Today was set to be a scorcher, so when I did my morning rounds, I took the time to water all the garden beds before things got too hot, even though they got a thorough watering last night.
When I got to the spinach beds, I saw evidence of skulduggery!
The sacrificial spinach, at the ends of a couple of rows, were duly sacrificed.
I moved that pinwheel over from one of the beds with the wire mesh covers, after the fact. Not that they seem to be accomplishing much, anymore!
No surprise, when I finally went inside and checked the trail cams, that a deer was captured, wandering through the corn beds, on the way out of the yard. Considering that the deer did not even pause to nibble on anything, I’d say the sacrificial spinach did its job! ;-)
Late this afternoon, when things were supposedly getting cooler again, the girls and I finished the squash tunnel.
Almost.
We got the cross pieces put in place, then brought over the wire mesh for the vines to climb.
The roll of wire mesh I got was 50 feet long, and that was enough to cover 3 of 4 sections. At only 4 feet wide, there are gaps at each post, but we can weave twine between the sections of wire mesh, if it’s necessary.
My original thought was to use U nails (also called staples) to attach the mesh, but we ended up only needing to attach it to the bottom cross pieces. With one, we used wire saved from a previous roll of wire mesh that had been wrapped around it to keep it from unrolling. In cutting the first length, the second length had one end with the wire ends sticking out, and we were able wrap the end around the cross piece, then just twist the wire ends around to hold it in place. Other sections were tied in place with twine.
We just need to buy another roll of this mesh, and we can finish the last section. The main thing is that the end where the luffa is growing, now has something for them to climb.
The girls also noted that one post seemed to need support, so they added the rope and peg to hold it in place.
It’s a good thing this is meant to be temporary! :-D
By the time we were done, we were totally baked and headed inside to cool down for a while. We were at “only” 25C/77F with a humidex of 28C/82F but we were also in full sun, and there was no breeze. At least we could pop into the shade of the nearby lilac hedge, every now and then.
While I was doing the evening watering, the girls brought over the last of the straw and mulched around the squash tunnel. You can see in the photo that some of the luffa was grown long enough to reach the mesh, already. Hopefully, they will soon be making their way up the side on their own.
This whole thing really is rather slipshod and wonky. I look forward to when we have our permanent raised garden beds, and can build something more solid, elsewhere. But this will do for a year, maybe even two, depending on how our plans to plant trees in this area progress. Well, Not where this tunnel is, I don’t think. There are telephone lines buried somewhere under here.
Anyhow.
I’m glad we finally got this done. At least as done as possible until we get more mesh for that last section. The forecast has changed again. Tomorrow, instead of thunderstorms, we’re expected to hit 31C/88F and maybe get some showers at some point. While I was doing the watering this evening, I used the water to make doing some hand weeding easier, and I could not believe how dry the soil was. I’d hate to think how dry it would have been if I’d decided it was damp enough this morning, and skipped the watering! The added mulch at these squash, gourds and melons will help keep their moisture better, at least. I look forward to having more mulch to add to the other beds as well.
Meanwhile, I hope we have some happy little squash, gourds and melons!
Well, I’d hoped we could actually finish the squash tunnel today, or at least get the side cross pieces at the top done, but we didn’t get quite that far.
But, progress was still made.
Most importantly, we got the supports up in the post holes.
In refilling the post holes and tamping the soil down, a few of them did need to have more soil added. A good way to reduce some of the lumps in the old garden, left from when it was last plowed before we moved here.
It’s very… rustic looking. That’s a trend now, right? :-D
And no, that middle pole isn’t actually tilted. The tree it’s made from is bent. All the pieces are wonky in shape! :-D
It’s also still very flimsy right now. Joining them at the sides with cross pieces should fix that.
It was already starting to get hot by the time this was done, so we took advantage of the morning shade to transplant the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. It wasn’t until evening that I was able to work on the next step for the squash tunnel. I cut a total of 8 of the 16 cross pieces needed at 5’6″, then trimmed matching flat pieces at each end.
