Projects Before Winter

 I'm trying to get done now what I didn't do all summer.  Projects.

Like putting new roofs on the cheaply made but cute outdoor cat houses.  

Don't get them, if you live in Oregon especially, with our pouring rain and constant wet and fat bored winter cats.  The cats jump on the roofs, to accelerate their already inevitable decline, from being poorly made of cheap crap.  The irrestibly cute little outdoor houses only stay cute a short time before they start to fall apart.

I made a new roof for one of the cat houses. I used old boards to make it, from the cat room I dismantled last spring.  I saved all the wood I could, when I took that 6x6x6 room down, that wasn't awful, from 2x2's, to osb and also screws that were not bent or rusted.

This cat house got a new roof, as the other roof had rotted and collapsed inward.  It's now stuffed with straw.

To cover the other cat house, whose roof dismantled itself in rot last winter, I made a cover board, with four legs, is all, to go over it completely.  Same thing, used a board from the old cat room, and 2x4 legs also from the old cat room studs.  

This cat house had a roof on the upper deck that had collapsed from rot.  So I just covered it with a board on legs, rain protection covered in the black carpet runner plastic.  What I had left of it, at least.

I also somehow got a vinyl remnant piece over the barbecue pergola canvas/plastic roof that was supposed to be water resistant but isn't in the least.  The difficulty in doing that is that the cat yard chicken wire is atop it tightly.  Lifting that chicken wire up enough to get the vinyl remnant spread out wasn't that easy for me.  I don't know if this will finally make it waterproof underneath or not, but sure can't hurt.  I had hoped to close in the walls somehow too, and make a floor of something, make it kind of into a cozy shed.  But attaching some kind of walls, even sheet metal, to the heavy metal frame---I don't have a tool that will do that.  I might try to borrow one though.  I know I can find enough wood remnants around here to enclose at least two sides.  And maybe I don't want it permanently attached anyhow, to remove the sides in the summer.   So, I'll keep thinking on that one.

Arrow was inside this morning, when I woke up.  He's one of the four black cats here and from that huge Olson Lane colony.  He's a mellow fellow and never causes any trouble but usually remains in the cat yard, with fellow colony mates Di Vinci, Willy and Storm, along with Kona and Smolder, Forest, Tweetie and Button.     Of all the cats I mentioned just now, only Kona is under ten.   It may be a very difficult next couple of years for me.

Arrow is one of four black cats here.  The other three are Smolder, Otto and Jenny

Jenny is a sweet girl, but her brother Otto is not so much.  

Jack is Jenny and Otto's brother

Little Thunder is watching Arrow.  Underneath her is old boy Mooki.  He is beginning to decline rapidly.

What a messy bed, eh!   And there, together, which I never thought would happen with these 3, sleepmates Starry, Slinko and Sam.  Starry is the youngest of them, at 12.  Or is she 13 now?  I guess in old age, you let bygones be bygones.  Starry used to hate Slinko and Sam and Slinko used to be mortal enemies, according to Slinko, I should say.  Sam has just avoided him until the last year.