When I headed out this morning to feed the outside cats and do my rounds, I had a bit of a surprise.
Along with finding two of the kibble containers had been knocked out of the kibble house, there was something wrong with the heated water bowl.
The water was frozen!
A quick glance into the entry of the cats’ house found the problem. They had managed to unplug it!
I am so glad I added that counterweight to the roof…
When I lifted the roof to plug it back in, I think I spotted why it came unplugged. I had put their favourite cat toy inside, and I found it in the entry, on top of the power cord. It’s likely that, while playing and knocking it about, they accidentally unplugged the heated water bowl. It should be harder to yank out now, but if they do unplug it again, I can add a hook to hold the cord in place.
I might just do that, anyhow, so it’s not an issue over the winter. I’d really prefer to not have to lift that roof when the snow gets deep! :-D
I’m happy to say the kibble shelter set up seems to be working just fine!
I found one of the food containers under the kibble house this morning. I was able to reach it to get it out, but even if it had got pushed back further, that’s okay, since the floor boards can be lifted to reach under. An unexpected benefit for our change in plans.
When my daughter popped outside last night, she found Sir Stinks Alot in it. She moved in his direction, making noise to shoo him away, and was unexpectedly entertained. It seems the floor is a bit high for a skunk’s short little legs! It took him a few tries before he was finally able to get down and leave. :-D
The heated water bowl is working just fine; the water in the other containers was frozen solid. I’m thinking we might want to find something to put under the heated bowl to raise it higher. The cats have been trying to drink from it from inside the kibble shelter. I think it’s similar to how they often prefer to drink from the other bowls while on the wood of the sledge under the cat house. Likely, it’s because the wood is warmer on their paws than the ground! :-)
In other things…
Our new washing machine has once again stopped working! I used it on Friday, and it worked fine. My daughter tried to use it on Saturday, and it just wouldn’t turn on. I figured it would stop working again, and actually prefer that it happened again sooner, rather than later. I called the appliance guy and left a message about it, and he called back today. He will be able to swing by tomorrow afternoon. Thankfully, he left the parts with us, when it suddenly started working after he’d opened up the back, so we don’t have to go through the warranty process again.
I headed into town today with one of my daughters who needed to do some errands. I took advantage of the situation and stopped at the garage where we have had so much work done this year. I showed him the picture of what is loose under my mother’s car. I had talked to the garage by my mother’s place, but I just don’t go to her town often, plus I needed to book our van for an oil change and to get our winter tires put on.
I now have my mother’s car booked to come in on Monday, while our van will be brought in on the Friday after. I asked about how much it might cost to get my mother’s car fixed. The loose shield should just need to be screwed back into place, but they will still need to at least jack it up to be able to reach, so I figured it would be similar to what I was told at the other garage. Basically, they’d likely have charged for half an hour.
Not here!
He said it would likely be free.
!!
If all it needs it to be screwed on, he’ll just do it and that’s it! Of course, once he’s actually under there, he might find it’s cracked or something, but it doesn’t look broken in the picture.
I am so happy my mother’s car got a flat next to this garage! :-D The owner is just awesome! As much as I liked the place by my mother’s, this place goes that little bit further. I am a very happy customer! :-)
We did it! We were able to finish the winter shelter for the outdoor cats’ kibble containers!
The only thing it needs now is to be painted, which will probably wait until spring.
Of course, things didn’t quite go to plan, but that’s pretty much how everything goes! :-D
One of the first things we did was raid the barn to see what we could find for a roof. There was a sheet of 3/4 inch plywood that we dragged over.
It had some mysteries on it.
On one side was a drawing of a picnic table, done with black marker.
The other side had what looks like the template for a shed roof!
My daughter was kind enough to take those boards off for me. Each of them had about 7 screws in them!
While she did that, I set up to assemble the rest of the frame, adding in the horizontal supports.
This was where things began to deviate from the plan. In putting on the bottom horizontal supports, I forgot I’d intended to put them on the inside of the vertical supports, instead of lined up with them. This made it longer than 6 ft.
