach under. An unexpected benefit for our change in plans.
When my daughter popped outside last night, she found Sir Stinks Alot in it. She moved in his direction, making noise to shoo him away, and was unexpectedly entertained. It seems the floor is a bit high for a skunk’s short little legs! It took him a few tries before he was finally able to get down and leave. :-D
The heated water bowl is working just fine; the water in the other containers was frozen solid. I’m thinking we might want to find something to put under the heated bowl to raise it higher. The cats have been trying to drink from it from inside the kibble shelter. I think it’s similar to how they often prefer to drink from the other bowls while on the wood of the sledge under the cat house. Likely, it’s because the wood is warmer on their paws than the ground! :-)
In other things…
Our new washing machine has once again stopped working! I used it on Friday, and it worked fine. My daughter tried to use it on Saturday, and it just wouldn’t turn on. I figured it would stop working again, and actually prefer that it happened again sooner, rather than later. I called the appliance guy and left a message about it, and he called back today. He will be able to swing by tomorrow afternoon. Thankfully, he left the parts with us, when it suddenly started working after he’d opened up the back, so we don’t have to go through the warranty process again.
I headed into town today with one of my daughters who needed to do some errands. I took advantage of the situation and stopped at the garage where we have had so much work done this year. I showed him the picture of what is loose under my mother’s car. I had talked to the garage by my mother’s place, but I just don’t go to her town often, plus I needed to book our van for an oil change and to get our winter tires put on.
I now have my mother’s car booked to come in on Monday, while our van will be brought in on the Friday after. I asked about how much it might cost to get my mother’s car fixed. The loose shield should just need to be screwed back into place, but they will still need to at least jack it up to be able to reach, so I figured it would be similar to what I was told at the other garage. Basically, they’d likely have charged for half an hour.
Not here!
He said it would likely be free.
!!
If all it needs it to be screwed on, he’ll just do it and that’s it! Of course, once he’s actually under there, he might find it’s cracked or something, but it doesn’t look broken in the picture.
I am so happy my mother’s car got a flat next to this garage! :-D The owner is just awesome! As much as I liked the place by my mother’s, this place goes that little bit further. I am a very happy customer! :-)
We did it! We were able to finish the winter shelter for the outdoor cats’ kibble containers!
The only thing it needs now is to be painted, which will probably wait until spring.
Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan, but that’s pretty much how everything goes! :-D
One of the first things we did was raid the barn to see what we could find for a roof. There was a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood that we dragged over.
It had some mysteries on it.
On one side was a drawing of a picnic table, done with black marker.
The other side had what looks like the template for a shed roof!
My daughter was kind enough to take those boards off for me. Each of them had about 7 screws in them!
While she did that, I set up to assemble the rest of the frame, adding in the horizontal supports.
This was where things began to deviate from the plan. In putting on the bottom horizontal supports, I forgot I’d intended to put them on the inside of the vertical supports, instead of lined up with them. This made it longer than 6 ft.
Which is not a bad thing. It’s actually more stable this way, and there’s more room on the inside. However, I wasn’t able to match the top horizontal supports. Since the roof supports are at an angle, the screws that hold them in place are more staggered, so the chance of hitting one while screwing on the vertical support was pretty high. So I moved the top horizontal posts and attached them in front of the vertical ones.
Those horizontal supports, however, were supposed to be what the back wall was attached to.
Before we worked on that, though, we popped on the plywood to see how it fit, and if we needed to cut it to size.
We decided to leave it as is. I wanted at least some overhang. More just means more shelter for the kitties.
Then it was time to get creative.
We were going to use scrap wood from the junk pile for the walls and floor, but that idea quickly was discarded. Back to the barn we went, where we found a couple of pieces of 1/2 inch plywood that were almost 4 feet square.
We finally got to use the table saw I found in the shed! :-D
When cutting the frame pieces, I had cut two spare 2 ft lengths, and we made good use of them. I happened to have right angle plates I’d expected to use for something else and those were used to attach one length to support plywood roof in the middle. The other became support for the back wall. The bottom of the new vertical support could be screwed in place from underneath, but the top took a bit more creativity to get it attached!