I also trimmed one side of the flattened ends a bit; just enough to have a narrow flat surface on what will be the top.
The flat parts are intended to butt up against the upright and the top cross piece. It will wait until tomorrow, but the plan is to screw the cross pieces to the upright, then add one more screw through the top cross piece, down into the side piece – and hopefully not hit another screw in the process. This should give it some more stability. The other 8 cross pieces will be attached a few inches from the bottoms, which should strengthen it even more, as well as provide a place to attach mesh for the vines to climb.
There are a couple of problems we need to figure out how to get around, to finish the job. We do have a cordless drill, but both batteries no longer hold a charge, and the company doesn’t make them anymore. Until we get around to buying a new one, we have several corded drills to choose from. Getting extension cords to reach this far, though… that’s going to take a bit! We have a pair of 100′ extension cords, which won’t reach reach from the outdoor outlet on the side of the house. I remember how far I could reach while using the electric weed trimmer, and three extension cords. We’ve since gotten more cords, so I think we’ll have enough to reach around the structure.
The next challenge is, we’re short. Well, except my husband, and he’s broken. ;-) To be able to drill a pilot hole through the stop cross piece will require clambering up and down a step ladder. For our gimpy household, that is somewhat risky!
But, it’ll need to be done. With this structure, we can’t get away with tying the cross pieces on with twine, like with the pea trellises.
With 5 uprights and 4 cross pieces per side, only two cross pieces can be placed up against the overhangs at the top, so each side will have two cross pieces mounted just under the other two. Which will hopefully also contribute to the stability. If that’s not enough, we’d have to add supports on the inside of the corners, and I really don’t want to get that finicky with a temporary structure.
We may not have finished the squash tunnel, but we accomplish other things, but that is for my next post! :-)
I had quite the crowd greeting me when I headed out this morning!
Of course, they immediately abandoned me, once there was food! :-D
I will have to be more careful when I do this. One of the spice boys slipped into the sun room without my noticing, and got trapped! Thankfully, one of my daughters heard his plaintive meowing after she’d turned the light on to go into the bathroom, lighting up the sun room a bit through the window. He’d been in there most of the day! I went in through the old kitchen, then opened the outside doors of the sun room to let him out. It didn’t quite work! Instead, his brother immediately ran in, and the two of them started to snuggle and rub their faces against each other. They missed each other so much! :-D I was able to lure them out while topping up their food in the kibble house. :-)
Yesterday, I headed to town and finally got the opportunity to check the outside of the gate. Checking the gate is part of my morning rounds, but I don’t take the gate key with me, so I can’t check the outside of the gate very well. And why should I have to? After seeing how our vandal had reefed on the south gate, I took a closer look.
Sure enough, he actually managed to cause damage.
It may not seem like much, but he reefed the gate against the post hard enough to create permanent dents in the pool noodle bumpers. The top one had been shifted a bit, though I’d put it back before taking the picture. If you look at the gate post in the first photo, you can see a nick in the paint. That nick is right to the metal. The posts were originally painted black, so that is through two layers of paint. It had to take a lot of force to slam the gate hard enough against the post to cause even that little bit of damage, while there were still the other bumpers to cushion the gate.
Thank God my brother did such a fabulous job in replacing the broken hinges! Our vandal was clearly trying to break the gate. The other half of the gate had nothing, thankfully.
Dealing with this is what I’m procrastinating. I need to transcribe old phone messages to present to the court when I make my applications for a restraining order and involuntary psychiatric assessment. I am not looking forward to it.
One of the things I’ve done instead is finally put up the shelves I’d painted for the entry.
Previously, I’d had a net hanging from hooks to hold various things. The net was from our previous van, to keep things from rolling around. I’d kept it to use with the van we have now, but it doesn’t fit anywhere, but I still hung on to it. It was good enough to hold random things, but not very easy to get at those things, once they were in!
