While heading out to do the food and water for the kitties outside, I discovered the heated water bowl.
Frozen solid.
A quick glance through the entry, and I found the cord wasn’t just knocked loose from the outlet, but the hook I put in to hold the cord and keep the cats from knocking the plug loose.
Which meant I needed to lift the roof.
*sigh*
At least it happened on a warmer day, and not when we had our deep freezes!
I could take the weight of the snow off, easily enough, but there’s nothing I could do about the ice. The roof was much heavier to lift, because of it. For me to lift the weight is not the issue. The problem is that, as I lift it, I can hear the dry old wood the roof is made up, creaking and cracking. Thank God we found a way to put on a counterweight. The beam it’s attached to runs the length of the roof, so it takes a lot of that strain off.
Unfortunately, I didn’t think to shovel under the counterweight after moving the milk crates that support it. The roof was just barely open enough for the centre of balance to keep it from dropping right back down again.
As you can imagine, I got that heated water bowl plugged in as quickly as I could!
Then the snow had to cleared to the ground, so I could put the crates back under. The brick is tied off so that the crates support it’s full weight, without having to lift it more than the few millimeters needed to clear the outer edges of the crate. Any higher, and the entire block needs to basically be picked up.
The heated water bowl was half filled with ice, so I didn’t even try to get it out. Any attempt to knock the ice out would shatter the frozen plastic, so I just topped it up with warm water.
We had some very thirsty kitties!
They do all seem to prefer drinking from the old frying pans we’ve repurposed as water bowls. One is steel. I think the other two are aluminum.
The aesthetics of using old pans for their food and water may leave much to be desired, but they work a lot better than anything else we’ve tried, except for the heated water bowl.
After finishing up from putting out bird and deer feed, I heard a strange scrambling noise.
Nostrildamus had clambered up the side of the kibble house, and was playing with the string! :-D
The good thing is, with the layer of snow on top now, the string is no longer needed to hold the tarp in place. Funnily enough, the tarp is there to protect the roof from snow until we can paint it. :-D
It wasn’t until I uploaded the picture that I noticed there was a spice boy in the kibble house, glaring at me. :-D
The girls and I have talked about the state of the cat shelter. In the summer, we will have to look at how we can reinforce the roof and attach a handle of some sort, to lift it from the side instead of grabbing it under the the edge at the top. Along with replacing a few more damaged pieces, maybe redoing the roof (I found a box of leftover shingles in one of the sheds) we should be able to keep it usable for many years.
We had ourselves a very pleasant surprise today! Company!
Sort of…
I got an email from my older brother, asking if he could swing by this afternoon. Considering that it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive for him, this was a welcome surprise!
I got his message after doing my morning rounds, which included changing the batteries on the new camera with ones that weren’t frozen. The camera still couldn’t show a display on the screen inside, though; more than the batteries was frozen! So I had no way of knowing if it was even working or not. At least I was able to confirm how much easier it is to change the batteries on this thing. I did not have to take it down to do it!
Then, after things warmed up a bit more, we brought out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, and gave it a workout!
With a daughter helping by controlling the 200 ft of extension cord, so it wouldn’t keep getting hung up on the snow and unplugging itself, it was done much more quickly! We got the area needed to drive the van to the house, with turning space, widened the path to the compost heap, and even managed a path around the house, in case we need to reach the septic tank. I didn’t try to make a path to the fire pit or the barn this time, though.
Of course, it’s now snowing. We’re expected to only get a centimeter or so, so it should be fine. Even if it’s more, it’ll be easier to clear, later! It does seem funny to rush to clear away snow, before more snow arrives, though. :-D
The great thing is, when my brother got to our place, he was able to drive right up to the house, like he normally prefers to do. :-)
He didn’t come into the house, due to the restrictions still in place, but we were able to exchange our Christmas gifts. :-) We gave him and his wife the olive server and cutlery I’d carved, using maple I’d cut away from the pump shack so I could reach and fix the window.