We cut one of the squarish pieces in half to get the height of the wall, then cut one of the halves shorter to fit, and used them for the back wall. The pieced we’d cut off turned out to be the right size for a side wall, so we just traced that on the other squarish piece of plywood and cut a second one.
I dragged two buckets of nails from the basement to put the walls and roof one. One had roofing nails that were the right length for the walls, while the other had 4 inch nails that were perfect for attaching the roof.
That left the floor.
Cutting a wall piece off the second square of plywood left an L shaped piece. After taking several measurements, I cut the short part of the “L” off. The remaining longer piece got a notch cut out of it.
The smaller piece got a bit of a trim to fit the remaining space, and now we have a floor that can be removed, if needed.
And yes, I did want the floor to extend past the frame.
Time to test it out!
My daughter had to go in earlier, so I carefully maneuvered the whole thing by myself, to where I wanted it by the cat house. The containers we use for the cats’ food were pretty much empty, so I put them in and topped up them up.
A couple of cats were crawling around in it before I even came out of the sun room with more kibble! Once they heard that distinctive sound of kibble hitting the container, there was quite the rush of kitties!
I wanted the shelter to be close to the cat’s house, to provide shelter for the entry, but also wanted to make sure they had a path in between them. They already go around the cat house in that spot often enough that they’ve worn a patch in the grass. They can also fit under the kibble house and, if they really wanted to, they could probably get in from the back, through the gap under the roof.
One more thing to do!
It was time to open up the roof on the cats’ house and plug in the heated water bowl.
I also tucked their cat toy inside. They love that thing!
The cord on the heated water bowl is long enough that the bowl can be well under the overhang of the kibble house roof.
I then spent the next while putting everything away and cleaning up, which meant I could watch the cats checking it all out. They explored all over, including jumping up on the roof, and seem quite happy with their new shelter!
Since it’s unlikely we will paint any of it this year, we will probably cover the roof with a tarp for the winter. The rest should be fine.
I’m so glad we were able to get this finished today. It was just a couple of degrees above freezing, and we’re supposed to get a couple of centimeters of snow in a couple of days. Not the sort of weather I want to be outside, building stuff, if I can avoid it!
I had a very enthusiastic crowd when I gave the outside cats warm water and kibble. :-)
The one potential down side of the kibble house I’m building is that there will not be as much room for the cats themselves to spread out. The very shy one in the back, for example, is not just shy of humans, but some of the other cats, too. Then you get Butterscotch, who has been getting more ornery in her old age, and will randomly start hissing and batting at the other cats – including her own kittens!
No Rolando Moon this morning, but she’s another one that has been hissing at the other cats, though the other cats have been going after her, as well.
However, they do tend to tone it down when the weather gets cold. At that point, I think they’ll take the extra body heat over their usual aggressiveness.
I was able to pet Butterscotch’s kittens this morning. Creamsicle Jr. wasn’t too keen on it, but I was actually able to pick up the little calico and hold her. She stayed in my arms, looking at me like I was crazy, but purring. I didn’t want to keep her from food for too long, though, so I put her down and finished my rounds.
Before going inside, I visited the cats again.
I was able to pick up the little calico again.
She was willing to settle in my arms, purring away.
I took blatant advantage of the situation.
She’s now in the basement.
One of the girls very noisily scattered cat treats upstairs to lure the other cats away and close the door. Keith and Cheddar wouldn’t leave, though, being far more curious about the new addition. They’re pretty safe around the newbies, though, so that was okay.
Then I opened a tin of wet cat food, and Turmeric magically appeared from somewhere under my work table! :-D
I spread out blobs of wet cat food in the kibble platter to get the other cats interested, then brought the rest of the can near the calico and lured her over with the spoon.
It’s her first time eating wet cat food, and she was quite enthusiastic about it!
Turmeric, unfortunately, kept wanting to chase her around. I think it was more playful than aggressive, but it’s just too much for the little one. I was eventually able to escape the basement, bringing Turmeric out with me and managing to NOT let any other cats down. There was a whole crowd of them at the door, wanting to see what was going on!
