Month: January 2019

Cat update: hello 2019

Welcome to the first #Caturday of 2019! Your weekly check-in with our family of feral cats.

…And some not-cats, like this lucky raccoon.

The cat house has an internet-connected food dispenser, which has a schedule of set food amounts, plus I can use an app to tell it to dispense additional portions. To avoid attracting wildlife like this raccoon, I normally have the scheduled feedings set to a bit less than what the cats actually eat, and I watch the feeder area via the IP camera there and dispense more if they run out. The goal being to have no food left after dark, when the raccoons and possums are about.

However, while we went away for a late Christmas, I increased the scheduled dispenser amounts, since I wouldn’t be able to watch the camera (it’s only available on our local network, for bandwidth reasons). Apparently the cats weren’t that hungry on this evening, leaving a lot of food for the raccoon, unfortunately:

That naturally encourages the raccoon to come back again, which it did each night. Though the cats seem to be getting used to it, not running away:

Poppy is modeling a high fashion accessory; a cobweb or similar:

All five cats inside:

Another raccoon encounter (and an eye upstairs):

All five again:

An encounter of a different sort; a cat watches as a deer walks by:

A sequence of four photos; two cats on the awnings:

One of the twins (Spud?) hassling Porcini as she drinks:

Porcini leaves (and you may notice Poppy looking out the door):

Rubbing on the edge of the awning, and a shadow of Porcini on top of the camera housing:

Three inside:

Stretch:

Another not-cat: a disappointed possum. I adjusted the food dispenser again to reduce the food after we returned from our trip:

Another raccoon visit, disappointed this time:

The alien gray cat:

Soaking up the warmth from a heating pad:

A couple outside:

That’s it for this week!

Berry cage: more gates

Over the last couple of days, I took advantage of some fine weather to build another couple of gates for the berry cage project.

Firstly, the middle gate, in the new fence that divides the veggie garden:

Close-up of the bottom hinge:

The gate latch and handle:

After adding the wire:

The finished middle gate:

Then the same again for the front gate, to replace the old disintegrating one:

I also moved the dirt from the potato planters, so the chickens wouldn’t spread it all over the garden:

Surprise! I found a soil scoop buried in the dirt; I’d wondered where that had gotten to:

I dumped the dirt into the new bed; we’ll add more on top later:

I stacked some boards to make a roosting bar, so the chickens can safely get to the top of the potato planters if they want to roost there:

This morning, I opened up the small holes in the fence to let the chickens into the veggie garden. These holes had been closed with zip ties since last spring. Here’s the hole into the new run:

And the old run:

The chickens will enjoy eating the remaining vegetation, and rooting around for bugs and such. Fun for the them, and helpful for us to clean out the beds for spring planting:

I took a bunch of photos of them in the veggie garden, which I’ll post another day (probably Sunday, since tomorrow is Caturday). Stay tuned!

Next up: one last gate between the chicken run and veggie garden, that will replace those small holes, and let me get between the two more easily.