Which is not a bad thing. It’s actually more stable this way, and there’s more room on the inside. However, I wasn’t able to match the top horizontal supports. Since the roof supports are at an angle, the screws that hold them in place are more staggered, so the chance of hitting one while screwing on the vertical support was pretty high. So I moved the top horizontal posts and attached them in front of the vertical ones.
Those horizontal supports, however, were supposed to be what the back wall was attached to.
Before we worked on that, though, we popped on the plywood to see how it fit, and if we needed to cut it to size.
We decided to leave it as is. I wanted at least some overhang. More just means more shelter for the kitties.
Then it was time to get creative.
We were going to use scrap wood from the junk pile for the walls and floor, but that idea quickly was discarded. Back to the barn we went, where we found a couple of pieces of 1/2 inch plywood that were almost 4 feet square.
We finally got to use the table saw I found in the shed! :-D
When cutting the frame pieces, I had cut two spare 2 ft lengths, and we made good use of them. I happened to have right angle plates I’d expected to use for something else and those were used to attach one length to support plywood roof in the middle. The other became support for the back wall. The bottom of the new vertical support could be screwed in place from underneath, but the top took a bit more creativity to get it attached!
We cut one of the squarish pieces in half to get the height of the wall, then cut one of the halves shorter to fit, and used them for the back wall. The pieced we’d cut off turned out to be the right size for a side wall, so we just traced that on the other squarish piece of plywood and cut a second one.
I dragged two buckets of nails from the basement to put the walls and roof one. One had roofing nails that were the right length for the walls, while the other had 4 inch nails that were perfect for attaching the roof.
That left the floor.
Cutting a wall piece off the second square of plywood left an L shaped piece. After taking several measurements, I cut the short part of the “L” off. The remaining longer piece got a notch cut out of it.
The smaller piece got a bit of a trim to fit the remaining space, and now we have a floor that can be removed, if needed.
And yes, I did want the floor to extend past the frame.
Time to test it out!
My daughter had to go in earlier, so I carefully maneuvered the whole thing by myself, to where I wanted it by the cat house. The containers we use for the cats’ food were pretty much empty, so I put them in and topped up them up.
A couple of cats were crawling around in it before I even came out of the sun room with more kibble! Once they heard that distinctive sound of kibble hitting the container, there was quite the rush of kitties!
I wanted the shelter to be close to the cat’s house, to provide shelter for the entry, but also wanted to make sure they had a path in between them. They already go around the cat house in that spot often enough that they’ve worn a patch in the grass. They can also fit under the kibble house and, if they really wanted to, they could probably get in from the back, through the gap under the roof.
One more thing to do!
It was time to open up the roof on the cats’ house and plug in the heated water bowl.
I also tucked their cat toy inside. They love that thing!
The cord on the heated water bowl is long enough that the bowl can be well under the overhang of the kibble house roof.
I then spent the next while putting everything away and cleaning up, which meant I could watch the cats checking it all out. They explored all over, including jumping up on the roof, and seem quite happy with their new shelter!
Since it’s unlikely we will paint any of it this year, we will probably cover the roof with a tarp for the winter. The rest should be fine.
I’m so glad we were able to get this finished today. It was just a couple of degrees above freezing, and we’re supposed to get a couple of centimeters of snow in a couple of days. Not the sort of weather I want to be outside, building stuff, if I can avoid it!
I had a very enthusiastic crowd when I gave the outside cats warm water and kibble. :-)
The one potential down side of the kibble house I’m building is that there will not be as much room for the cats themselves to spread out. The very shy one in the back, for example, is not just shy of humans, but some of the other cats, too. Then you get Butterscotch, who has been getting more ornery in her old age, and will randomly start hissing and batting at the other cats – including her own kittens!
No Rolando Moon this morning, but she’s another one that has been hissing at the other cats, though the other cats have been going after her, as well.
However, they do tend to tone it down when the weather gets cold. At that point, I think they’ll take the extra body heat over their usual aggressiveness.