She ignored Cheddar sniffing her while she ate, and he seemed pretty laid back while checking her out. Then he very slowly, casually, batted at her!
So today, we’ll be taking turns going to the basement, bringing the “safe” cats for introductions, and paying lots of attention to the new addition. That will mostly be on the girls, since I need to get outside to work on the kibble house. Not until late afternoon, though, when the temperature is expected to finally get above freezing.
I am such a suck. I have been so adamant about not bringing more cats into the house, and now we’re up to 16!! The problem is, bringing the females inside is the only way we can keep the yard cat population down. It costs about $260 to get a female fixed out here, and we’d have to bring them inside anyhow, since we’d have to make sure they don’t eat at least 8 hours before surgery, then give them 2 weeks to heal. Males cost half as much, so we were able to get the few males inside fixed. I have to admit, though, I would have loved to see David kittens! :-D Anyhow. No chance of more kittens if the females are inside.
Now that Tissue is socialized, we have 9 cats available for adoption, but so far, no takers!
Well, what can we do but keep taking care of them as best we can?
I got a call from him, early this evening. He just finished loading up their big BBQ into his truck and was ready to bring it over!
This was something he had offered to us when I told him about what we’d done with the fire pit, for outdoor cooking. They got themselves a smaller BBQ, as their older one was too big for just the 2 of them, and it was just sitting there, unused. Today, he up and decided to deliver it!
There aren’t a lot of places we can put a BBQ right now. Basically, there’s the concrete and patio blocks in front of the sun room where it can stay for the winter.
So I quickly went out and moved the shelf I was planning to moved now that the sun room door is finished. It would be much harder to move it, with a BBQ in the way!
With the shelf moved away, you can really see how much the concrete under the rain barrel has sunk! This is likely from years of the rain barrel being allowed to overflow.
Which might have something to do with why the sun room has been shifting, and why I had such troubles with the door!
Ya think?
Since it’s that time of year, anyhow, I took advantage of the situation and emptied the rain barrel into the old kitchen garden.
After breaking through ice about an inch thick!
It will be much easier to go through here to the old kitchen garden, now that the shelf is moved. We had originally intended to put the shelf in storage, with most of the other stuff that belonged to my parents, and had put it aside until we could bring the van over to take it. It was so handy, we left it. :-)
Inside the shelf are the pieces of rigid insulation that had been used for the “cat condo” we made for the cats in the sun room last winter. We will likely use some of them for the kibble house, under the food containers. We also plan to leave the two bottom shelves empty, except for some pieces of insulation on the “floor”, for the cats to be able to tuck into it for shelter. We did that last winter, and they made full use of it.
There it is! Our new Q!
We’ve never had anything bigger than 3 burners before; this one has five. It’s so big, he had to take the lid off to fit it under his truck cap! My brother even fired it up to test it out, including the extra burner for pots and pans on the side. It even starts better than any BBQ we’ve had before. :-)
Chances are, we won’t be able to use it until spring, but at least now we have the option! We don’t have any BBQ tools, but with all the summer stuff on clearance right now, this is probably the best time of year to get more. :-) I really look forward to using it!
Sadly, they were not able to stay for long. I’m glad my SIL made it out; she hadn’t been able to for a while, as she recovered from surgery. We did get a chance to walk around the yard, and show them what we’ve been doing. Technically, my brother is my “landlord”, so it’s probably a good idea for him to know what’s going on. ;-) Unlike my mother, they are actually quite happy with how things are shaping up, and are not offended by us doing things like using mulch. :-D
Somehow, they found my glee, as I demonstrated opening and closing the sun room door repeatedly, very amusing. :-D
It’s probably a good thing they didn’t stay any longer. They’ve got a long drive back, and wanted to make a quick stop to visit our mother along the way. From what I’m seeing on the live feed for the security camera, there are strong winds and snow right now!
It’s been a while since I updated on the status of Little Braveheart, aka Tissue, now that she has been brought indoors.
