Cat Wire Back Up

Been a long haul. A marathon sort of. Once the tree had to come down, I had to get the cat wire down and then all the other stuff out of the cat yard before the tree people came. I had to take down all the wire, by cutting it down. I knew then, putting it back up was going to be a nightmare.

It was all that.

It's hodge podge pieces by now. I've had to take some parts down, for this or that reason, then patch it back up. I've had branches fall and tear it. It's piece meal.

I had to cut out around the tree, first, then remove the cat climb preventers. I had, in the end, encircled branches with foam pipe insulation around a bungee cord. I ran the chicken wire around the foam pipe insulation, joining the wire to itself. This worked well and wasn't damaging to the tree. Below that, I encircled the branch loosely with some large mesh wire. I think it might once have been for tomatoes.

I zip tied the wire branch wrap at the top to the chicken wire, wrapping around the bungee wrapped in foam pipe wrap. Simple, easy. Cats couldn't climb up the branch to the wire.

All this, on six branches, had to come down.

After the tree people were gone, there were three piles of logs inside the cat yard. Why they left them in there, I don't know. Easy, I guess.

I had to carry every piece out, one by one, and stack it, hoping to sell it at some point.

Re-attaching the cat wire was a break my neck endeavor, done mostly today. Yesterday, I mowed my friends fields again.

I bought more zip ties and re-attached, and pulled, trying to pull places I had had to cut, back together. I'd finally use bungees to pull it tight as I could and to hold the pieces together, while I zip tied the longitudinal lengths together, then moved the bungee over a bit to do it again. I had to repair many holes, by cutting more chicken wire, from odds and ends.

In the end, it was a bedraggled looking mess, sagging miserably, so badly I could not walk upright beneath it. The tree is no longer there, you see, to hold it up high.

As a temp fix, I used one 8 foot 2x4 I had and propped it up atop a cinder block to achieve the height needed, beside the trunk, for support, to raise the cat wire up a couple feet in the middle, on the sagging end. This worked ok, at least for now. Dog tired, neck on fire, hands swollen and cut up from the pokey sharp chicken wire, I hauled out a dozen more pieces of log, then called it a day, and let the cats back out.

That's a relief in itself. They don't like being confined when not used to it. They were overjoyed to be back outside.

The yard looks stark and barren, without the tree. I'd also thrown out onto the yard a bag of grocery outlet grass seed, which had sprouted, but barely, about ten days ago. Then came the tree people and it was trampled to death. I face another flooded back yard winter, I'm afraid, not that the grass, had it grown tall enough before the first freeze, would have helped much. Would have helped some.

I felt a huge let down this afternoon, from the loss of the tree, the ugly yard resulting, the dead grass, exhaustion, loneliness and my neck pain.

The tree had to come down. There was no choice with that. I'll miss it.

The crows were mad, when they came to roost, that first night, to find it gone, but have settled into the neighboring maple, with a few hoarse squawks of disapproval and some rattling around, more so than usual, branch to branch, as they nestle in for the night.

Guess I'll adjust too.