I was able to pet Butterscotch’s kittens this morning. Creamsicle Jr. wasn’t too keen on it, but I was actually able to pick up the little calico and hold her. She stayed in my arms, looking at me like I was crazy, but purring. I didn’t want to keep her from food for too long, though, so I put her down and finished my rounds.
Before going inside, I visited the cats again.
I was able to pick up the little calico again.
She was willing to settle in my arms, purring away.
I took blatant advantage of the situation.
She’s now in the basement.
One of the girls very noisily scattered cat treats upstairs to lure the other cats away and close the door. Keith and Cheddar wouldn’t leave, though, being far more curious about the new addition. They’re pretty safe around the newbies, though, so that was okay.
Then I opened a tin of wet cat food, and Turmeric magically appeared from somewhere under my work table! :-D
I spread out blobs of wet cat food in the kibble platter to get the other cats interested, then brought the rest of the can near the calico and lured her over with the spoon.
It’s her first time eating wet cat food, and she was quite enthusiastic about it!
Turmeric, unfortunately, kept wanting to chase her around. I think it was more playful than aggressive, but it’s just too much for the little one. I was eventually able to escape the basement, bringing Turmeric out with me and managing to NOT let any other cats down. There was a whole crowd of them at the door, wanting to see what was going on!
She ignored Cheddar sniffing her while she ate, and he seemed pretty laid back while checking her out. Then he very slowly, casually, batted at her!
So today, we’ll be taking turns going to the basement, bringing the “safe” cats for introductions, and paying lots of attention to the new addition. That will mostly be on the girls, since I need to get outside to work on the kibble house. Not until late afternoon, though, when the temperature is expected to finally get above freezing.
I am such a suck. I have been so adamant about not bringing more cats into the house, and now we’re up to 16!! The problem is, bringing the females inside is the only way we can keep the yard cat population down. It costs about $260 to get a female fixed out here, and we’d have to bring them inside anyhow, since we’d have to make sure they don’t eat at least 8 hours before surgery, then give them 2 weeks to heal. Males cost half as much, so we were able to get the few males inside fixed. I have to admit, though, I would have loved to see David kittens! :-D Anyhow. No chance of more kittens if the females are inside.
Now that Tissue is socialized, we have 9 cats available for adoption, but so far, no takers!
Well, what can we do but keep taking care of them as best we can?
There are 12 cats in this picture. Happily, Rolando Moon is still hanging around, busily hissing at any cat that comes near. We haven’t seen Creamsicle in a while, though. I hope he is all right.
The cat butt sticking out of the entry is a hoot. That is Rosencrantz’s baby, and she seems to be the shiest of the bunch.
As you can see by the frozen blocks of ice, artistically embedded with leaves, it’s been getting a bit cold out at night! It did warm up a few degrees above freezing. Not good for paint, but it had to be done.
I can now officially say that replacing the door on the sun room is DONE!! I just came in from outside a little while ago, and the paint was dry enough I could close the door. What’s supposed to be blue is now blue, what’s supposed to be white is now white, and nary the twain shall have contact with each other!
Yaaah!!
No, I didn’t take pictures. I’m am tired of taking pictures of that door! :-D
The next project is the shelter for the cat food. It will be placed about where the kibble containers currently are. I want to position it so that it will also provide extra shelter for the entrance to the cat house. The heated water bowl can be plugged in, inside, but the bowl has to be outside, since there’s no way I’m going to be lifting that roof every morning to refill their water. ;-) The shelter for the food containers will help keep the snow off the water bowl, too.
It took a couple of hours, but I got the end pieces of the frame done.
Working with this wood we salvaged from the barn has been a challenge. Nothing is even, so about the only thing I can measure is length. After that, I basically just made sure all the pieces matched and lined up. Not being able to just take measurements meant I had to get creative in lining up the pilot holes. Just making the pilot holes was an issue! My drill bits that were the right diameter for the pilot holes are just barely long enough to drill through the wood. I went hunting in the basement and the garage and, while I did find longer drill bits, they were all too large.
