cat isolation shelter

Beautiful night, productive day

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As I posted earlier, in the wee hours of the morning, my daughters and I had done out last night to see the Perseids meteor shower. My daughters had read that the peak viewing period would be around 3am. We even brought out the tripod so I could set my phone up and take photos.

Well, we didn’t see very many meteors, but we did get a light show!

My older daughter’s the one who actually took most of the photos. I the fourth one of the slideshow, at the top near the middle, you can just see that a meteor was caught in the shot.

It was an awesome night, too. Lovely and cool – just the perfect temperature! – with nice clear skies for viewing the stars.

The meteor shower is supposed to be visible tonight, too. I checked The Farmer’s Almanac, and it says that the peak viewing period should be around midnight, not 3am, but I guess that depends on what time zone you’re in. Either way, we plan to be out again tonight, at around midnight.

After we were done, my older daughter got back to work and my younger daughter ended up staying up as well. They have been arranging their sleep schedules so that and one of them is up and available, any time of day, and my younger daughter has the “day shift”. 😁 She was a sweetheart and took are of feeding the outside cats this morning – and washing the one kitten’s infected eyes – for me, so I could get a bit of extra sleep.

Once I got outside, my priority was to water the garden before it got too hot, then did a bit of harvesting. After I had breakfast… er… lunch, I made a trip to the post office, making sure to leave the gate open when I got back. I got some more painting done on the pre-cut frame pieces for the cat isolation shelter – three sides are now done. I then spent the next couple of hours, mowing. The driveway hasn’t been done in so long, I had to go over it twice to get it cut to the length I wanted.

I’m going to have lots of “hay” to collect! The grass is so thick in places, even this mower, set as high as it could go, was struggling!

Gosh, it all looks so much better!

Now that that’s done, I’ll get back to cutting more lengths of wood for the isolation shelter frame, so they can be painted before construction, too.

As I think about the construction, I am debating how to make the access doors. There’s going to be a main door that will swing down and convert into a ramp when it’s open. When not in use as an isolation shelter, we plan to leave it open and available for the cats to become familiar with it, and a ramp would make it easier for kittens to get in and out.

Since I don’t have salvaged windows that slide open to incorporate into the design, I am thinking of making sliding doors instead of doors that swing out. I think that will give more security for if we have a particularly feral cat inside. We’d be able to reach in and out without having to open a sliding door all the way. With a swing door, the door itself would be in the way if we wanted to open it partially. A sliding door would also be handy for releasing a cat from a trap, as it could be opened just enough to fit the end of the trap.

I’ll have to think about that, some more. Whatever I decide for the access points, the rest of the structure doesn’t need to change, so I can literally wait until the shelter frame and interior is completely assembled, then see what works best.

I’m having fun with this build! It’s going to be the most complicated thing I’ve built and, with using salvaged materials or whatever we can afford to get, the plans have to be pretty loosey goosey!

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Cat isolation shelter progress: looking good!

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When I first started thinking about the plans for a smaller isolation shelter, one thing I did not think about was painting it. That’s always been something we dealt with after the build. Paint, however, is going to be needed, to protect the wood and keep it from rotting too quickly. This is especially important, considering that I’m using salvaged wood that already had damage to it.

Given that this build is going to have a lot of stuff going on on the inside, I decided it would be much easier to paint the parts and pieces before assembly, rather than trying to reach inside to do it.

In going through our leftover paint, the can that felt like it had a decent amount in it was the peacock blue used on the floating benches (benches built on tree stumps that aren’t painted, so they’ll look like they’re floating when things grow back under them) and the folding table we cobbled together. The can of red seemed to have some weight to it, plus I also found a quarter can of white that was used to make our sign for those trying to find our address that doesn’t exist on any online maps.

I know we’ll need a decent amount of paint, so why not mix them together? They are all water based exterior paints, so mixing them would work fine.

I started off by setting up the frame pieces that are already cut.

They all needed a bit of a cleaning of dust, dirt and debris, first. Once that was done, I opened the cans to see what we had.

The blue was about half full, but there wasn’t much left of the red or the white.

I had a very pleasant surprise once they were all mixed together. I really like the resulting colour! When it’s time to buy more, which I expect to need to do before the project is done, I definitely want to colour match this!

I had looked for paint rollers and trays, and I did find the roller frames and a tray, but no rollers. I know we have some. I even remember finding one still in its package. Where they ended up, I have no idea.

So, paint brush it was.

With the frame pieces, they were pushed close together so the tops could be painted all at once. The cut ends were done, and part of exposed sides of the row, but that’s it. After they were painted, I spread them out for air circulation as they dried.

I really like that colour!

Once that was done, it was time to put the wheels on the pallet.

