Building Sherbert Two Shelters

Last winter when the weather got really cold and rainy/snowy I worried about Sherbet a lot. Sure he survived but if you love someone you want them to be comfortable not merely survive. I spoke with Saeed about building him a couple of shelters: one to prevent his food from getting soaked and one for him to enter and nestled down into for warmth. I looked on the Humane Society's website for suggestions for how to build a feral cat shelter and Amazon.com for ideas about a feeding station. This is what we came up with...

Saeed built the feeding platform by nailing a laminated concrete board onto two 2 x 4's for the base. Elevating the concrete board allows the flooring to stay dry even if there are two inches of water standing from a downpour.

We bought a piece of plexiglass that could bend enough to form a tunnel.

The trick now was to attach the plexiglass without splitting it.

Ta da! Long enough so Sherbet can crawl inside...

... and eat dry food without getting soaked himself.

We nestled it under some branches near his current eating area.

We then camouflaged it by covering it with straw (see it to the left there?) to prevent curious people from checking it out and maybe taking it.  I placed his bowls in the usual place so he'd get used to the new tunnel. One day recently it was raining and I put his dry food bowl in the tunnel and then watched as Sherbet crawled right in!

The day we first put it out there though, he was watching us carefully through the tree branches.

For my project I needed a piece of insulation foam board...

... and a plastic bin with a lid.

I had to measure and cut a 6 x 6 inch hole on each side. I know it sounds counter intuitive to cut two holes in a shelter when you're trying to keep a kitty warm, but a feral cat needs to know it can escape if it has to.

Tippy tried out the hole and said it was just right.

She didn't stay long.

Cutting the foam insulation board to the right size was harder than I thought it would be, mainly because the plastic bin I bought was tapered. The sides at the bottom had to be cut narrower than the sides at the top.

If I do this again I will buy a bin that is straight up and down with no tapering, but I managed to fit the pieces in. After cutting holes in the insulation where the doors were I duck taped the edges so Sherbet wouldn't accidentally brush against the raw edges of the foam board and dislodge it. I also put a sheet of insulation in the lid so the bin was truly insulated on all six sides, and the metallic side was placed facing inside so the cat's own body heat can be reflected back.

The instructions then said to put plenty of straw inside the box (specifically straw) so the kitty can burrow and cover itself. I put more in after I snapped this picture. I also sprinkled in some catnip so the scary new object might be made more enticing.

Although you can see the box quite easily if you're sitting on the ground, when a person stands in front of this bush the box is totally invisible.

At first I tried a different bush before deciding on the one above. The new bush had more room but the bush above is "Sherbet's" bush where I fed him all last winter. The video shows him approaching the box for the first time:


Then I moved it to Sherbet's usual bush but he was having none it. Oh well. I know if it's cold or rainy he will go in there. I couple of chilly mornings recently he even smelled like straw when I fed him breakfast, so I think he was using it. I love the little hiss he gives me at the end.


Stay warm and dry little bubsy. Love you.

Tippy And Chappu Hangin' Out Together

I think Tippy and Chappu got confused and did something sort of unusual - they snuggled together on the cat tree. Awwwwww, precious.

Rainbow, Teddy, Calvin, Layli, Obi

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

~ Anne Lamott

Obus Obus, RIP

I am so sorry and sad to announce the passing of an incredible kitty. I'll blog about him some other time when I'm not so upset. He was so very special... one of a kind. We miss him so much already.

Obi-Wan Kenobi, a very handsome kitty with mittens for feet.

Be This Guy

Being an (ethical) vegan goes against the mainstream belief that nonhuman animals are our property.

Please note, I'm not saying those of use who use animals are "Nazis", but we have all swallowed the speciesist indoctrination which has allowed us to participate in the exploitation, torture and murder of many animals. 56 billion land animals and many more times that number of sea animals are tortured and murdered each year. If we are not vegan we are participating in great violence. All vegans used animals at one point in their lives prior to being vegan. All vegans were at one point in their lives speciesist and participated in great violence. It's time to see it for what it is. Leonardo DaVinci is quoted as having said, "The time will come when men such as I will look on the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."