I’d painted the boards I’d cut from a piece salvaged from a shed, and they were ready to put up several days ago. My daughter provided some shelf brackets she was no longer using. I suppose I should have painted them, too, but – unlike the board I salvaged – they don’t have any damage to hide. :-D
The shelves are attached to the outside of a closet, but there is a joist only on the front and back. The rest is just paneling. With the window, I couldn’t have the shelves extend right to the wall, so only one side of each shelf is screwed into a joist. Inside the closet, there is a board that supports the rod, but not at a useful height. So for the bottom shelf, the bracket closer to the window is screwed into paneling, only. I wish I’d thought to attach the bracket to the wall, like the top one, before I’d screwed it into place, but… ah, well. We’ll just have to make sure nothing heavy gets put on that end of the shelf. :-)
We are now waiting for the inevitable crash of a cat deciding to explore the shelves and knocking everything over! :-D They love to sit in that window and watch the cats outside.
So by procrastinating one thing, I accomplished a job that had been procrastinated for a couple of years, now. :-D
Looking at the date, I am realizing that, for my husband and youngest daughter, they have been here for 3 years! In less than a week, it’ll be the 3 yr anniversary for this blog, too.
We had an idea of what we were walking into, when we decided to move out here, but my goodness, there was a lot we didn’t expect!
Having to deal with someone close to us becoming our own personal vandal, especially to the point that it has, was one of the last things we could have expected!
*sigh*
I guess I should get to transcribing those files.
Oh, wait… I should probably work on supper, first.
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!
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! :-)
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!
As I write this, I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around how not-late in the day it is. :-D It feels like it should be early evening. Granted, part of that might be the lighting out my window North facing window right now. It’s looking a bit dark out there, even though it’s not that cloudy. We’ve got another storm heading our way. The storm itself looks like it will pass us on the North, but we’ll likely get some rain. There’s another storm that might hit us, during the night, but I suspect that one will pass by us as well.
Anyhow.
After tending to the kitties this morning, I brought both of the windows for the old basement outside. I’m happy to say the Weldbond seems to have a marvelous job of not only adhering the window screen in place, but the metal mesh as well. I was hoping it would hold the metal. That means that all the staples I used to attach the screens, as well as the metal plates, are all now bonded to the frame!
First things first, though: tending to the outside cats.
They were oddly nervous this morning. When I headed into the sunroom, I saw why!
Look who was visiting!
In the sunroom, we have two identical bins; one for the cat kibble, and one for the bird seed. The skunks had been managing to get the cat kibble bin’s lid off, and eating the kibble. The lid had a crack near a handle, so I switched it with the other bin. The skunks have not been able to open it, since.
I guess this guy was getting pretty hungry!
Gosh, he’s so cute!
After feeding the critters, I had an extra job to include during my rounds.
While in town yesterday, I was able to pick up 10 new little flags to put on our fence posts, replacing the old ones that were torn to shreds. There wasn’t enough of a wind to be able to see all of them in this photo, but when they’re all flapping in the breeze, it looks really awesome!
With my rounds done, I headed inside for a bit, to give the cats (and guests) a chance to eat, before testing out the window.
This is the eyesore we’ve had for the last while.
You can see a nail in the wall above the wooden frame, which would have been used to hold the metal mesh frame in place. We just shoved things in to prop it a bit, and the foam insulation made sure nothing got into the basement.
What a mess.
After moving the stuff out of the window well, and pushing the insulation into the basement (there is a platform under the window for it to fall onto), I swept up the dirt a bit.
I need to prioritize getting some puck board to make a new “roof” over this. It served a definite purpose!!
Then it was time to finally check out the new window.
It fit perfectly!
The top kept tipping forward, though, so I had to hold it to take the photo.
Not only did it fit the opening as well as the plastic window, but it is even just as flush!
That is the hole for one of the latches on the plastic frame. We can just get another pair of latches, and use the same holes.
That weather stripping must have been what made the difference, because this frame is easily twice as thick as the plastic frame.
I should probably get some of that self adhesive foam weather stripping for this frame, too. Not to keep the weather out, obviously, but to keep insects from crawling around the frame.
