making do

A good morning!

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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

The Re-Farmer

Coping with the heat: building a screen “door”

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Our current heat wave continues.

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.

The Re-Farmer

What a job!

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My brother, being the wonderful person that he is, came over to remove the rusted out screws on the trailer frame with an angle grinder.

I told him about the box for an angle grinder I’d found in the garage. The one with human teeth in it. He figures that is probably the strangest thing we’ve found, since moving out here! Though I admit, there are some things that are still competing for that top spot.

I had to pop over to the house while he was working on the trailer frame, and he was done by the time I came back! I did find one that he’d missed, though, so I was able to get a picture of him working on it. :-D

He also removed the remains of old lights at the end, and cut the bolts of a piece in the corner that had been twisted completely around. That corner that you see? Where those squarish marks are? There used to be a sort of bumper there, with a piece on the frame below the bolt hole at the very end. The piece is still there. It’s just now on the inside, instead of the outside.

Some of the old screws he took off still had their heads on them. They were hex screws. Totally the wrong kind of screw for the job.

After he was done, he showed me how to use the self drilling screws I picked up, and we took measurements. Exactly 2 sheets of plywood will fit on there, but we will need to cut openings for the tires and make some sort of fenders.

It is now ready for cleaning and rust removal and, if all goes well, painting.

Then he surprised me.

He had ulterior motives for coming out. He didn’t drive all that way just to take off a few screws for me.

The shed next to the barn, where we found the table saw, has holes in it. I believe it was last year, or maybe our first year here, I’d helped him cover holes on one side, but we weren’t able to do more at the time.

It’s been bugging him, ever since.

We still have sheets of metal roofing in the barn, left over from when the barn itself, and other buildings, had them installed.

Note the piece of equipment with the board leaning on the tank. I’ll have more to say about that, later.

On the left is what we put on last year. We actually dragged them out from a pile outside the barn, and one of them had a piece cut out of it.

On the right, my brother has already covered one hole with a short piece. None of the pieces we had were long enough to cover the whole length, so he put short pieces along the bottom, first, so there would be an overlap.

The scary part was having to go to the peak of the roof and unscrew that top cap, so he could slide the panels under it. He screwed a scrap of plywood we found in the barn down first. There was no way he could have climbed to the top without it.

This was interesting.

There are three types of shingles on here, and so much of one type has blown away, we can see what are likely the original shingles.

What an interesting diamond shape! That roof must have looked great, when it was new!

Here is how the roof looked, at the end.

Bits and pieces, cobbled together, but who cares what it looks like? No more gaping holes!

My brother is just screwing down some pieces of metal we found in the barn that could be used as top caps. After that, he put in more screws as far as he could reach from the ladder, so the winds won’t catch and blow them off.

It was very, very dangerous up there. That ladder on the right was the best place to get up there, but there were tree branches in the way, making it even more dangerous. Once he was safely at the top, I went and grabbed a saw and cut away almost half the tree (one tree at the base, two trunks up the sides).

I’m keeping that wood for future carving!

My brother is really, really awesome. We spent hours out there, working on it, and I couldn’t do much more than pass him things, and hold the ladder for him.

Remember that piece of equipment by the building?

Thanks to ladder holding, I was looking at it from angles I hadn’t, before. I asked my brother if he knew was it was. It belonged to our late brother, and has been sitting there for at least 10 years.

After looking it over, we figured it out.

It’s a boiler system for steam cleaning.

The boiler itself is pretty amazing.

There should be a cover on that round opening.

Just look on the date on that thing!

It had to have been salvaged from somewhere. I wonder if my late brother built it? He certainly had the skills to do it.

The fuel tank is actually part of the trailer frame! On the left, you can see the fender over one of the tires.

Both tires are flat, which is why this end is resting on the ground.

The white tank in front would have held the water. It was most likely used to steam clean culverts or something like that.

That boiler isn’t the only old object of interest we talked about.

As we were putting everything away and getting ready to leave the barn, my brother pointed at a metal object on the floor and told me to make sure to keep that. I had no idea what it was.

It turned to be part of an antique hand pump for a well. A wooden handle would have been attached to it. I was told there was another one, but my mother had sold it to a scrap dealer, years ago.

*sigh*

After all this, my brother couldn’t even stay for lunch. Our mother was expecting him, and by the time we were done, he barely had time to come into the house and say hello to the rest of the family!

Have I mentioned my brother is amazing?

I don’t know what we would do without him! No one living knows this place better than he does! And certainly no one else in the family has the tools, skills and knowledge – not to mention physical ability – to do stuff like this. It’s been many years, since I was physically able to go up on a roof like that! Of course, being a woman of ample proportions, I would have gone straight through a roof in that condition, with or without a sheet of plywood to climb on!