Thankfully, the bits I did have were long enough that, after drilling the pilot holes in one piece, I could position them on the other piece, “drill” though the pilot holes again, and make a mark on the other piece.
It worked most of the time. With the uneven wood, there were a couple of spots where the bit just wasn’t long enough to leave a mark.
Once I’d marked the pieces, I could drill more pilot holes, then screw them together.
When we used this wood to make the goat catcher, I had 3 inch screws, and only used two per corner. This was meant to be temporary, but I still didn’t expect it to be so wonky, it would end up bending and breaking the screws! So this time, I got 3 1/3 inch screws, and there’s 4 in each corner.
That thing is solid!
I started by attaching the 2 ft cross piece on the bottoms. The first corner was screwed together manually. Even with the pilot holes, it was not easy – and with arthritis in my wrists and fingers, rather painful. Our new drill isn’t a quick release type, and I didn’t want to be switching from drill bit to screwdriver tip, over and over, so I decided to use an old drill that we “inherited” to put in the screws.
That worked much faster!
Once the cross pieces were in, I got out a tape measure and figured out how much of an overhang I wanted on the roof supports. I decided to make the roof supports 3 1/2 feet long.
Lining those up at an angle was a pain in the butt! Once again, it was more about making sure the pieces matched, because there was no way I was going to be able to take usable measurements. I managed to get them lined up and the pilot holes done. By the time I was putting in the last set of screws, though, the drill was starting to complain, so I set them as far as I could before the drill started having a hard time, planning to screw them the rest of the way by hand.
When I took the screw driver tip off the drill, I realized I was seeing smoke coming out of the drill!! I remember that happening when we used it before. This old thing overheats very quickly!
By then, it was getting too cold to keep working outside, so I will continue the rest tomorrow. Once I have the 6 foot horizontal supports in place, we can take some measurements for the floor and wall boards.
The good thing is, we’ll be using the scrap wood in the junk pile. They are a lot thinner. That means I can finally use the table saw, and do all the cutting at once. :-) Those will be nailed into place; in cleaning up the basement, we found an old ice cream bucket full of nails that are just the right size for this job.
We can also go hunting in the barn or sheds for something to use as a roof. The roof supports are 3 1/2 feet long, but I hope to be able to have a sheet that’s 4 ft. The roof will be the last thing put in place.
After that, it’ll be done for this year. It’ll need to be painted, but we’ll be using it right away, so that will wait until spring. The one exception might be the roof, depending on what we find to use for that.
I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow, but that will really depend on the weather! At least they’re no longer predicting snow flurries, but who knows what the day will actually bring!
That reminds me. We need to bring the sheets of rigid insulation stored in the garage, back to the house. We’ll have to find a better way to get the sheets for the sun room windows to stay in place, though. At least this winter, we won’t be keeping the doors to outside propped open for the cats to go in and out, now that they have their own heated house! :-)
Lots to do before winter sets in, that’s for sure! :-)
I had to make an unplanned trip today. With feeding both indoor and outdoor cats, we go through the kibble (and litter!) pretty fast, and for the amounts we buy, it’s actually worth making the trip to a Walmart of Costco.
I didn’t want to go to the city, though, so I made the trip to…
A different city. :-D
It’s barely populous enough to be called a city, but it’s a bit closer, has a Walmart, and I wouldn’t have to drive through city traffic to get to it. In fact, I didn’t even have to go into the city at all, since the Walmart is on the outskirts.
When I got home and was closing the gate, I could hear some rather excited meowing.
It’s always cheering when the outside cats are so happy to see us, they come running.
There was, however, a different meow today. A different, but familiar meow.
We’ve been Mooned!
Rolando Moon is back! I haven’t seen her in ages! Like Butterscotch and Beep Beep, she is one of the cats my dad used to take care of, but she doesn’t hang around like the other yard cats do.
She was definitely a hungry girl, and was constantly growling at any cat that came near her, but she just couldn’t get enough pets!