For now, I just propped up some bricks to hold it in place. I will see about getting new latches tomorrow.
I am so happy!
Then it was time to go into the basement and take care of that foam insulation.
Here is how it looks on the inside. The platform the insulation is now lying on was built to hold a box fan, which is among those things that disappeared while the house was empty. It still comes in handy.
The breeze though that window, though! Wow!!!
Now that the screen is in, I unplugged the blower fan, to give the motor a chance to cool down. We’ll get it going again later, though, because it’s really damp down there.
Which had me checking something else out.
When we moved here, there was a dehumidifier in the corner, next to the well pump. When the girls painted the second level, they had to lug it upstairs, because it was so humid, the paint actually sloughed off the walls. So we know it works.
Sometime between when it was returned to the basement, and this spring, the water reservoir for it disappeared.
I don’t know what happened. It was there when the dehumidifier was brought downstairs. The only people besides us who have been down there has been my oldest brother, and the plumber. So what happened to the reservoir? I have no idea.
Today, I took a look at where the water would drain from and realized it was a standard male coupling, like for a hose.
We have spare drain hoses for the hot water tank; these are short hoses with a female coupling at each end.
It fit!
This is what we have now.
I’ve got the hose draining directly into the sump pump reservoir. This area is getting the most water right now, due to the condensation on the well pump and all the cold water pipes.
Since there is no reservoir in the dehumidifier, there is nothing to trigger the float to shut it off automatically. Theoretically, it will just keep on running, non-stop. We will have to check it to make sure it’s working properly, later.
Between the window screen and the dehumidifier, even with the blower off for a while, it should make a big difference in the state of the basements.
Even the new part basement.
Where I had an audience, trying to check me out!
The new part basement has its own fan, but the cement is clearly saturated. This concerns me, since it means the weeping tile is not doing the job as well as it should. After what we discovered when the septic pipes got plugged, I was afraid it would be an issue. *sigh*
Oh! The rain seems to have reaches us now. Time to shut down the computers, just in case!
Another reason we need to get that “roof” over the basement window. The breeze is really nice, but there is nothing to stop rain from getting in.
Dang. I took to long to finish this post. Looks like we lost internet! Here’s hoping we don’t lose power – and this post!
If you’re reading this, that means I managed to save it… :-D
I am happy to say that I got the window for the old basement built – with considerably kitten interruptions!
While I did that, the girls installed the new kitchen faucet set. It turns out there are no shut off valves on the water. They had to shut off the main valve for the entire house.
On the list of things to do: add shut off valves all over. I’m pretty sure the bathroom sink doesn’t have any, and I know the toilet doesn’t. In following the pipes through the basements, the only valves we found where the ones for the outside taps, that just shut off every winter.
Also, the cold water pipes and well pump are all just dripping with condensation!
So we now have a nice, tall faucet on the sink that we can actually fit my big stock pots under. :-)
As for the window, this was my template.
As you can see, I have an enthusiastic helper!
This is the window we leave on throughout the winter, with 3 inch thick foam insulation on the inside. When it warms up, we would take it out and place a wire mesh “window” over the opening to allow air circulation to help keep the basement dry. It is much bigger than the window opening, and the wood framing the metal mesh is old and rotting. It finally broke apart last winter. Right now, we still have it leaning on the wall, but with the broken frame, critters could easily squeeze through, to the insulation is still in the window opening.
I used a piece of some of the wood I’d brought from a shed and used to make the screen door so we can leave the old basement door open. One piece was enough, even after cutting away the water damaged end.
I used the window to size the pieces, then double checked the sizing after cutting. The back of this window has self-adhesive foam weather stripping around the edges, but half of it is missing, so the pieces can’t lay flat, but it’s close enough.
Also, it’s very interesting to use a miter box with kittens trying to climb all over me and my work table! I had some trying to chew on the miter box, while others would take flying leaps at my legs, then climb up onto my shoulders.
The little beasts! :-D
The next step was to ready the right angle plates I got for this.
