Today, I finally started painting the kibble house. The temperatures were pretty warm. It is “only” 22C/70F as I write this, but after today, we’re supposed to get hit with another heat wave over the next week, peaking at 34C/93F, so I’m glad to get it started today. And glad we aren’t expected to see the 40-45C/104-113F temperatures that some provinces are getting hit with right now!
Under the tent, it was much more pleasant. If fact, I could forget the heat, until I stepped out into the sun for a few moments!
The first coat, I’m happy to say, is done.
Mostly.
We won’t be able to do the rest until the paint has cured enough to flip it, and the floor pieces, upside down.
The roof may or may not get a second coat. We will likely shingle it, but until we do, the paint will be enough to protect it from the elements for now.
Even with just one coat, it’s looking so much better already. My daughter chose a lovely colour. :-) This is REALLY going to brighten up the yard!
If we end up not putting on shingles, I’m thinking we should paint garish designs all over the roof. :-D
I tried to get the more reachable parts underneath, but not under the overlap of the roof itself. And not just because I didn’t want to disturb this beauty!
What a gorgeous moth!
As far as I know, it’s still there, too. :-)
I’m not sure if we’ll bother painting the underside of the roof. Maybe just around the overlap, if at all. I do want to get the inside walls, though. That will make it easier to clean up after dirty kitties! The gaps under the roof are there partly so the cats and get in and out through them, if needed. They did use those gaps over the winter, which meant muddy paw prints, all the way up the walls. :-D
Today, we were able to make an unexpected trip to do some shopping, thanks to my husband’s disability payment coming in early. Top of the list was to replace our broken vacuum cleaner! :-D
Of course, with making a trip to the city, even if it’s the smaller, closer one, we were going to take advantage of it and get other things we need.
I’m happy to say that we not only found a new vacuum – marketed as being particularly good for pet hair – we happened to catch a sale and got it at half the price I’d budgeted for!
We were also able to pick up more mesh for the squash tunnel. They didn’t have the same type we’d used before in stock, so we got more chicken wire. I don’t think the squash and melons care what shape the mesh they’re climbing is. ;-)
Another one of the things I really needed to get was a new pair of work shoes. Not only have I worn my old ones out to the point they’re falling apart, but the cats have discovered how to take the insoles out and have been tearing them apart!
Considering the sorts of things I’ve been doing for the past while, I also wanted to get steel toed shoes.
Much to may amazement, the very first pair that I tried on was perfect! I’d actually looked at casual shoes first – in the men’s section, because women’s shoes don’t fit my feet – hoping to get a pair of slip ons. I normally get a men’s size 9, triple wide, but I couldn’t find any wide ones. I couldn’t even get my toes into a size 11! So I wasn’t holding out much hope with the work shoes. Particularly since none of the boxes were marked as wide. So getting it right on the very first pair, and for them to be so incredibly comfortable, was like Christmas!
Then when we went to pay for our stuff, my daughter stole the box and bought them for me for my birthday. :-D
No, it’s not my birthday. It’s not even my birth month, yet. But that’s how we do things. :-D
I also got myself an early birthday present.
A 10′ x 10′ canopy tent, to replace the one that broke last year. That one was so handy when we were painting the picnic table, and didn’t have to worry about it getting rained on or whatever, I really wanted to get another. It’s just a Walmart cheapie, but we’ve had a couple of them in the past, leaving them behind when we moved. According to the box, they’ve improved the design, and added a feature to make it easier to set up with just one person.
This evening, I set it up.
And promptly discovered a problem with one of the new features.
This handle in the middle is made so that, once you have the canopy on and the legs set to the height you want, all you need to do is push up on it and it will open fully and lock in place.
Have I mentioned that I’m short?
I’m not THAT short, but still…
I had the legs at the lowest level, yet when I pushed up on the handle, I couldn’t get it far enough to lock in place. Not only that, but the entire tent would start lifting, instead! :-D I did eventually get it, of course, but I had to jump to do it.
I suspect this was designed with the average height male in mind! :-D
But I got it, and that’s the important part!
Which means we can now paint the kibble house. :-)
There is plenty of space for it! :-)
Nutmeg seems distressed that the floor is gone! :-D
You can see part of the floor in the background.