So that was a whole lot of hours in the sun, but the job is done. My brother figures, this probably added about 10 years to the life of the building.

Well. On this side, maybe. The other side probably won’t last that long, and I think we’re out of metal roofing material to do that side, anyhow! It doesn’t get the brunt of the weather, though, the way the side we covered did.

What a job!

While I may not need to do it this year, I should cut the rest of that tree down. It would be a shame to work so hard to preserve the shed from the top, only to have it wrecked from the bottom. The tree is growing right out from under a wall!

Little by little, we’ll get this place fixed up.

The Re-Farmer

Well, that didn’t work

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Feeling rather haggard this morning, so I’ll start with cuteness, first.

When I saw Big Rig lying on her back, sleeping, I just had to get a picture. Unfortunately, I woke her up in the process, but she didn’t move much. :-D

After rigging up walls around the kitty pool, we waited until the kittens were in run-around-and-play mode, rather than sleeping-in-a-pile mode, transferred their bedding and set them up. Which is also when we discovered that one of the cats that had jumped in to explore had tried to use the tiny litter pan, and peed right next to it, instead.

And that, my friends, is exactly why the plastic pool seemed like such a great idea! It was an easy mess to clean up. Especially since we set it up on the shag carpet in the living room.

Two Face was quick to join them.

And eat their kitten food, while they explored new things. Like tiny litter pans.

Not much changed when Beep Beep joined them.

Things seemed to be working. The kittens had more room. They could explore solid food, water and a litter pan to their hearts’ content. They had their familiar bedding.

It did seem a bit too open, rather than the cave-like nests they were used to, but would it work?

No.

The walls were high enough the kittens couldn’t get out, but that also made them a bit harder for Beep Beep to get in. Which was not an issue until she started jumping out with a kitten in her mouth.

Yup. As soon as she could, she started moving the kittens.

She dragged Nicco into a corner of my closet, but in the time it took for her to return for another kitten, Nicco was exploring my bedroom. This is a large room. I’ve got my office in one corner, my crafting table in another, and there’s still lots of room for a king size bed, exercise bike and other furniture.

In other words, there is a lot kittens can get into.

After a while, we ended up moving the kitty pool into the bedroom, set up a litter box near my desk, put all the kittens back in the kitty pool, and shut Beep Beep in with me for the night. We even added one of the boxes that had been part of their next before, to create a cave inside, hoping that would satisfy Beep Beep.

That. Did. Not. Work.

Beep Beep eventually started moving the kittens back into my closet, and with all the squealing and squawling, I finally got up and took the last kitten out myself. They spent the rest of the night in my closet, but I ended up not being able to get to bed until about 4:30 am.

While getting dressed later, I had to fight kittens off my ankles and feet. I tried having the door open, which lead to a rush of other cats coming in. While Beep Beep immediately left, Two Face rushed in and began aggressively mothering any kitten that came with reach of her paws. As they went past her, she would grab them with her front legs and do a death roll, then groom them like mad while they struggled to squirm out of her grip!

Then there was David, who kept following kittens around, trying to sniff and groom them any moment they stopped moving long enough. Cheddar was also following them around. Especially the orange ones, just sniffing at them.

Fenrir, on the other hand, came in just to growl and hiss. Keith came in, but when a kitten came running up to him, he had a panic attack and ran away.

Keith is just a raw bundle of nerves, that boy!

The rest of the cats, thankfully, stayed away.

I finally managed to get all the kittens into the kitty pool again, hoping I could leave the door open and get to the daily routine. I left the room for less than 5 minutes, only to come back and find Beep Beep already moving the kittens back to the closet, while Two Face, David and Cheddar watched. I ended up taking the rest of the kittens out, because I’m concerned she will hurt them with all the jumping around, kicked the rest of the cats out and shut Beep Beep in with her babies. Now, I’m shut in with Beep Beep and the babies again. Which means being on constant guard for kittens around my feet, or the wheels of my office chair.

*sigh*

As soon as I’m done here, we’re going to set up some “caves” the kittens can get in and out of in the basement, then down they’re going to go. Until they get bigger, we’re going to have to keep the basement door closed to keep the other cats out.

*sigh*

Having that door open really does help keep the house a bit cooler.

Ah, well. We had it closed up for the past 2 summers. We’ll live. :-/

I had an energy drink with breakfast. I still feel ready for a nap.

It’s going to be a long day. :-/

The Re-Farmer

Building a goat catcher!

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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!

I hope our goat catcher works. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Found it!

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No, we didn’t find the source of the knocking in the van.