This was my original plan; I’d use a combination of wood glue and these plates to secure the corners. I thought to put them on the inner edges of the corners, first, but changed my mind and decided to put them on the outer edges. I marked out the screw holes so that I could drill pilot holes, later.
It…
Didn’t work.
I started by using wood glue on a corner, then putting on the plate, only to discover the screws I had were a fraction of an inch longer than the wood was thick! It was juuuuuusssssttt enough that I screwed the corner to the table a bit.
The other problem, however, was my pilot holes. They were shallow holes; I just wanted enough to make getting started, easier. A few of them ended up being ever so slightly off centre, then some of the screws started going off on angles.
The end result was that the angle plate ended up making the corners less squared!
So I took off the couple I’d put on and left it for later. I had already glued the pair of corners, which were supposed to be clamped for 10 minutes. I don’t have right angle clamps. One didn’t really need it, but I did end up using a C clamp on the other.
It was a good thing I had to wait for the glue to set for a while, because at that point, I was being thoroughly loved on and cuddled by Big Rig. Then Leyendecker joined us. Then they fell asleep on me! After a while, Big Rig took off, but Leyendecker stayed. I finally had to move, and discovered David settled in one of their box caves, so I put them together – and Leyendecker stayed!
Until my husband came down, and he ended up with kittens nursing behind his butt. :-D Finally, Beep Beep got tired of that – and she joined David!
David is such a sweetie will all the cats and kittens!
I was, eventually, able to continue with the window. :-D
One of the things I found among the many, many things shoved onto the support beam, between the floor joists above, was a roll of window screen. I dug it out and, after gluing the remaining two corners of the frame, used it to measure off a piece of screen.
I actually ended up throwing away the first piece I’d cut, as it turned out to be damaged.
I don’t know how long that roll had been sitting there, but it was just caked with dust!!! Enough to make unrolling it very… sticky. :-/ I cut the mesh larger than the frame, so that I could fold the edges in, for extra strength.
I also cut some of the wire mesh to size.
After fighting with the window screen for a while, trying to get the edges folded under, it occurred to me that I was working on the “pretty” side of the window frame, and that the screen and wire mesh needed to be on the “ugly” side, that would be facing inside the basement.
No, the wood glue wasn’t dry enough to hold, yet. Which was fine. After I flipped it, I just stuck it back together and kept going.
It took away longer to get those edges to fold under than I expected! Here, I’ve tacked the screen to the frame at the corners with a staple gun.
Once it was tacked in place, I got out some Weldbond adhesive and applied it to the edges, then used a cast off piece of wood to spread the adhesive and push it through the screen.
Then I added the wire mesh.
I was going to say I went overboard with the staple gun, but to be honest, I seriously considered adding even more. Every wire around the edge has a staple, alternating between the outside edge, and the next wire in.
The corners each got at least 4 staples. :-D
I’m hoping that, between the Weldbond and the staples, no critter is going to be able to force their way through.
I wasn’t gone yet, though!
Remember those plates?
It took some hunting, but I did find some shorter wood screws to use. The plates were positioned based on the wood based on where the wire was. As long as the point lined up with the corner joins, I just needed to not have a wire in the way of the screws.
Between the plates and the wire screen, this frame is not moving!
Next, I needed to add handles. I used cast off pieces of wood under the metal plates, to keep the adhesive off the worktable. I’d already accidentally screwed it to the table. I didn’t want to glue it, too! :-D
The weather stripping on the back of the window wouldn’t let it lie flat, but I could at least line up the edges. I then marked the sides of the new window frame at the latches, and at the knobs.
I then added the handles with the bottoms lined up with where I’d marked the placement of the knobs.
The latches on the window fit into holes in the window opening outside. Once in place, the window is flush with the wall around the window opening. The wood is much thicker than the plastic, so I know at the very least, it will stick out from the wall. What we might end up doing is adding another pair of latches, so the outside of that window opening will have the fittings for both windows on them.
We’ll make that decision later, though. It will all depend on how it fits.