For the first while, she hid out in the basement. She began to emerge more often when the cats were given their evening treat of wet cat food. My daughters would, whenever possible, spend time down there, coaxing her out and getting her used to company.
As she started going upstairs more often, the other cats were true to their own personalities! Some took to her, some didn’t. For some reason, the spice girls in particular would start hissing and chasing her.
Cheddar and David were the most relaxed with her, but it has been our old mama cat, that moved out here with us, that has been both a help – and a problem!
She has always been good with the kittens, and when Beep Beep resoundingly weaned them, they discovered that “grandma” would let them suckle. It’s been a battle to get them to stop.
Then Tissue discovered this.
Several times now, we’ve caught her and one of the spice girls, trying to nurse on “grandma” – and being very much encouraged to do it!
On the one hand, this is not good. I don’t think cats can be stimulated to lactate without having kittens, but the attempt to nurse on her has left her looking like her nips are about to bleed.
On the other hand, since they’ve become nursing sisters, Tissue and the spice girls have become affectionate with each other!
I’ve made a belly band for grandma that I put on her when we can’t stop them from trying to nurse. It’s loose and she can get out of it easily, but it’s usually enough for them to stop trying.
Tissue had been aggressively trying to nurse, so I put the band on. Grandma then lay down to cuddle with Cheddar. Tissue clambered on, trying to find a nip. Much to my surprise, Cheddar reached out and arm to block her!
So Tissue just curled up in a ball on top of both of them!
I think she is now socialized enough to put up for adoption! :-D
Not that anyone seems to be interested in adopting cats at all right now. We haven’t had a single person interested in any of the kittens this time. Not a single contact! :-(
There are 12 cats in this picture. Happily, Rolando Moon is still hanging around, busily hissing at any cat that comes near. We haven’t seen Creamsicle in a while, though. I hope he is all right.
The cat butt sticking out of the entry is a hoot. That is Rosencrantz’s baby, and she seems to be the shiest of the bunch.
As you can see by the frozen blocks of ice, artistically embedded with leaves, it’s been getting a bit cold out at night! It did warm up a few degrees above freezing. Not good for paint, but it had to be done.
I can now officially say that replacing the door on the sun room is DONE!! I just came in from outside a little while ago, and the paint was dry enough I could close the door. What’s supposed to be blue is now blue, what’s supposed to be white is now white, and nary the twain shall have contact with each other!
Yaaah!!
No, I didn’t take pictures. I’m am tired of taking pictures of that door! :-D
The next project is the shelter for the cat food. It will be placed about where the kibble containers currently are. I want to position it so that it will also provide extra shelter for the entrance to the cat house. The heated water bowl can be plugged in, inside, but the bowl has to be outside, since there’s no way I’m going to be lifting that roof every morning to refill their water. ;-) The shelter for the food containers will help keep the snow off the water bowl, too.
It took a couple of hours, but I got the end pieces of the frame done.
Working with this wood we salvaged from the barn has been a challenge. Nothing is even, so about the only thing I can measure is length. After that, I basically just made sure all the pieces matched and lined up. Not being able to just take measurements meant I had to get creative in lining up the pilot holes. Just making the pilot holes was an issue! My drill bits that were the right diameter for the pilot holes are just barely long enough to drill through the wood. I went hunting in the basement and the garage and, while I did find longer drill bits, they were all too large.
Thankfully, the bits I did have were long enough that, after drilling the pilot holes in one piece, I could position them on the other piece, “drill” though the pilot holes again, and make a mark on the other piece.
It worked most of the time. With the uneven wood, there were a couple of spots where the bit just wasn’t long enough to leave a mark.
Once I’d marked the pieces, I could drill more pilot holes, then screw them together.
When we used this wood to make the goat catcher, I had 3 inch screws, and only used two per corner. This was meant to be temporary, but I still didn’t expect it to be so wonky, it would end up bending and breaking the screws! So this time, I got 3 1/3 inch screws, and there’s 4 in each corner.
That thing is solid!