We picked up the van, dropping off my mom’s car at the same time, then did a quick trip to the grocery store before we had to pick Two-Face up from the vet. My daughter also made an appointment to get our original Mama, who showed up as a stray on our balcony, years ago, and brought us her baby. She has been acting very ornery lately, growling and hissing at the other cats, and sometimes nothing at all. So she will be brought in for a check up on Monday.

Then we headed home, and…

The van is running smooth as butter.

We had talked to the mechanic for a while, and we still can’t figure out what caused the knocking and shuddering. If it had been the CV joint, it would have made a different noise. Still, I’m glad that in the process of trying to track down the noise, we were able to find and fix another problem before it became a bigger problem in the future.

Two-Face, meanwhile, seems to be doing okay. She’s found a place to sleep things off, and I haven’t even seen the surgical site yet.

No, what I found today was the source of an odd pain I would get in my foot, when I wore my runners. One of those little stabbing pains that I couldn’t quite tell if something was stuck in my shoe, or stuck in my sock. Then, while I was moving things we’d taken from the basement to the barn, I happened to step on an edge of concrete, and something stabbed me in the foot again. Hard.

So I took my shoe off right there in the barn and this time, I could feel something inside my shoe. It took some hunting on the sole, but I finally found what stepping on the concrete had pushed into my foot.

Thankfully, among the things we brought to the barn from the basement was a tray full of odds and ends, including the remains of a small standard tip screwdriver. I was able to use it to pry the nail loose from my shoe. It had to be pushed in really deep before I could finally find it from the inside! I have no idea when I stepped on this but, thankfully, it went in at an angle, or it would have gone right into my foot.

Meanwhile, the girls and I were able to clear most of the stuff away from the front of the house, either to the barn, the burn pile or the junk pile that we’ll need to get hauled away with a trailer. What’s left needs to go to the dump. The van has already been filled, ready for tomorrow. We’ll have to make sure to take multiple trips this week, to catch up on all the trash and recycling we normally would have taken to the dump earlier in the week.

It feels so much better not to have all that stuff in front of the house!!!

My other project of the day meant I got to spend some time with the (still pregnant) mamas in the basement. I dismantled the hanging frame I made for the cheese and started cleaning up and sanding the wood.

Some of the wood needed to be shaved and smoothed with a knife, first. One of the side pieces had a bit of a crack in it, so I glued and clamped it. I’ll need to pick up some coarser sandpaper before I can continue working on that one. I was able to get some progress with the rest of the pieces, though.

Here’s a before and after, so far. I was able to whip the rig together in about half an hour, and it did the job. I just want to get it finished properly, now that there is no rush. My daughter has a shift tomorrow, so I should be able to swing by the hardware store and pick up more sandpaper and be able to continue.

Well. Not right away. With the van already packed for the dump, I’ll have to do that first. I’ll just have to remember to go back into town to pick up my daughter early enough to catch the hardware store before it closes.

I am so happy to have our van back.

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: basement – Done!!!

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Woohoo!!!

It’s done!

The girls and I made a push to finish tonight and, as I write this, we now have two very pregnant cats in the new “maternity ward”.

Before we hauled out all the stuff waiting by the stairs, my daughters and I went rifling through a shed and the barn to see what we could find to use as doors.

First, we went into the shed, where I knew there were some doors that might work. We decided against them, but found some decent wood in a corner. We found a couple more pieces in the barn.

With the trellis wire left over from covering the counter opening to the unfinished bar, we figured we could build a mesh door to size.

I also started to bring some of my tools down. I’m so excited to be able to do that!!!

While in the barn, we found these.

They are actually plastic windows. They were wide enough to fit over the opening into the unfinished bar – there’s space at the top, but the cats won’t be able to get up there.

They almost fit over the opening to the old basement, but that wider part on the bottom couldn’t be covered.

My thought had been to build the wire mesh door for the bar opening, which would have allowed us to make a hinged door (except we didn’t have any hinges handy). With using one of these windows instead, hinges couldn’t be attached, anyhow.

So I found some cup holder hooks and Bungee cords. The idea was to have a pair of Bungee cords holding the window pane in place. That didn’t work out exactly as planned, as we only had one Bungee cord that was the right size.

We made do. You’ll see how in the next photo. :-D

After bringing the stuff to make doors down, the girls and I hauled out what needed to be gotten rid of. We now have an awful mess outside our main door, but cleaning that up will have to wait until the weather improves. Plus, finished the basement was the priority.

The girls started working on building the frame for the wall opening while I started cleaned the window panes, then started cleaning up the area by the stairs.

When it was time to screw the frame together, the girls couldn’t find any usable screws in any of the buckets and miscellaneous containers we kept. There were just nails.

So we ended up using the deck screws I’d taken out from the barn doors, after our vandal had boarded them up.

I’m still giggling about the irony of that.