I will have to get a picture later, of what they gave us: a fire pit cooking grill! One that is mounted on a post, and can be swung off and on the fire! We are so excited! It can be used above the set up we have now, or replace it completely. I can’t wait to try it out! The ground it too frozen to install it now, though, so it’ll have to wait until spring. *sigh* ;-)
While he was here, my brother took a look at my mother’s car. I had not hooked the trickle charger back up, because 1) the battery does not have + or – symbols on it, though I was pretty sure which was which, and 2) I could not figure out how the clamps would go on, while being flat enough for the cover to be put back in place.
While he was there, he ended up completely moving how the cords for the trickle charger, battery warmer, block heater and extension cord were set up. I had set it up as it was before, across the front, with zip ties holding things in place so nothing would drop onto the belts below (which had happened already, and I had to buy a new extension cord). This was not how he’d had it before, but how a mechanic had set it up, after some work was done. He’d had it set up tucked under the frame by the battery. He was able to get it to all fit into there again, and there are no moving parts they could fall onto in there!
While he was setting it up, and even double checking with a volt meter to ensure it was working, he searched and searched the battery for something to show with side was positive, which was negative. He did find the letters POS hidden under one of the clamps. I’ll have to take his word for it, because while I could see that something was under there, there was no way I could tell that it was letters!
So that is now done, and the trickle charger is finally hooked up. I try to use my mother’s car as much as possible, but over the winter, who knows how long that will be. We hardly use our own vehicle, this time of year!
Speaking of which…
After my brother left, I headed out to the post office – one of my husband’s Christmas gifts finally arrived! LOL – then into town to pick up a few last things before New Year’s. Normally, we would have done our monthly shop by now, but between the holidays and the weather, the end of December just doesn’t work out for that! With all the restrictions happening right now, we haven’t been able to stock up as well as usual, so we’re running out of things more than usual, too. Nothing essential, really, but I still prefer to stock up at least a little bit, just in case we can’t get into the city as planned. Last month, I didn’t even go to the city at all, but went to the Walmart of a smaller city, instead. It’s not as well stocked as the bigger stores in the bigger city, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be harassed for wearing a shield instead of a mask. As far as I know, 2 of the 3 stores we normally go to for our monthly stock up are safe for people with medical exemptions, and I’ve heard the one Costco location we usually go to is actually offering both masks and shields to people, and when people have gone in mask-less, they’ve only been warned if the mask nazi’s … er… inspectors where in the store. The inspectors are threatening stores with fines, even though the mandates expressly stipulate medical exemptions. But then, one store made the news for kicking a woman out for not wearing a mask, and she didn’t have hands to put one on. The exemptions clearly state that people who cannot put on or take off a mask themselves are exempt. It all seems so very arbitrary, which makes it difficult for people who can’t wear masks to know, from one day to the next, if they will be left alone, harassed, kicked out, fined or arrested.
I’m just thankful that we are isolated enough that it doesn’t affect us as much on a daily basis. Just in our own extended family, we’ve got people dealing with everything from trying to figure out how to get to work with the day-cares closed, to job losses, home losses, and dealing with severe depression as a result. I’ve always been grateful that my husband has such excellent private health insurance when he went on long term disability and, for all the challenges, happy that we left the city to live on and take care of the farm. Now, I am even more grateful for it. I honestly don’t know how we would have managed, if we were still living in the city we were in before. Our daughters could have stayed behind, too, but they chose to move out to help take care of the property, and their father, instead. They gave up a lot to do it, but it’s now turning out to have been worth it, for reasons we never imagined.
What a crazy world we live in, right now!
But I digress!
On a more fun note, after I got back from town, I was able to bring the van into the yard to unload it.
We were being watched.
Creamsicle Jr. was not alone at first. By the time I got my phone out to take a picture, Nostrildamus had come out to say hello. He had been sitting behind Creamsicle Jr.
Directly under the terrarium heater bulb.
In front of the light sensor on the timer.
I think they’ve figured it out.