It’s been so long, I thought she was gone for good. So I was very happy to get Mooned today!
Well, most of what I intended to get done today, happened. Plus, some unplanned stuff got done. :-)
There was quite the crowd around for breakfast – and not all of them are in this photo! Most of them came out of the cat shelter, which was quite gratifying to see.
They were hungry enough that the little kittens allowed me to pet them while they were eating, including the calico. I was also able to finally confirm that both orange tabbies are male. That leaves the two bigger kittens (behind the food bowls in the photo) that we don’t know the gender of, yet. We’re really hoping they are males, because we have had zero progress in getting those ones more socialized. At least with the little calico, there is some hope we’ll be able to get her inside before she goes into heat.
The water bowls were all frozen this morning, so I brought out some warm water for them. The cats really appreciated that! I’ll have to get that heated water bowl set up soon.
While doing my rounds, I remembered to try and get a photo under my mother’s car. It took quite a few tries!
The last time I drove it, I noticed something was loose underneath. I only saw it because of how I happened to be parked in an otherwise empty parking lot, as I walked to the car from a store. From a distance, I could see something hanging down near the front passenger tire, but once at the car, I had to look through the tire rim at just the right angle to be able to spot it.
When it was time to go to my mother’s to help her with errands, I left early so I could stop at the garage near her place. It is just a plastic shield, and it looks like a bolt probably vibrated off. Who knows when that happened, but it had to be recently, since I picked it up from the garage not that long ago. I have no way to get under there myself, but it’s such a small job, I didn’t even need to make an appointment to get it worked on. I was told to just give a call in the morning, then come on over. I will do that as soon as I can, so I don’t have to make my mother clamber up into our van anymore!
I was able to help my mother with several errands, and even get a bit of a visit. I was happy to see the mask exemption card I’d taped to her door was still there. Her municipality has a mask mandate right now, so we did get asked a couple of times if we had masks. Since I was with her, I was able to tell them we had medical exemptions, and there was no problem. Interestingly, while at the pharmacist’s counter, where they didn’t even bat and eye over our lack of masks, my mother did fish out a surgical mask from her pocket and put it on, saying she didn’t want any trouble – except no one was giving her trouble! I just cringed, because she has no ability to put one on properly. She only kept it on for maybe a minute, probably less. She didn’t even try to put it on when we got to the grocery store. I’ve helped my mother shop often enough, and the staff knows her well enough, that they talked to me about the masks, not her. It all worked out well. It was a real relief for me, given how much she struggles to breathe with a mask on. She still has a hard time understanding mask exemptions, and I could see she was concerned about being given a hard time, but the staff at all the places we went to were awesome. I did give her an exemption card to carry, but I have no idea what she did with that!
Once my mother was all set, I headed home and was expecting to hang the replacement door for the sun room back up. I wasn’t able to get another set of hands to hold it for me, so I instead worked on some cutting I needed to do. I had found a board in one of the sheds that I cut to length to make a couple of shelves in the entry. The pieces now just need some sanding and painting.
Then I started on cutting pieces that will be the frame for a cat kibble house. :-D
I’d made a rough and flexible plan for it. For the frame, I am using the pieces of wood from the frames I’ve been using to mark out garden beds. I also had a couple of extra long pieces we never used when we built the goat catcher.
I ended up changing the dimensions a bit, based on the wood I had available. All the pieces had one end slightly more damaged than the other, so I worked around that when making my measurements and cuts.
The short end pieces from the dismantled frames will be the upright pieces for the cat kibble house. The back pieces are 3 feet long, while I decided to make the front pieces 3 1/2 feet, instead of the 4 feet I was originally thinking of doing. The longer side pieces of the dismantled frames will be the length of the kibble house. I actually measured the group of kibble bowls and decided to make it 6 feet long, instead of the 5 feet I was originally thinking of. I then used the cut off pieces from those to cut cross pieces that will be the depth of the kibble house. They weren’t long enough to do the 2 1/2 feet I’d originally considered making it, so I cut them 2 feet long, instead.