The two sections of the floor boards got a thorough scrubbing to take off many months of muddy paw prints! :-D
The rest of the kibble house got scrubbed inside and out, including the muddy bottoms of the legs.
Once it’s dry, it’ll be ready for painting.
By the end of the day, my new shoes got a pretty decent workout!
I’m really glad to have gotten the steel toed shoes. Very handy, just in case I almost, *ahem* sort of, just about, *cough* maybe, could have dropped a kibble house on them.
Our first blizzard of the season has passed us by. The weather system is still going, though. On the weather radar, I can see that a swath of the US, Ontario and Quebec are being hit as the storm makes its way to the East coast.
As I write this, we are at -22C/-7.6F, with a wind chill of -36C/-32.8F (I usually round the Fahrenheit down, but decided to include the decimals today. :-D ) Our high of the day is supposed to reach -19C/-2.2F with a wind chill of -30C/-22F Tomorrow is supposed to be a couple of degrees colder.
Then on Christmas day, we’re supposed to reach a high of -9C/15.8F with a wind chill of -14C/6.8F We’ll have these mild temperatures for a couple of days, then it’s supposed to drop around the -20C’s for a couple of days, before going back to mild temperatures in time for the new year.
It’s going to feel like spring.
The girls did some shoveling yesterday, so things wouldn’t accumulate too much as it continued to snow.
I was seeing this on the live feed from the security camera last night.
The storm came in from the west, but it was swirling so much, the winds in the image are actually coming from the east!
When one of my daughters had to take the bag of cat litter they cleaned out last night to the bin we have for it outside, she had to push the door open through a snow drift.
You can see signs of that, below.
This is how it was this morning.
You can almost see the path the girls shoveled down the sidewalk! :-D
They also shoveled in front of the cat shelters.
Do you see those icicles hanging from the cat house roof? You know what that means?
It’s warm in there! Warm enough to melt the snow from underneath.
I’m so glad that aquarium bulb is working out as a heater! It’s not enough to warm it up too much, either; too warm, and it will affect their ability to acclimatize to the winter and put them more at risk from the cold.
Some snow did get into the kibble house, unfortunately. We’ll have to clean that out later, when we’re doing more shoveling. This morning, I just did the minimum I needed to do to feed the critters.
The other water bowls were completely buried, but the heated water bowl was doing just fine!
You can see tracks in the background, between the two shelters. Those led to the storage house, so we know that some cats are still sheltering under there, too.
Once I cleared enough snow to give the cats fresh food and water, I continued clearing a path to the feeding station, where the smaller bird feeder is hanging. That will do for now. Eventually, we will need to dig paths to the compost pile, down the sidewalk and to the electricity meter, and to the garage. The girls had cleared all three doors of the garage, including where the snow blower is stored. I can see on the security camera that it isn’t completely filled it again. :-D
I was going to take pictures of the shoveling I did this morning, but I just wanted to get back inside! Plus, my glasses were frosted over and I couldn’t see. :-D
Aside from the paths, we will need to clear the driveway to the road, of course, but we will also need to clear into the yard, for when we need to drive up to the house. That has to include space for a turning radius. Plus, we will need to make paths around the house, so we can reach the septic tank, if needed, and it would be good to have a path to the fire pit, too. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to take the big snow blower in to see why it won’t start and get it fixed. So all we’ve got is the little electric one. We do also have an “electric shovel” that my dad used to use. We used it our first winter here. So we won’t have to do all of it by hand, at least!
All that clearing does not have to be done right away. We are well stocked and don’t have to go anywhere, so it can wait until it warms up a bit.
The last couple of winters, our first blizzards were in October, so this one was very late in the season. It may be a lot more snow than we’ve had so far, but it’s actually not too bad. We still only got hit by the edges of the storm. The more severe parts of the storm moved across the Canada/US border, so the south of the provinces all got hit a lot harder. We are doing pretty good where we are. I’m also happy to have more snow in general. Having this stored water will be essential in the spring, for gardens and fields. Lots of snow with a nice, gradual spring melt, would be ideal conditions for planting in the spring, whether it’s farmers’ crops or garden beds. Our first two summers here were drought conditions. Last year, we had a wet spring, followed by a hot, dry summer, and that wet spring was enough to keep crops going through the heat later on.