For now, the window is finished. I’ll leave the adhesive to dry overnight, and tomorrow, I’ll see if I got it right and it fits – or if I screwed up! :-D
Once I know how it fits, we will be able to see what would work best for fastening it in place.
After that, the only thing left will be to paint it. We have several things that will need painting, so we’ll wait until later in the season and do all of them at the same time.
Happily, we are now able to cross a couple more things off the to-do list. The list isn’t going down as fast as I’d like, but it is going down! :-)
At 5pm, we reached 28C/82F with a humidex of 34C/93F, and we continue to get warnings for heat, flash floods and high water. Looking at the weather radar, however, it doesn’t look like the storms will hit us. We’ll be lucky to get rain. Usually, these systems come in from the North West, dip to the South of us, then get pushed back north to the East of us. Sometimes, they pass to the West of us. This time, there seems to be strong enough winds coming from the Southeast to actually push the system back to the Northwest of us!
The long range forecasts are not showing much relief, either. We’re looking to stay in the mid to high 20’s for the next two weeks. The only relief is that the lows are finally dropping to the mid to high teens, instead of staying in the 20’s, as they have been lately.
With this house, typically the basements stay cool, the main floor gets warm, while the second floor gets insanely hot. With the temperatures being so consistently hot, even the basements are starting to get warmer, though they are still significantly better than the rest of the house. The upstairs is getting unbearable. My daughter just had to stop working and shut down her computer, because it was over heating.
Normally, to help keep the house cool, the basement doors would be left open. With needing to keep the cats out of the old part basement completely, and keep the kittens in the new part basement, we have not been able to do this.
Last year, we used my daughter’s grid wall to act as a barrier in front of the old part basement door. The doorway is wider than a panel of grid wall, so we had two of them hooked together, at an angle. It did the job, but was very much in the way.
Today, I decided to do something about that.
After finishing my rounds this morning, I went into a shed not far from the barn, where I’d found some wood that was still in good shape. Some of them had 3″ deck screws in them, so I left those behind (though I did end up with a couple that had a screw at one end that I’d missed). The little wagon was great for bringing the pile over. :-)
Earlier, I’d also cleared away and hosed down the patio blocks in front of our kitchen window.
One of the things we need to do is build some sort of bin for our garbage bags, because the skunks are tearing them apart when we put them outside. Normally, there is a bench against the wall, and some other stuff, but when I cleaned up the mess and saw the gunk from however many times this has happened, left behind, I just had to hose it all down.
This meant we had access to the basement window.
It was much easier to pass the wood through the window, rather than trying to get it in through the main doors, then the basement door, then down the stairs.
All while dodging cats and kittens.
So this worked out very well.
I had enough of the wire mesh we’d used to make a divider between the basements, to make wire mesh door.
The kittens were very … helpful. Yeah. That’s it. :-D
I measured the basement door and sized it to match that. We were considering taking the door off its hinges and putting in the screen instead.
Of course, it didn’t quite work out that way.
I had also considered putting it on hinges on the inside of the door frame, but it turns out the frame is narrower on the basement side of the door jam than on the door side.
Which makes no sense, but at this point, we’re pretty used to things not making sense in this house! :-D
For now, we’ve got it rigged up with hooks and Bungee cords. I will be going into town tomorrow, and am thinking of stopping at a hardware store and seeing what they’ve got that would work.
Personally, standing in front of it, I felt nothing. We have the big blower fan going constantly in this basement, trying to keep the floor relatively dry, but I felt no air movement at all. Later, my husband went by and said he could feel a cool breeze, so I’m hoping it was just me.
If we can work out how to secure this, so that cats can’t push their way through, I have enough of the wire mesh left to make another one for the other basement door. We could even hinge it to open into the entryway, instead of over the basement stairs. Which would be so much better!
It isn’t much, but every little bit helps to cope with this heat!
One of these years, I hope to get an actual air conditioner installed.
After the owner of our visiting goat had to leave, we needed to figure out how we could make use of the chicken wire he left behind for us.