I cut 4 of them, though I only need two, just in case I need extra.
The only pieces I haven’t cut yet will be the support for the roof. I will decide on the length of those later. I want a considerable overhang on the front of the roof. It can’t extend too far, though, because then it will be in the way when trying to reach the kibble bowls inside.
As for the roof itself, I’ve been finding sections of plywood in the barn and sheds that I should be able to salvage. Once I decide on how long of an overhang I want, I’ll have the dimensions I need to hunt out a piece that will fit.
The kibble house will also have a floor and three walls. For that, I plan to use wood salvaged from the junk pile. The pieces are pretty inconsistent in size, but it doesn’t have to be perfect. It just needs to be enough to keep the bulk of the wind and snow out. The roof will be the most important part.
As you can imagine, the noise of cutting the pieces spooked the cats quite a bit. Some of them, however, were spooked into the cat shelter. As I was putting things away, I looked to see that the indicator light for the timer was on. I could also see a little calico kitten, curled up under the heater! I am so glad the little kittens are using it. They are the ones I’m most concerned about for the winter!
Unfortunately, other critters have discovered the shelter.
Stinky came by as I was cleaning up! I had unhooked the hose, though it was too cold and stiff to put away, so I screwed it back on and used it to spray the skunk away. Long before the cats were willing to check out their new shelter, I could tell from the smell that Sir Stinks Alot had already visited. Nicky the Nose – the only one of the big toms that still visits regularly – has been seen coming out of it, too. We’re trying to discourage him from visiting, because he has been attacking our own male cats. Especially Creamsicle. :-( If he’s in there, chances are he will chase away some of our own cats.
He’s also the daddy of way too many kittens!
I have come to the conclusion that Nicky the Nose is deaf, or at least mostly deaf. There have been a few times I’ve come towards him, even talking as I walked, while he was facing away, with no reaction. It isn’t until he turns his head and sees me that he reacts and runs off.
Tomorrow, barring some unexpected change in plan, I will continue to work on the cat kibble house, and hopefully be able to snag a daughter to help hang the sun room’s replacement door.
It’s starting to get pretty chilly out there, and there’s still plenty we need to get done before the real cold hits!
Lats this morning I headed over to my mother’s place with a turkey dinner to have lunch with her.
On the way out, I spotted three sets of ears in the window of the cat shelter.
Tiny sets of years belonging to the little kittens! I didn’t dare go closer for a picture, though, because I didn’t want to startle them away. There may have been more cats inside with them that I couldn’t see, too. I’m so glad to see them in the shelter, rather than hiding under it!
My mother and I had a very nice lunch and visit (how visits turn out is always touch and go with my mother! LOL). I brought a mask exemption card to tape to her door, and another she can carry with her. Hopefully, that will help reduce the harassment from the caretakers. Unfortunately, I think more has happened than she is telling us, because she kept insisting she “doesn’t want a war” and even started asking me not to call the housing department responsible for her building to talk about the caretaker’s abusive behaviour. She wore a mask – under her nose! – to meet me at the side door that’s very close to her own apartment door, and even in that short distance, by the time she was back in her apartment, she was struggling to breathe. She had also mentioned to me on the phone, waking up and struggling to breathe again. So I brought a foam wedge we got for my husband that he ended up not being able to use. Depending on how it’s positioned, it can be used under the knees, to lean against while sitting up in bed, or to sleep in an inclined position. The doctor had recommended trying to sleep more upright to see if that helped. When she saw it, however, she flat out refused to even try it and told me to take it home. Eventually, she said it was because it looked ugly! Which I highly doubt is the real reason. Frustrating!
Still, it was a good visit and my mother was very happy I was able to come over. I think the pandemic social restrictions are really getting to her. There used to be many events and gatherings, either in her own building, or in nearby venues, that she attended. Now, there are none. It seems the only real “social” interactions she’s getting these days are with the nasty caretaking couple. The restrictions seem to be bringing out the worst in people. I think she is getting very lonely, and some serious cabin fever!