If a cat is siting under the bulb, it is blocking the light sensor, which turns on the heat. While it’s unlikely that they made any sort of connection to the timer, it would be easy for them to figure out that if they sit in just the right spot during the day, that thing above their head starts getting warm again.
One thing about the yard cats; they do have to be smart, if they’re going to survive! :-D
I’m happy that the littlest ones are handling the cold as well as they are. Being born so late in the year, they were the ones most at risk from the cold. Not only are they doing all right, they’re downright playful in the snow! :-) They’re even regularly following me out to the gate when I check it, and switch out the memory cards. They still won’t come close to me, but they will follow me! :-D (I’m happy to say that, while showing the new trail cam to my brother, I found it had thawed out enough to start working again! I didn’t even have to reset the date and time. :-) )
For now, judging by how often I’ve seen the red bar across the top of my browser, warning me that auto save didn’t work because I’m offline, I’d say the weather system has hit us quite thoroughly, and it’s taking our internet out in the process. That, and my weather app will not reload! The temperatures are still relatively mild, but I can see the snow falling on the security camera’s live feed. It seems to be enough to mess with our satellite. That secondary dish may have started working again after we pruned more branches, but it still doesn’t have a good signal at the best of times. It doesn’t take much to make it worse!
I can tell how much milder the temperatures have gotten these past few days, but how many of the outside cats I see when I do my rounds in the morning! I saw 9 of them this morning, including Rolando Moon, who has been away for a week or two, but showed up yesterday.
I had 5 cats following me when I went to check on the gate. When I came back to the house, I had this surly face to greet me.
We had brought several pieces of the maple that I’d cut away from the roof of the old chicken coop to the house, for future wood working projects. They’re odd shapes and keep falling over.
The cats really like them, and Rolando Moon seems to really appreciate having a relatively warm perch to sit on, out of the snow!
As I write this, we have warmed up to -26C/-14.8F, with a wind chill of -30C/-22F It’ll keep warming up for the next couple of days, and tomorrow – Christmas Day – is now expected to reach a balmy -5C/23F!
When I headed out this morning to tend the critters (I have been skipping most of my rounds outside right now!), I was surprised to find no kitties in the cat house, though a couple were outside. I know they had been in the shelter last night, as I went out to give them a treat. We set our turkey to brine overnight, and I cut up the organs, neck and excess skin as a treat for them. All of which was frozen solid. It doesn’t look like any of the cats braved the cold for the treat at all! In fact, most of the kibble was untouched. I do put some just inside the door of the cat house, and most of that was gone, but I think it’s just too cold. Even dry kibble freezes and can be harder to eat, I think.
As I was putting out fresh warm water and topping up the kibble with some that wasn’t frozen, I could hear a plaintive meowing. I spotted Nosy, out by the storage house, tucked under a lilac bush. He is normally a quiet kitty, but this morning, he was just looking at me pathetically and complaining.
So, I shoveled a path for him.
There was already a slight path in the snow, showing where they had been leaping through the snow to get to and from the shelters. They were very happy to not have to do that anymore! You can see that Nosy immediately took advantage of the situation to get to the food, no longer complaining. :-) Even Ginger was happy for the path. :-D
There were plenty of deer tracks in the snow around the house, including here, where you can see they were trying to get at the ornamental apples. These apples are smaller than cherries, but food is food! The snow at the feeding station was well trampled and dug up, as both deer and birds tried to get at the buried feed.
Now that the critters are fed, it’s time to get to work for our non-traditional Wigilia feast tonight.
Just in case I don’t get a chance to post tomorrow, I will take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas. May you all be warm and cozy, and your days filled with joy and blessings. May the new year bring you peace, good health and abundance!
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!
That -12C (10F) isn’t too bad. It’s the -21C (-5F) wind chill!
Actually, I’m pretty sure that in our yard, the wind chill is more severe than that!
The amazing thing is that we are supposed to reach 0C (32F) by this evening.
The winds are driving into our yard from the south/southeast. One thing we have noticed since moving here is that it’s those south winds that are the worst! When it comes time to plant more shelter belt trees, that is where we will need to focus on.