Once the frame was screwed together, the mesh was stapled into place in two overlapping pieces. There was a possibility of a cat getting through at the overlap, though. My daughter managed to find a couple of shorter screws and we put a cross piece on the mesh side of the frame at the overlap. The overlapping parts of the mesh were then stapled to the cross piece. This closed the potential gap, strengthened the frame, and it can even serve as a “handle” on one side.

Here is how they look now.

The frame ended up working better in the old basement side of the wall. It’s braced on one side by a table, and a Bungee cord attached to one of the cup hooks is keeping the other side in place. To get through, we can unhook the cord, then slide the door to one side.

As for the window-door, until I can find another cord the same length as the red one, we’ve got a longer one diagonally, just to keep the window pane from potentially flipping over. The extra window pane is now stored in the old bar. Who knows. It might come in handy for something else.

The fun part is, we’re already using the basement as a workshop!

I’m so excited! :-D

One of my daughters took over cleaning while I found and brought more tools down, then helped finish the frame. She even mopped the rest of the floor.

I can’t even think of when this floor was ever mopped, other than parts of it at times like when my brother found the water damage shortly before we moved in and had to scrub away mold and bleach the floor and walls in the corner.

Here is how it looks now at that end.

We have set up cat beds under chairs and the old phonograph. A flattened box is there to act as a rug, and we brought in the litter box that was in the sun room, since the outside cats don’t need to use it anymore.

And here’s the rest of it!

We set up food and water bowls at the far end, nearer the stairs.

When I went into the sun room to get the litter box, Beep Beep was in there, curled up on the swing bench. That was encouraging, since we would be getting her soon. Then Big Jim came out.

He had blood all over one side of his head!

It looked like it was coming from an ear, an injury that was most definitely not there this morning. The poor thing! The blood was dry, so whatever happened, it was no longer bleeding, at least, and it didn’t seem to be bothering him. He sure wanted pets, though!

After setting up the litter pan, food and water, one of my daughters and I went outside with some cat treats. I scattered some both inside the sun room, where Beep Beep and Big Jim still were, and in the outside food bowls.

Creamsicle and Potato Beetle were quick to come for treats, and I was very pleased to see Butterscotch waddling her way over, too. We let them eat for a bit, then tried to get the mamas in.

Beep Beep was more cooperative. She jumped out of my arms as soon as I got inside, but I’d managed to open the door to the basement, first, and that’s where she made her escape to – exactly where I wanted her to be.

Butterscotch was much less cooperative.

My daughter was eventually able to pick her up, and I was manning the doors so she could get Butterscotch inside, and into the basement, at almost the same time.

Butterscotch did NOT want to go down the stairs!

It took some persuading and gentle wrangling by my daughter to get her down enough stairs that I could close the door. Then she went back to the top step, essentially trapping my daughter in the basement.

Beep Beep, meanwhile, had already settled herself in front of the chalk board at the other end of the basement.

My daughter spend the next while trying to coax Butterscotch down the stairs. When she did get to the bottom, she immediately hid in a shelf under the stairs. My daughter brought one of the cat beds, placed inside a crate to make a “nest”, and put it beside where Butterscotch was hiding. This way, we hope she’ll find the nice, soft bed and a more enclosed area she will feel safer in.

And hopefully have her kittens in.

We will now have to add going downstairs to our cat care routine. It should be interesting to see how much of a challenge it will be to keep the mamas downstairs, and the other cats upstairs. Eventually, I want to have the litter boxes for all the cats downstairs, which will mean having the door to the new part basement open all the time. That’s not going to happen while the mamas are down there, for a while.

I hope they feel comfortable and safe down there, soon!

The Re-Farmer

Use Watcha Got cat condo!

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Things warmed up a bit today, and we got a bit of snow. It won’t last long; tomorrow, the temperatures are supposed to dip again.

After some consideration of what materials I had available, today I finally built an insulated shelter for the outside cats, as an extra layer of protection in the sun room, for when things start to get really cold.

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Winterizing: main entry door

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Our first winter here, there were a few problems we noticed. Problems that were definitely adding to our electricity bill for heating!

This was taken just before our first Christmas here.

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Winterizing progress: covering the car

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It turned out to be a rather pleasant day today, if quite windy. I wanted to cover my late father’s old car while it was still nice out, though.

We’d found a huge old tarp in the barn that we used to cover the mulched area of the big garden for the summer. It was more than big enough to cover my dad’s car, so when we took it off the garden, we just set it aside in the yard until we could get that done. When the winds picked up and threatened to blow it away, I shoved it through the back door of the garage, which leads to where my mom’s car is parked.

It’s so big, it filled up the space! I ended up having to fight through it when I needed to get through to the doorway to where our van is parked. :-D

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