Once at home, I took advantage of the warmer weather. With the garlic ready to be picked up when the post office opens tomorrow, I was thinking of how I wanted to mulch the beds. The straw is not breaking down as I had expected, and I decided to try an experiment.
Using the new push mower to chop it into smaller pieces!
The bag filled up very quickly, but it wasn’t until I had already started that I realized I’d forgotten to check the height of the mower. It was at 7; the highest setting! So things weren’t quite as chopped up as I wanted.
I lowered it to 3 and that chopped things up much better.
It took only 2 bags to fill the wagon, it’s so fluffy. LOL I laid out a tarp near the beds the garlic will be planted it, to make it easier to work with when it’s needed – plus I can fold half the tarp over the pile to keep the wind from blowing it away.
Unfortunately, I had an unexpected problem.
The new lawn mower stopped starting.
Right from the beginning, it was harder to start, but every time I had to turn it off to empty that bag, it kept getting harder to restart it until, finally, I just couldn’t start it at all. It had been so easy to start, before! In the spring, when we had so much rain, I was using it a lot and had no problems. Then the rain stopped, and the grass never really got long enough to make it worth cutting again. So it’s been sitting in the garage for the last couple of months. That on its own should not cause the problem. I couldn’t find any reason for it. It just won’t start. After getting only 2 1/2 wagon loads done, I finally gave up.
I will just have to take it in to the small engine shop in town to get it looked at, later in the year.
So the experiment worked, as far as chopping up the straw to make a finer mulch. It was just the lawn mower that failed!
After giving up on that task, I took the time to take the sun room replacement door off in preparation for painting the frame. I plan to get at that as soon as possible tomorrow morning, then go to the mail to pick up our bulbs. I will get the garlic in, while the girls will be doing the digging to get their flowers in.
While working at the door, I spotted this.
That is two little kittens in there! One of the orange tabbies, and Creamsicle Jr. As I walked around after taking the picture, Potato Beetle came out of the entry. I hadn’t seen him at all in there!
So I decided not to go inside after taking the door off, and stayed to see if I could get the kittens to play.
I had a target in mind.
This little lady. In the interest of trying to reduce future litters, we are hoping to get her friendly enough to bring her inside.
Yeah. I know. We have too many cats inside already!
Nostrildamus, meanwhile, couldn’t get enough attention! It was only a couple of weeks ago that we were lucky if we could pet him at all. Now, he’s all over us, asking for pets! He still doesn’t like to be picked up, but he does like chewing on fingers!
The two napping in the shelter eventually came out to see what was going on, and joined in on the play. I was able to pet the little orange one – the smallest of the 4 younger kittens – and even managed to pet Creamsicle Jr. a bit. The calico, however, would not let me touch her! However, my daughter came out to join me for a while, and she tried to play with them. Not only did she get the calico close enough to pet, she was even able to pick her up! Only briefly, and she didn’t like it, but she didn’t run away after jumping down, either.
Aside from Nostrildamus, we seem to be having a better time of socializing Butterscotch’s second litter than the older kittens. Though it didn’t help that Butterscotch was around and growling all the other cats away, including her own babies!
Still, we have made some socialization progress!
The other little orange kitten came by later. That one, the gender is still in doubt, but from what little we’ve been able to see, I suspect it is female.
I thought it was supposed to be rare for orange tabbies to be female, but here, they seem to be the majority! Of the older kittens, Nostrildamus is the only whose gender we are sure of. His one confirmed sister is now inside, but with the luck we’ve been having, his other sibling and Rosencrantz’s baby are also female! And we can’t get anywhere near any of them. :-(
Ah, well. We will just have to do what we can. Mostly, I’m just really, really glad the little kittens are going inside the shelter.
Nostrildamus and his sibling were sleeping in the cat house. From the red light on the timer, I could see that the heater was on. Now I’m thinking of getting a thermometer to put inside, facing the window. LOL I’m such a suck, when it comes to the cats!
Not only does Nostrildamus (aka Nosey) now allow me to pet him, regularly, he’s picked up Potato Beetle’s habit of going between my feet while I’m trying to walk!