With the cat house and kibble house, the winds are driving right into the active areas. There isn’t much we can do about it. Even shifting the kibble house to more of a 90 degree angle with the cat house, wouldn’t do much with these winds. The good thing is, when my brother built the shelter for his dogs, he added on that “porch”, and the entry has two layers of carpet strips. Without those strips, the wind would be blowing straight into the opening, even with the kibble house sheltering it more. Any wind that does get in is going into the “porch” area, and not affecting the main part of the shelter very much, so the kitties are still cozy inside.
The kibble house is working out very well, though. The inside is sheltered from the wind almost completely, so the cats can eat in peace. Even the gap under the kibble house is quite sheltered. The sheet of insulation I put under there (the photo is from when that was done; it was too cold to take photos this morning!) actually blocks spaces where the wind would be getting in from the south, since it fits under the support pieces.
The water bowls are not sheltered, though. The heated bowl near the entrance – which had ice forming across the top, again! – has some shelter, but the others along the side of the cat house are getting the full brunt of the wind.
I think, next year, we should build another small shelter for the non-heated water bowls. Depending on how it’s positioned, it can act as a wind break, while still allowing sunlight to reach the one window of the cat house they love to sit in so much! :-)
Amazingly, I still had cats following me around while I was switching out the memory cards on the trail cams. Poor Potato Beetle was shivering when I picked him up and carried him back to the house. The silly boy had been up on the roof, earlier. No shelter up there!
I am so glad we don’t need to go anywhere today.
Doing bread baking and laundry sounds really good right now! :-D
I headed out to do my morning rounds a bit on the late side, yet there was still frost in the air!
It was looking downright foggy, in fact.
Everything looked like a fairy tale, sparkling away!
Even the ugly wires used for fencing looked beautiful. I love how the lichen on this fence post looks, all frosted up!
Taking photos was a bit of a challenge at times, though!
They just wanted to keep their paws warm. Butterscotch didn’t even growl and hiss at Potato Beetle when he jumped up my back!
While checking out the garden areas, I could see from the tacks in the snow where the deer have been going around. I knocked some of the frozen crab apples they can’t reach, down to the ground. The sunflower stalks have been completely denuded, except for the tallest ones. Those were denuded as high as the deer could reach! :-D
The birds are eating the sunflowers a little bit.
I bent all the taller ones that still have leaves and seed heads, so the deer can now reach them to nibble on.
Part of the reason I was out later was because I got a phone call from my older brother this morning. He called me back while I was out, and he is keeping my updated.
He got a call from my mother, very early this morning. Her stomach has been hurting since Friday, and she wanted him to drive her to the hospital.
Keep in mind that, for him, it’s a 1 1/2 hour drive to her place, but only 20 minutes for me – and I have her car. She wanted him to drive her, though.
*sigh*
Getting information out of her was like pulling teeth, of course. In the end, though, it sounds like she has been eating too many oranges. It also sounds like she has really bad gas. She has acid reflux, which she doesn’t understand no matter how many times I’ve tried to describe it to her. I’ve given her easy to read, colour coded lists of what she can safely eat, and what she should avoid. The lists have disappeared. All citrus fruits, tomatoes and onions are things she should avoid, but she loves them and eats them anyway. Small amounts wouldn’t be an issue, but mandarins are in season now, and cheap, so she’s been buying them by the box full. She does think it might be the oranges that are causing her grief, but she thinks that, because the price went down and they’re from China, she had to have eaten a bad orange.
*sigh*
Anyhow, after updating me on the situation, my brother called the health line, since it’s been made clear hospitals really don’t want people going in right now. The health line couldn’t tell him much, since they were not talking directly to my mother, but in the end he was told to take her in, simply because of her age.
*sigh*
My brother called me back on hands free, while we was on the way to pick her up to update me.