My original plan had been to cut away part of the slats at each corner, so the wheels could be attached to the solid wood below. They were far too damaged to bother, though. These pallets were used by the roofers. While they were working, I have a fire going to burn the branches and wood that were too big for the commercial wood chipper used when we got the branch pile cleaned out, a couple of years ago. It was cold and snowing while the roofers were working, and they would sometimes go to the fire to warm themselves. When they were done, they tossed the pallets to the still-hot ashes. So what you’re seeing on the bottom of the pallet is ashes and a bit of scorching. The pieces at each long end got the most damage, so it was easier to just break them off and pull the nails. The slats were so cracked, it was easy to break them off by hand!

The ends were also a bit too damaged, so when I used the wheels to mark off where the pilot holes needed to be drilled, I butted them up against the next slats in.

Then I had to dig through our collection of wood screws to find ones suitable to attach the wheels. The ones I’d already brought to the garage were for attaching the frame pieces together, so there are a lot of really long screws, but no shorter ones. After digging around in the sun room, among the boxes of screws that cats hadn’t managed to spill all over the floor, yet, I found some that would do. Thanks to the new cordless drill and driver set, and the set of driver tips my husband got me for Mother’s Day, attaching the wheels took almost no time at all!

My husband is such a sweetheart.

Once the wheels were on, it was time to flip the pallet over and test them out.

Oh, they are going to make moving this thing SO easy!! They might have some trouble going through the grass in the yard, but that should be manageable. I love that they all rotate 360°, too.

That done, the top got brushed clean, and it was time to paint!

Have I mentioned, I love that colour?

I plan to do just one coat of paint, and will not be painting the underside. I did make sure all the edges were well coated, though.

Once that was done, I went and took garden tour video, then checked on the frame pieces. They were still too wet to flip, so the other sides will be done tomorrow, then the edges. In between painting, I’ll be measuring out and cutting other pieces, so by the time those are painted and dry on all sides, I’ll have more cut pieces ready to paint.

So that is progress on the cat isolation shelter, so far.

Next, I need to work on the garden tour video.

Oh, I’ve just been getting messages from my brother. They’ll be coming over tomorrow, early in the morning, to bring stuff to store in the barn. They do know we haven’t been able to mow a path to the barn, but I hadn’t told him yet that we have no working lawn mowers at all. He knows, now. They won’t be staying long or making much of a visit. My SIL is allergic to cats, so they can’t come into the house, really.

I’m looking forward to seeing them! That will be a great start to the day!

The Re-Farmer

Isolation shelter build started

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I’ll be honest, here. We’re really just winging it on this build, even though it’s going to be quite a bit more complex than the kibble house and water bowl shelters. It all comes done so what materials we can scavenge.

There are plans, however!

Plans that needed to change, but still plans! 😁

The original plan was for a 4′ x 4′ cube, divided up inside to have an enclosed shelter that will be insulated, a not quite enclosed shelter for a litter pan, and two levels with space for food and water bowls, and just hanging out.

We had a couple of pallets that were left by the roofers. My original intention was to dismantle them and use the wood mostly for the floor.

That did NOT work out!

The pallets are nailed together mechanically. The nail heads are deeply embedded in the wood – and the wood is quite thin. When I tried to pry them off, the wood started splitting.

Time for plan B!

The pallet will be the floor, more or less as is.

I measured the pallet’s length and width at the boards inside, and each side was slightly different. I brought over the circular saw and cut the ends flush to the outside boards. The most damaged side will be the bottom of the floor.

I could still work with 4′ lengths on two walls, and the other two will be 40″, to fit on the pallet. The shelter will still be 4′ tall.

For the main parts of the frame, I’m using the true-to-size salvaged 2 x 4 lumber in the barn. There’s hardly any of that left, but there’s enough for this project. It feels like a shame to “waste” it on something like this. The wood is old and the ends have started to rot a bit, but it’s really solid and heavy wood. It is, however, what we have, so that’s what we’ll use. Other parts of the build will have more modern, standard 2×4’s, which are not true to size, and are quite a bit lighter. We have even less of that, so we’ll have to plan accordingly.

For now, I’ve cut lengths to make the front and back panels, which will be 4′ square. The frame will be attached directly to the pallet once put together, but that won’t happen quite yet. The dirt floor of the garage is pretty level, but not flat, mostly due to shallow tire ruts. Right now, the pallet can’t lie flat on the ground. I’m heading into the nearer city tomorrow, and will be looking at what wheels are available, and affordable.

Once the pallet has its wheels, it will be able to straddle the uneven parts of the floor, and be sturdier to work on.

Once the “box” is framed out, the interior will be worked on, including things like extra surfaces for cats to lie on, something they can scratch at, and so on. Once that’s all figured out, access panels or hinged doors will be made so that the litter box, food bowls and enclosed shelter can be reached from the outside. For the enclosed shelter, what I will probably do is make an insulated box that can be removed completely, if necessary.

I haven’t fully decided on how to do the roof. It will most likely be a low slope metal roof. I just haven’t decided how I want to make the slope while not having any gaps.

Last of all, the welded wire hardware cloth will be added to those walls that are not enclosed with wood. We might not be able to pick that up until the end of the month, though. Unless we find something on hand that we can use.

Anyhow. That’s progress so far. Reworking the plans and making the first cuts for the frame.

Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer