12 August 2012
Cats in Jail
12/08/12 05:40
Marsha left on Thursday. For the next three weeks she’ll be in Minnesota and I’ll be doing the bachelor thing, and watching the cats. Mind you watching the cats has gotten easier. They just won’t be going out any more, ever again. No, I’m not being mean, it’s actually Momiji’s fault.
You see, we used let the cats out on the deck. Marsha would watch them and mostly it was fine. For a while Geiger was slipping out but we got that under control. Then Momiji escaped a couple of times and we couldn’t figure out how. Finally the last time Marsha saw that Momiji had figured out how to squeeze underneath the deck railing, amazing in that it's only a couple of inches off the deck. So Friday I took some pieces of old siding and secured the perimeter. Now I figured that it was safe to let them wander out there. Geiger was cool with it but Momiji was annoyed. She’d wander around looking at the new barrier, come in and glare at me, go back out look some more, and so fourth. I figured she’d get used to it and all would be fine.
But no. On Saturday I was working in the house when I heard an odd noise. I peered out through the kitchen window and there was Momiji. She had jumped on top of the railing and was walking around like a cat on a tightrope. Actually it was very precarious. The railing is aluminum with baked on enamel paint. Add a little morning dew and it was very slick. Every couple of footsteps she’s almost fall off, and if she had it was two stories to the asphalt driveway. I slipped out and carefully got her to jump down to the deck. Then I shooed her inside and closed the door, permanently as far as they are concerned. Now they just don’t go out any more. Their space is getting a bit small and they are not happy with me but that's the way it has to be. It’s even worse because the other place they used to go was the garage. But we’re working in the garage and I’ve pulled one wall down so now they could run away through the back. They can’t go out there any more either. They have to stay in the house.
From the garage and other projects, I’ve learned one thing. The previous owners apparently had a thing about stuff falling down. I think they worried about it, a lot. I mean I think they thought that inanimate objects were going to activly try to escape. Why else would they attach the wafer-board to the walls of the garage with 4” deck screws. A 4x8 panel weighs what, 25 pounds, yet they used 20, 4” deck screws to hold it in place. Then there’s the vertical blinds upstairs. The ones in the front window maybe weighed 20 pounds max, yet they used 5 hangers to hold them up each with not one but 2, 4” deck screws into the window header. I could have done a pull up on any one of them. (Well OK, that is if I could do a pull up. Maybe I could dangle limply from any one of them.)
The one that got me though was the one time they did not use 4” deck screws. In the back they had some cheap plastic lattice with ivy growing on it. It was screwed to the post and roof of the awning on the back of the house. Notice I’m using the past tense. I had to remove it to salvage the siding off the back of the garage. I figured that taking it down would not be a big deal, I mean it’s just cheap plastic lattice. They only used 1 1/2 inch wood screws. Trouble was they used several dozen of them. One every few inches, and in places they were two rows deep, all to hold plastic lattice and some ivy. Doesn’t that seem like a bit of overkill? But then the ceiling of the garage was held in place with 2” finishing nails every 2” across every beam. The panels looked like a porcupine pelt when I got them down. Maybe it’s a Canada thing.
One last Olympic joke:
Is their any truth to the rumour that Usain Bolt’s mother was a nut?
Doug, no Marsha (so this didn’t get edited. She would have probably made me take out the Olympic joke)
Pix: The deck with the temporary wall at the bottom of the railing. This is the railing Mimiji was walking on top of.
A BC sunrise. We get a lot of these
You see, we used let the cats out on the deck. Marsha would watch them and mostly it was fine. For a while Geiger was slipping out but we got that under control. Then Momiji escaped a couple of times and we couldn’t figure out how. Finally the last time Marsha saw that Momiji had figured out how to squeeze underneath the deck railing, amazing in that it's only a couple of inches off the deck. So Friday I took some pieces of old siding and secured the perimeter. Now I figured that it was safe to let them wander out there. Geiger was cool with it but Momiji was annoyed. She’d wander around looking at the new barrier, come in and glare at me, go back out look some more, and so fourth. I figured she’d get used to it and all would be fine.
But no. On Saturday I was working in the house when I heard an odd noise. I peered out through the kitchen window and there was Momiji. She had jumped on top of the railing and was walking around like a cat on a tightrope. Actually it was very precarious. The railing is aluminum with baked on enamel paint. Add a little morning dew and it was very slick. Every couple of footsteps she’s almost fall off, and if she had it was two stories to the asphalt driveway. I slipped out and carefully got her to jump down to the deck. Then I shooed her inside and closed the door, permanently as far as they are concerned. Now they just don’t go out any more. Their space is getting a bit small and they are not happy with me but that's the way it has to be. It’s even worse because the other place they used to go was the garage. But we’re working in the garage and I’ve pulled one wall down so now they could run away through the back. They can’t go out there any more either. They have to stay in the house.
From the garage and other projects, I’ve learned one thing. The previous owners apparently had a thing about stuff falling down. I think they worried about it, a lot. I mean I think they thought that inanimate objects were going to activly try to escape. Why else would they attach the wafer-board to the walls of the garage with 4” deck screws. A 4x8 panel weighs what, 25 pounds, yet they used 20, 4” deck screws to hold it in place. Then there’s the vertical blinds upstairs. The ones in the front window maybe weighed 20 pounds max, yet they used 5 hangers to hold them up each with not one but 2, 4” deck screws into the window header. I could have done a pull up on any one of them. (Well OK, that is if I could do a pull up. Maybe I could dangle limply from any one of them.)
The one that got me though was the one time they did not use 4” deck screws. In the back they had some cheap plastic lattice with ivy growing on it. It was screwed to the post and roof of the awning on the back of the house. Notice I’m using the past tense. I had to remove it to salvage the siding off the back of the garage. I figured that taking it down would not be a big deal, I mean it’s just cheap plastic lattice. They only used 1 1/2 inch wood screws. Trouble was they used several dozen of them. One every few inches, and in places they were two rows deep, all to hold plastic lattice and some ivy. Doesn’t that seem like a bit of overkill? But then the ceiling of the garage was held in place with 2” finishing nails every 2” across every beam. The panels looked like a porcupine pelt when I got them down. Maybe it’s a Canada thing.
One last Olympic joke:
Is their any truth to the rumour that Usain Bolt’s mother was a nut?
Doug, no Marsha (so this didn’t get edited. She would have probably made me take out the Olympic joke)
Pix: The deck with the temporary wall at the bottom of the railing. This is the railing Mimiji was walking on top of.
A BC sunrise. We get a lot of these