I knew there was a pile of wood in the barn, and I thought there might be some 2x4s on the bottom.
As soon as we were able, my younger daughter and I headed for the barn to dig them out.
Once they were cleared of the stuff on top, I discovered they were not 2x4s.
They were 3x4s. In pine – some still had bark on them. They were very roughly cut, some of the ends were wonky, and they were definitely not high end cuts. But they would do the job!
I decided to find a way to make a small corral of sorts, in such a way that we wouldn’t have to cut chicken wire that isn’t ours. I figured I could frame out the sides and ends of a sort of paddock, with uprights the same height, or slightly taller, than the chicken wire, then longer boards across top and bottom. With the wire attached across all of the sections at once, it could then be “folded” to create a fenced in area with a “gate” at one end.
The boards turned out to be 100 inches long.
Well… most of them…
So we cut uprights at 50 inches long. Four boards to make 8 uprights.
Then we unrolled the chicken wire and used the remaining long boards we’d brought to see if we could fit 4 of them, with spaces in between to create gaps that would allow us to “fold” the fence.
The wire was not long enough for 4 full length boards, so we ended up cutting a couple in half. This would give us 2 long sides and 2 short ends.
Once we figured that out, we measured out where we wanted to drill pilot holes for the screws in the uprights.
They were all marked the same distances at the top, then the bottoms were marked at 4 feet from the top, which is the height of the chicken wire. This would leave slightly more “leg” at the bottom, if we lined the wire up with the top.
Of course, it didn’t quite turn out as planned. Thankfully, this is not intended to be a permanent structure!
We only drilled pilot holes in the uprights. With the boards all being slightly wonky in size, there was just no way we could measure out where to drill matching pilot holes in the cross pieces.
Oddly, we also don’t have any longer drill bits, which would have allowed us to drill pilot holes through more than one board, so we couldn’t even try drilling pilot holes after putting the boards in position, first.
Then we discovered that not being able to drill pilot holes through the cross pieces meant we couldn’t even use a power drill with screwdriver attachment to screw the pieces together. The wood is hard enough that even our new drill didn’t have enough power to put a screw through on it’s own!
Still, we managed to put them together, with three of us screwing corners together at the same time. :-) Here is the first frame assembled.
My thought in orienting the boards this way was that the wire would be attached to the uprights, making it easier to grasp the cross pieces while moving everything around.
Here is all 4 sections, ready to have the wire attached.
With the shorter sections, the wire is now too long, but we figured we could fold it back around the ends on one side, and on the other side, it could be used to wrap around the corner after closing the “door” section.
Unfortunately, the only thing we had to attached the wire to the frames was a staple gun – and not a larger, heavy duty one. It is enough to attach the wire mesh we used to make the new basement cat safe, but it was a bit more difficult on this. For starters, the wood is hard enough, and the staples small enough, that the staples tended to not want to stay at all, never mind hold wire in place. We hoped using enough staples would do the trick, but once we picked it up, most of them just popped right off!
So, my daughters got creative.
They used rope around the top cross pieces to hold the wire in place, making sure to anchor the corners. Then, because it was still wobbly, rope and tent pegs were used to create support.
The whole time we worked on this, we were watched with much curiosity!
Once it was set up and secure, we tried to make it tempting.
There is straw for bedding, the bucket of water, and a container with food in it.
We will just leave it like this for her to get used to, and not try to close her up in it. I am hoping she will use the bedding tonight instead of sleeping on the hard concrete step.
So far, she has gone to sniff at it, but we haven’t seen her actually go in, yet.
I have just been informed, however, that the goat can get up onto the board sheltering the window into the old basement that used to be used to throw firewood into the basement!
While up there, the goat allowed my younger daughter to touch her nose!
None of us have been able to get close enough to touch her until now.
Progress!!
Little by little, with lots of patience, we hope the goat will finally let us near. Then let her owner near her, too. He really, really wants to trim her overgrown hooves!
The Re-Farmer 