I started by attaching the 2 ft cross piece on the bottoms. The first corner was screwed together manually. Even with the pilot holes, it was not easy – and with arthritis in my wrists and fingers, rather painful. Our new drill isn’t a quick release type, and I didn’t want to be switching from drill bit to screwdriver tip, over and over, so I decided to use an old drill that we “inherited” to put in the screws.
That worked much faster!
Once the cross pieces were in, I got out a tape measure and figured out how much of an overhang I wanted on the roof supports. I decided to make the roof supports 3 1/2 feet long.
Lining those up at an angle was a pain in the butt! Once again, it was more about making sure the pieces matched, because there was no way I was going to be able to take usable measurements. I managed to get them lined up and the pilot holes done. By the time I was putting in the last set of screws, though, the drill was starting to complain, so I set them as far as I could before the drill started having a hard time, planning to screw them the rest of the way by hand.
When I took the screw driver tip off the drill, I realized I was seeing smoke coming out of the drill!! I remember that happening when we used it before. This old thing overheats very quickly!
By then, it was getting too cold to keep working outside, so I will continue the rest tomorrow. Once I have the 6 foot horizontal supports in place, we can take some measurements for the floor and wall boards.
The good thing is, we’ll be using the scrap wood in the junk pile. They are a lot thinner. That means I can finally use the table saw, and do all the cutting at once. :-) Those will be nailed into place; in cleaning up the basement, we found an old ice cream bucket full of nails that are just the right size for this job.
We can also go hunting in the barn or sheds for something to use as a roof. The roof supports are 3 1/2 feet long, but I hope to be able to have a sheet that’s 4 ft. The roof will be the last thing put in place.
After that, it’ll be done for this year. It’ll need to be painted, but we’ll be using it right away, so that will wait until spring. The one exception might be the roof, depending on what we find to use for that.
I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow, but that will really depend on the weather! At least they’re no longer predicting snow flurries, but who knows what the day will actually bring!
That reminds me. We need to bring the sheets of rigid insulation stored in the garage, back to the house. We’ll have to find a better way to get the sheets for the sun room windows to stay in place, though. At least this winter, we won’t be keeping the doors to outside propped open for the cats to go in and out, now that they have their own heated house! :-)
Lots to do before winter sets in, that’s for sure! :-)
This afternoon, with the help of a daughter, we hung the replacement door back up onto the newly painted frame.
We lined the hinges up with where they were before, except further in as far as we could go. Just to be on the safe side, my daughter held the door in place while I marked the holes for the screws, then I drilled pilot holes for just the top hinge. We screwed in the top hinge, then double checked the locations for the other pilot holes and re-marked accordingly.
As you can see in one of the photos, the entire frame looks like it’s pulling away from the wall! It was like this when we moved here, and the gap doesn’t seem to be getting any bigger, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem. At least not any more than anything else is! :-D
Also, we only had the old screws available, since none of the new screws we have were the right size, and there were only 6 of the same type. So each hinge is missing 1 screw! I still drilled the pilot holes, though, for when I pick some up.
Of course, as soon as we got the top and bottom hinges secure, we tested the door, just in case.
Aaannndd…
Really???
The door was hitting the frame again! It had to be forced closed!
We decided to finish hanging the door, though. Once it was in, I tested it again, which is when I noticed this…
The door latch was now higher than it was before.
Keep in mind that we did NOT raise the door when we put it back. The hinges were lined up with where it was hung previously. The only change was mounting them further in the frame than it was before. Apparently, that was enough for the door latch to be about half an inch higher than it was before!
Using where the blue paint marked the frame as a guide, I went back to trying to reduce the wood in those spots. I used the shaver, a chisel, a rasp, and even some of my coarsest sandpaper. For some of the tools, it was hard to get right into the corner. Time and again, I tested the door, and it still was hitting.
Finally, I started shaving wood off the door itself. That wood is so much softer than the frame, I could do in moments what took several minutes, and a variety of tools, to take off the same amount of material.
I took these photos when I figured I was done, but then went ahead and took off more material. Just in case!
I also gouged out more of the hole for the latch. After testing the door again and again, I finally put the latch plate back on.