This man in the photo who refused to give the Nazi salute was August Landmesser.

P.S. I realize that even as a vegan one still perpetuates the deaths of animals inadvertently. The combines that harvest our plant crops, for example, kill many small animals.  

Cicada Sitting Silently, Spider Spinning Surreptitiously

The end of summer means the death of some creatures. They slow down and sit still as they near the end of their life cycle. I met a cicada that didn't move no matter how close I got, though later it was gone. Did it become someone else's meal or was it just fooling me? It's also the time of big spiders, at least around my house. Getting good pictures of them and their webs are hard due to the delicate, almost invisible strands of their webs.

I'm fascinated by that splash of green at the base of its wing.

Did the beauty of its wing give humans the idea for stain glass windows?

Last night I saw this spider, the size and color of a small crab, busily building her web between our lamp post and a bush.

This is her underside. See the two strands leaving her posterior and/or belly? I watched as she guided these strands to each support strand and stuck them to it, going around and around and around in ever larger circles. Look at the spacing between some of the strands on the bottom left; it's like she measured each to be exactly the same distance from the previous one. Fascinating.

Then I blew at the web to get her to stop moving so quickly as my camera couldn't focus on the blur of activity. She pulled in her legs and held perfectly still. This is her back side. I wonder what those two holes on her back are? I should ask my grandson the biologist; he'll probably know.

Happy Birthday!

After too many years away Tita can now easily come to all our family celebrations. It felt so good to have both my birthday girls home again. :-)

Cyrus and Tita played a rousing game of "Beat You to the Castle".

Mischievous little gamer intense with competitive spirit.

Meanwhile, Chacha guarded the busiest spot in the house and...

... Gabriel guarded the couch. Actually, he had returned from Cali on a red-eye and took an amazing nap. No matter how much noise we made I don't think he ever woke up.

While his dad napped this little architect was seriously considering his next move.

I know I've said it before but both the boys are great at puzzles.

I love this pic. Cyrus is helping Kai put the confounding pieces together.

Look at that face.

Shirin wanted to eat Asian noodle bowls, so I gave her the credit card and she and Tita went shopping for all the ingredients we didn't already have. They washed and chopped and sautéed for quite a while.

The end result was delicious. We also had a Tum Yum-ish soup.

A pumpkin roll served nicely as our birthday cake. Notice that 8 candles (no significance to being 8) are glowing in this picture and in the next picture...

... only 6. Kai couldn't restrain himself at the end of the birthday song and tried to blow out all the candles! Fortunately he left 6 for the birthday girls to blow out after making their wishes.

Matching twin kitty buns!

A bit more practical, some work out clothes.

Can you tell Shirin got that from Gabriel? The boys were so excited.

Tita got a really cute shirt from Shirin.

Gabriel brought some amazing toffee back from a candy store in SF. Look at those two little vultures ready to pounce! Later in the weekend David and Chacha ate the rest of it.

He also brought a superhero adventure book.

The next morning Gabriel and Kai share a tender moment before breakfast.

Saeed labored hard to prepare all the components of Persian breakfast.

Saeed and I normally don't eat cheese any more, so this was a real treat and we all enjoyed it so much.

Chacha helped me pre-wash the dishes.

After breakfast the women and children went to the Riverwalk. Tita took off and ran the full 4.5 mile loop while Shirin and I took it a bit slower. Of course she had the boys and I had Chacha but we ran a bit too. Chacha was so excited to see the water he nearly pulled me in. We were all hot and sweaty so Shirin told the boys to take off their shorts so they could wade in the water and they were more than happy to do that.

There was also no chance of taking a serious picture!

Tita had never actually seen Chacha swim before, but I caught it on tape. Shirin took the boys out to that rocky strip until Tita and I harassed her about going out too far with the boys. Chacha ended my filming abruptly as I had to turn off the camera to catch him! It was a very exciting weekend for all.