*sigh*
…
I just got a call back from my brother. He has dropped our mother off at the hospital. It seems she also had breathing issues at night (which she often has, while trying to sleep) and nausea (also not unusual for her). They were able to take her right in, but he couldn’t come in with her. He did have a chance to explain things to the person at the entry – particularly about our mother’s difficulty in understanding the questions she is being asked. My brother was told he could go home, but with how long the drive is, he’s just going to hang around town until it’s time to pick her up or they call him. He was satisfied that they were taking her seriously and taking good care of her, so there’s that, at least.
So today will be a day when I stay close to the phone. :-/
The Re-Farmer
Update: Well that has to be the fastest ER visit ever! My brother called the contact number to check on our mother, only to be told they were just finishing with her and he could come pick her up. She’s got some anti-biotics, and she’s good to go.
Well… I suppose that’s one way for my mother to get my brother to “visit” her… :-/
Nostrildamus aka Nosy, really wanted attention this morning! Even the Spice Boys let me pet them. :-)
Rolando Moon kept following me around while I did my rounds, then again when I made a quick trip to the post office (timed it badly, though; they were still closed for lunch, so I couldn’t pick up a parcel) and to pick up a few things. (I did phone ahead to ask about medical exemptions to the mask mandate, so I had no issues while I was there.) When I got home, Rolando Moon met me at the gate and kept following me!
I was still taking off my shoes and jacket when my husband suddenly asked, “who’s this?”
Rolando Moon had snuck into the house while I was carrying stuff in!
The other cats absolutely surrounded her, sniffing away. Amazingly, she wasn’t growling or hissing at any of them while they did! Even more surprising was Fenrir, who was not only sniffing her, but rubbing her face against Rolando’s. I wonder if she recognized her? At some point, though, there was a sudden scuffle. My daughter broke it up, and when I opened the door, Rolando bolted for the great outdoors. :-D
Meanwhile, today was a completely lazy day. I did not continue any of the stuff I’d started yesterday. It was a dark and dreary day, and by the time it warmed up to a decent temperature, what little light there was, was gone.
Tomorrow will be colder still, but I’ll be out helping my mother with her shopping. We’re supposed to warm up again on Saturday, but it’s also supposed to rain. We’ll see how that works out.
So I guess today was a day of rest and recuperation. My wrist and hands have been giving me grief, and working on those trees yesterday didn’t help. I am pretty sure I broke a finger a while back. Nothing major, but I think I may have had a linear fracture. I’d been trying to look behind something in the barn, not realizing the far end was under some metal bars leaning in the corner. One of them fell towards me and I’d blocked it with my hand. It hit the side of my pinky finger. That was weeks ago. I can now feel a lump where the metal hit the proximal phalange, and it still hurts. While cutting back the maple trees yesterday, I kept bumping it, or what I was going would put pressure on it, reminding me that yup; I probably broke it! No point in getting it checked, though. After all this time, it would just be confirming whether or not there was an actual fracture. It would be good to find out what’s going on with my wrists, though. Not with all the restrictions in place right now. People have been refused emergency care for broken bones until they got tested and quarantined already, and that was before the current mandates were put into effect.
It looks like I won’t be going back to the one hardware store anymore, either. I got an email back from the manager I’d written to about them refusing to honour my medical exemption. From the looks of the response, they spend quite a bit of time working it out. In the end, though, if a person cannot wear a mask, they cannot come into the store. They can phone ahead, order online, etc., then have things brought out to their vehicle and pay for them in the parking lot.
Like lepers.
All this for .28% “active cases” of the Wu Flu in the entire province, most of which are in the city, and of those, they’re almost all in particular nursing homes, or people who were already in the hospital for other things. The percentage of people in hospital with the Wu Flu is .01%, with .001% in ICU. The total death rate for our province since spring is .006%. Yet people are acting like it’s the Bubonic Plague, which killed an estimated 30% – 60% of all of Europe’s population. Worse, is the increased level of cruelty, harassment and abuse I’m seeing surrounding the mask issue, all from pro-maskers.
At times like this, I wish we could be living even more isolated than we are already. :-(
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 