Mystery is giving me attitude!
I’m good with that. She and her mom usually run away!
Though Thanksgiving is officially tomorrow, we had our dinner today. The brined turkey using apple cider vinegar in the brine, apple pieces added into the cavity along with the lemon halves, and more ACV added to the roaster, turned out fantastic. I made a mushroom gravy this time, frying up a mix of sliced white button, crimini and oyster mushrooms in advance, adding them when I made gravy from the drippings, then using an immersion blender to whiz the mushroom pieces. That worked really well.
Also, we still had some of the Poor Man’s Hippocras left, and it most definitely tastes better chilled. :-) It also went well with the pumpkin pie and whipped cream! Which makes sense. They both have a lot of the same spices
Meanwhile, I’ve already packed up some take-out containers will be taking them to my mother for lunch tomorrow. When I called to arrange the time, she was asking me right away, if I had mashed potatoes and gravy! LOL Yes, Mom, I do. Just for you!
We have much to be thankful for and right now, as I look out the window, I am thankful we aren’t having a blizzard right now, like we did last year! :-D
After working on the sun room door frame and the bird feeder, it was time to work on the cat house.
The first thing I needed to do, though, was adjust the counterweight.
I sacrificed another crate to hold the block, then retied it. I had doubled up the rope before and this time, rather than cut it, I folded it into thirds. There shouldn’t be a lot of friction from the block, but I figure the more cords there are, the less likely they’ll end up breaking and falling apart. Of course, the weight being supported by the crates will help prevent that, too.
I then added a couple of bricks into the openings of the block to add more weight before I tried opening the roof up.
It’s a Potato Beetle!
Nostrildamus was in there, too, but he ran off when I opened it up.
Potato Beetle didn’t move, the entire time I was working on things!
With the roof fully open, the brick is resting on the ground. This is exactly what I was hoping for!
I then screwed in the terrarium heater, then used the aluminum lid of a take out container as a heat shield, with washers as spacers to keep it from being directly against the wood.
I then plugged it in and let it heat up, sticking my hand under it every now and then. I’m happy to say that the aluminum didn’t even get warm in the entire time I was testing it, though I could certainly feel the heat off the ceramic bulb.
Which was a good time to install the smoke detector.
At the very least, if something goes wrong and a fire starts, any cats inside will be frightened off long before we hear the alarm from inside the house.
Once I was satisfied that the heat shield was adequate, the safety cage was put back. With the heater being slightly wider than a light bulb, I used washers as spacers to make sure nothing was touching it. I ended up using 5 washers at each screw. It’s a good thing that was enough, because any more, and there wouldn’t have been enough of the screw sticking out to secure the cage!
I also put in the timer, set to turn on/off at dusk/dawn. The sensor is facing the largest window, which is facing East. This will likely mean it will turn on before actual dusk but, in the winter especially, that will be just fine.
Then it was time to set up the waterproof case for the electrical cords. I still intend to pick up a longer extension cord, so that it can be tucked under the roof and out of the snow, but at least we can start using it now.
Once everything was done, the counterweight was as much a help with closing the roof as opening it. The hard part is near the end. There is a notch cut out that has to line up with the roof of the entry that was added on later. Without the counterweight, and two people lifting, the person on the window side of the entry has enough to grip, but the person holding the other side of the roof has nothing to grip without risking smashed fingers – and at that point, the roof drops pretty hard! With the counterweight, not only can I easily open it myself but, as I close it, I can do so gently enough to line up the notch to the entry roof, and let it close gently instead of dropping it.
The only thing left in here will be to plug in the heated water bowl, and that won’t be needed for a few more weeks, at least.
Tonight, the outside cats will have their first night with a heated shelter! It isn’t much; the terrarium heater may get very hot to the touch, but that’s a large space for a small heater. This is okay, though, as being too warm would have a whole different set of problems!
It should be interesting to see how many cats I will find taking advantage of the new warmth, in the morning!
The Re-Farmer 