We shall see what the rest of the season brings us. I’ve seen predictions for both severe cold and mild temperatures for this winter. So far, it’s looking like the mild prediction is the one that’s panning out.
Until then, we’ll enjoy our Christmas while snowed in, all warm and cozy!
Including the outside kitties. :-) Relatively speaking!
I hope anyone reading this that got hit by this storm, too, is also safe, warm and well!
I am happy to say, the modification to the kibble house did the trick.
While the containers were pushed around a bit, they were all inside the kibble house, where they belong, and not on the ground. The cats seem a bit perplexed by it being there, but that clearly hasn’t stopped them from breakfast. :-D
I wonder if it will affect how much the skunks will get into the kibble at all. They can climb up well enough, but their short little legs make getting down harder. Now that there is also the board in the way, it will be even more difficult. We will have to keep an eye out and see.
Well, today blew away the predicted high, by a long shot! When I checked this morning, we were supposed to reach 8C/46F. As I write this, past 4pm, we are at 14C/57F! It was downright hot out there! :-D
One of my daughters added more mulch to where they planted the back-ordered tulips. The planting depth was 12-18 inches, including mulch, for them to be able to come back every year, and they definitely have that now. :-)
While that was being done, my other daughter cleaned out the eaves troughs while I held the ladder for her. Not all of them were done. One corner is just too dangerous.
Also, we need new eaves troughs, along with a new roof. :-/
I was able to clean out the fire pit.
I sifted the ashes, putting the bits of wood and charcoal back in the pit, while the sifted ashes went into the compost pile. I then made use of what used to be the “roof” over the old basement window that broke off at the hinges. It’ll keep the snow out if we want to use the fire pit in the winter.
The modifications to the kibble house floor were done.
One sheet of insulation was enough. I had to trim the length to fit. There was no trimming of the width. I cut notches to fit into the sides as well.
After the wood floor boards were returned, I cut a piece of salvaged wood to length. I used some of the bits of insulation that were trimmed off as spacers for the height. We will be able to slide the floor boards straight out the front. The insulation under it is narrow enough that it can be lifted out from the inside.
After the cross piece was screwed in place, I returned the kibble containers and topped them up.
Obviously, the cats are quite content with it there.
Hopefully, the skunks will no longer be able to pull the containers down anymore.
Now that it’s daylight, I could check to see how the tarp was looking. This only needs to hold out for one winter. Next year, we’ll paint it from top to bottom, and the tarp will no longer be needed.
Wind is the big problem. This is the tarp we used last year, to try and create a shelter for the cats in front of a shelf outside the sun room. The winds kept tearing it apart, and one corner of the tarp is pretty badly damaged. That made tying it down from underneath a bit more difficult, since one of the grommets is torn off.
The shelf we’d used is now moved, but I turned the bottom two shelves into a critter cave.
The insulation on the bottom shelves were there from last year. As this shelf is not something we are trying to keep or preserve, I used some bits and pieces of insulation and nailed them in place, to create the cave-like shelter. The taller tops will keep the stuff in the top shelf from getting knocked out or blown around. This will be removed in the spring.
The top of the shelf has been losing layers of the … plywood? … that was on top. I’d put some larger pieces of insulation to cover it, but the wind kept blowing it around. Since the surface was so damp and coming off anyway, I removed the last of the warped bits.
I found the original surface, underneath! I wonder why it was covered?
I made a new “roof” of pieces of rigid insulation, covered in plastic. With the tarp, I’d used a staple gun to try and hold it in place, but the winds just tore it all loose.
This time, I just nailed it in place.
Because the top was still a bit damp, the “roof” has spacers under it. Between the overhangs and the plastic, no new moisture should be able to get under there any more.
So now, if there are any critters that can’t shelter in the cat’s house, they’ll have this to shelter in, if necessary.
They might have a spiffy new heated house, but the boys seem to miss the sun room!
I didn’t have to heard to chase them out after everything was cleaned up and put everything away. We’ll just have to remember to close up the sun room later on this evening! :-)
The Re-Farmer 