That mark on the inside of the frame by the latch plate?
It turned out part of the door handle assembly – I just looked it up and now know it’s called a “rose” – hits it. So I used sandpaper to gouge out a recess there. That wood is also very soft compared to the frame pieces I’ve been fighting with!
The door now closes, easily and properly!
In fact, it’s probably the smoothest working door in the entire house right now!
I had one last thing to attach.
The stop chain!
I started screwing it in where there were pre-existing holes, but realized the bent part of the plate was extending beyond the wood, and the door would be hitting it. While moving it over, I noticed the plate for the chain on the inner door had only one screw holding it in place, so I fixed that, too.
Now, there is no chance the door will bang open too far. It doesn’t even hit the shelf behind it anymore, which means no risk it’ll hit the window. I can now move that shelf to the other side of the door, in front of the cracked window.
Tomorrow morning, I’ll be touching up the paint that I scraped off, including the door; thankfully we still have some of that blue left.
Once I was done hanging the door, I just couldn’t help it.
I stood there, opening it and closing it again, and giggling to myself. :-D
I am easily entertained!
This door was so much more of a problem to replace than we could have imagined!
I had to make an unplanned trip today. With feeding both indoor and outdoor cats, we go through the kibble (and litter!) pretty fast, and for the amounts we buy, it’s actually worth making the trip to a Walmart of Costco.
I didn’t want to go to the city, though, so I made the trip to…
A different city. :-D
It’s barely populous enough to be called a city, but it’s a bit closer, has a Walmart, and I wouldn’t have to drive through city traffic to get to it. In fact, I didn’t even have to go into the city at all, since the Walmart is on the outskirts.
When I got home and was closing the gate, I could hear some rather excited meowing.
It’s always cheering when the outside cats are so happy to see us, they come running.
There was, however, a different meow today. A different, but familiar meow.
We’ve been Mooned!
Rolando Moon is back! I haven’t seen her in ages! Like Butterscotch and Beep Beep, she is one of the cats my dad used to take care of, but she doesn’t hang around like the other yard cats do.
She was definitely a hungry girl, and was constantly growling at any cat that came near her, but she just couldn’t get enough pets!
It’s been so long, I thought she was gone for good. So I was very happy to get Mooned today!
Well, most of what I intended to get done today, happened. Plus, some unplanned stuff got done. :-)
There was quite the crowd around for breakfast – and not all of them are in this photo! Most of them came out of the cat shelter, which was quite gratifying to see.
They were hungry enough that the little kittens allowed me to pet them while they were eating, including the calico. I was also able to finally confirm that both orange tabbies are male. That leaves the two bigger kittens (behind the food bowls in the photo) that we don’t know the gender of, yet. We’re really hoping they are males, because we have had zero progress in getting those ones more socialized. At least with the little calico, there is some hope we’ll be able to get her inside before she goes into heat.
The water bowls were all frozen this morning, so I brought out some warm water for them. The cats really appreciated that! I’ll have to get that heated water bowl set up soon.
While doing my rounds, I remembered to try and get a photo under my mother’s car. It took quite a few tries!
The last time I drove it, I noticed something was loose underneath. I only saw it because of how I happened to be parked in an otherwise empty parking lot, as I walked to the car from a store. From a distance, I could see something hanging down near the front passenger tire, but once at the car, I had to look through the tire rim at just the right angle to be able to spot it.
When it was time to go to my mother’s to help her with errands, I left early so I could stop at the garage near her place. It is just a plastic shield, and it looks like a bolt probably vibrated off. Who knows when that happened, but it had to be recently, since I picked it up from the garage not that long ago. I have no way to get under there myself, but it’s such a small job, I didn’t even need to make an appointment to get it worked on. I was told to just give a call in the morning, then come on over. I will do that as soon as I can, so I don’t have to make my mother clamber up into our van anymore!
I was able to help my mother with several errands, and even get a bit of a visit. I was happy to see the mask exemption card I’d taped to her door was still there. Her municipality has a mask mandate right now, so we did get asked a couple of times if we had masks. Since I was with her, I was able to tell them we had medical exemptions, and there was no problem. Interestingly, while at the pharmacist’s counter, where they didn’t even bat and eye over our lack of masks, my mother did fish out a surgical mask from her pocket and put it on, saying she didn’t want any trouble – except no one was giving her trouble! I just cringed, because she has no ability to put one on properly. She only kept it on for maybe a minute, probably less. She didn’t even try to put it on when we got to the grocery store. I’ve helped my mother shop often enough, and the staff knows her well enough, that they talked to me about the masks, not her. It all worked out well. It was a real relief for me, given how much she struggles to breathe with a mask on. She still has a hard time understanding mask exemptions, and I could see she was concerned about being given a hard time, but the staff at all the places we went to were awesome. I did give her an exemption card to carry, but I have no idea what she did with that!
Once my mother was all set, I headed home and was expecting to hang the replacement door for the sun room back up. I wasn’t able to get another set of hands to hold it for me, so I instead worked on some cutting I needed to do. I had found a board in one of the sheds that I cut to length to make a couple of shelves in the entry. The pieces now just need some sanding and painting.
Then I started on cutting pieces that will be the frame for a cat kibble house. :-D
I’d made a rough and flexible plan for it. For the frame, I am using the pieces of wood from the frames I’ve been using to mark out garden beds. I also had a couple of extra long pieces we never used when we built the goat catcher.
I ended up changing the dimensions a bit, based on the wood I had available. All the pieces had one end slightly more damaged than the other, so I worked around that when making my measurements and cuts.
The short end pieces from the dismantled frames will be the upright pieces for the cat kibble house. The back pieces are 3 feet long, while I decided to make the front pieces 3 1/2 feet, instead of the 4 feet I was originally thinking of doing. The longer side pieces of the dismantled frames will be the length of the kibble house. I actually measured the group of kibble bowls and decided to make it 6 feet long, instead of the 5 feet I was originally thinking of. I then used the cut off pieces from those to cut cross pieces that will be the depth of the kibble house. They weren’t long enough to do the 2 1/2 feet I’d originally considered making it, so I cut them 2 feet long, instead.
I cut 4 of them, though I only need two, just in case I need extra.
The only pieces I haven’t cut yet will be the support for the roof. I will decide on the length of those later. I want a considerable overhang on the front of the roof. It can’t extend too far, though, because then it will be in the way when trying to reach the kibble bowls inside.
As for the roof itself, I’ve been finding sections of plywood in the barn and sheds that I should be able to salvage. Once I decide on how long of an overhang I want, I’ll have the dimensions I need to hunt out a piece that will fit.
The kibble house will also have a floor and three walls. For that, I plan to use wood salvaged from the junk pile. The pieces are pretty inconsistent in size, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be enough to keep the bulk of the wind and snow out. The roof will be the most important part.
As you can imagine, the noise of cutting the pieces spooked the cats quite a bit. Some of them, however, were spooked into the cat shelter. As I was putting things away, I looked to see that the indicator light for the timer was on. I could also see a little calico kitten, curled up under the heater! I am so glad the little kittens are using it. They are the ones I’m most concerned about for the winter!
Unfortunately, other critters have discovered the shelter.
Stinky came by as I was cleaning up! I had unhooked the hose, though it was too cold and stiff to put away, so I screwed it back on and used it to spray the skunk away. Long before the cats were willing to check out their new shelter, I could tell from the smell that Sir Stinks Alot had already visited. Nicky the Nose – the only one of the big toms that still visits regularly – has been seen coming out of it, too. We’re trying to discourage him from visiting, because he has been attacking our own male cats. Especially Creamsicle. :-( If he’s in there, chances are he will chase away some of our own cats.
He’s also the daddy of way too many kittens!
I have come to the conclusion that Nicky the Nose is deaf, or at least mostly deaf. There have been a few times I’ve come towards him, even talking as I walked, while he was facing away, with no reaction. It isn’t until he turns his head and sees me that he reacts and runs off.
Tomorrow, barring some unexpected change in plan, I will continue to work on the cat kibble house, and hopefully be able to snag a daughter to help hang the sun room’s replacement door.
It’s starting to get pretty chilly out there, and there’s still plenty we need to get done before the real cold hits!
This morning, after doing my morning rounds, I gave the sun room door frame a second coat of paint. Tomorrow, we hang the door back up.
I had an audience. :-D
Also, while I was painting, I found that Nostrildamus has figured out to jump over the threshold after it’s been painted! :-D
Meanwhile…
Today was finally racking day for our first attempt at making hard apple cider, using our own crab apples. For new visitors, you can read up about that here and here. (links will open in new tabs)
Here is how the gallon carboys looked before I started. As expected, there was a LOT of sediment at the bottom. It’s not just the lees from the yeast, but the sediment from the raw, unfiltered juice.
We had some concerns with the fermentation. Activity in the airlock stopped a while ago. I think the room temperature became a problem. While they were actively bubbling, their temperatures tended towards 18C/64F, though we did also keep them wrapped in a towel and, every now and then, I’d heat up a rice-filled warming pad in the microwave and stick it between them to help keep them warm. We had used an electric heating pad, when making mead, but where these were sitting, there is nowhere to plug it in.
Racking from a 4L to a 3L carboy meant a lot of sediment heavy liquid left behind. Though I tried to hold the racking cane well above the sediment as long as I could, I could still see wisps of it being pulled up the siphon.
As I racked each jug, I made sure to get a hydrometer reading.
I just don’t know what to make of it.
For one of them, the hydrometer pretty much sank to the bottom. I had to add cider almost to the top for it to float enough to get a reading. The other was only slightly better. When they were first tested, it floated quite handily.
Unfortunately, I just can’t get it straight on how to read the specific gravity on that thing. So I write down all three readings.
The readings still don’t make any sense to me. Why would the numbers all drop so much? From what I can figure out, this is basically telling me there’s no alcohol in one, and almost no alcohol in the other.
I did taste test it, of course, and they both have a VERY sour apple taste. It also does taste alcoholic, but that is almost overwhelmed by the sour apple taste. Which is interesting, since the apples we used are actually quite sweet, and there was quite a bit of sugar added to the juice, too.
As for the hydrometer reading this time around, the only thing I can think of that might be affecting it (besides something going weird with the cider itself) is the temperature. Both carboys had a temperature reading of 16C/60F. The ambient temperature in the room is 15C/59C. From what I’ve been reading, newer hydrometers are calibrated for about 20C/68F. I’ve found a site that will calculate the adjustment for temperature, but there is virtually no change in the reading. So what gives?
I have no idea.
Considering that the traditional way of making hard apple cider is to press whole apples into a barrel, set it aside for a few months and BOOM, you’ve got booze, I didn’t expect this to be so complicated.
Anyhow. The 3L carboys are now set up with their airlocks for a second fermentation. As for the liquid left behind with the lees, I ended up straining much of it, and we now have about half a liter of filtered baby hard apple cider.
Hmmm… I wonder how it will go with the ham I will be roasting today?
The Re-Farmer
Update: When I started the hard apple cider, I did it based on this video from CS Mead and More.
There is a reason I included them among my Recommended sites!
I went ahead and contacted them about my readings, and got a very prompt response, and I am very happy!
It turns out, everything is working fine. My problem is with reading the hydrometer, then figuring out what it’s telling me! :-D
And now I know what to do with the information I’m getting off the hydrometer. I may not be using the AVB or Brix to work it out, but I’m writing them down anyway, because I can see those readings better. I can then use the printed out chart that came with the hydrometer to see where that lines up with the Specific Gravity and actually read that number on paper, instead of trying to see it in the liquid. When I take pictures and upload them to my desktop, I can usually zoom in and read it, but sometimes I find the hydrometer moved as I was taking the picture and I still can’t read it. :-/
The formula I was given to calculate the alcohol percentage is to subtract the new reading from the first reading, then multiply the answer by 135. So for one of my ciders it’s:
The Re-Farmer 