The vet clinic called back. They are done with Bagheera - cleaned out an abscess and loaded him up with antibiotics (and rabies shot, because he was due for that anyway). They did say they had to sedate him, so they’re watching him for a few hours, and I pick him up late afternoon. They said they’d try to avoid that, but I figured they might have to. He would let me examine that knot, but he was protesting audibly about it, and I thought he might not let a stranger near it. Bagheera has an edge on him personality wise.
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Back with my somewhat subdued mini-panther. The clinic said his back was definitely badly infected and he should feel much better now. Five different drugs listed on the paperwork: Ketamine, Domitor, Torbugesic, Convenia, and Metacam.
All together now, ye-ouch!!!
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Hope he’s better soon.
Ouch is right, wonder is Bagh learned his lesson? Come on HAIR, GROW!
I feel sorry for him; he’s got to have a draft back there. He wasn’t on the porch waiting this morning for breakfast, but he did come running when he heard me. He had been holed up keeping warm. I thought of putting a little sweater or something on him, but first, it might irritate that wound, and second, he’d never leave it alone. As mentioned, he is not the most easygoing or cooperative cat on the place. Other than feeling the draft, he seemed perfectly fine this morning, back to acting his usual self.
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Bagheera is rolling and jumping today (and the hut roof is a pretty good jump). So those hindquarters can’t be too sore. The cross-section shot really shows what a marvelous coat he has on him. Note Cory in the left-most hole.
I hope to get a hut session in tomorrow. Tonight is music, and music days have no project hour, just chores.
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Yesterday I added straw. That was going to be the final hut warming step when it was totally finished, but with Bagheera half naked and some cold days coming, I bumped it up. May add more eventually; I didn’t want to spook them with the abrupt change. Bagheera was the first in. He stopped, surveyed this, took a sniff, then picked a spot and arranged himself a nest, shaved end tucked under a shelf. He may be a type A personality who gets into occasional fights with the world, but there’s nothing wrong with his intelligence.
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Well that didn’t take long. Is that one of the others peeping in the doorway?
I receive a weekly newsletter from a TV personality/carpenter guy who this week was building a dog house for a dog in
some cold weather state.
He used some super thick plywood then covered the interior walls w/ sheet insulation from Home Depot/Lowe’s and then
added more pywood on top of that so the dog couldn’t chew the insulation. He said it would keep the dog’s own heat inside
the house for winter as well as keep it cooler for summer.
I thought of you and your kitties as I was watching it.
So glad they’re enjoying the straw.
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Picture taken by sticking the phone through an entrance hole and shooting blind, hoping I’d hit a target.
I bought paint today while out on errands. There are a few steps left before paint, but it’s getting close. I haven’t bought paint in forever, but I definitely don’t remember it costing $25 a gallon. I’ve been inspecting everybody’s color cards for a few weeks, trying to match the new house, and discovering that nobody quite does. This will be close enough, though. I just don’t want it to clash, since the hut and my new house are side by side.
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Yay, Another Success!!! I’m now waiting for the targeted photo of a bunch of them lounging in the straw. Maybe each one has to check it out alone first, then they’ll do the communal nap.
Is it really cold there yet?
Ouch! Glad he’s healing up. But he has quite the coat!
the hut is looking nice and cozy.
P.
Bagheera might have potential for eventing. That jump looks pretty inviting, nice ground line and really just a 3ft wall. A cat hut jump on cross country course makes more sense to me than a lobster trap.
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Nice idea! Multipurpose, too. Any cats who happen to be living in the neighborhood of the cross country course could inhabit the cat hut when it wasn’t being used. And rapidly exiting cats at times could add a “spooky” element to the fence to test the horses’ honesty.
It’s a bit taller than 3 feet, though. Around 3 feet 8 inches, I’d say. Does that move it up a level as an obstacle?
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FYI, if you have a Habitat for Humanity Restore store nearby, (g)you can pick up some high quality paints for around $8, if the can is (nearly) full. Might have trouble matching a color, but if that’s not a problem…
Got some insulation there for pennies for MY outside cat house. Haven’t used it though, in recent years. Semi-feral cats have disappeared, to be replaced by raccoons, opossoms, and skunks.
Today, I painted the main body of the hut. Still have to add the porch, but it occurred to me that adding the porch before I paint that front wall would make a much more challenging paint job for me with corners and awkward angles. Since I don’t really like being on hands and knees working around things if I can avoid that position, I went ahead with the paint.
You can see the wall of the house here. That’s a pretty good color match. It’s not 100%, but knowing how hard I tried, I can accept this. The hut will have some white trim, too.
And I’ve decided to plant some catnip on the sides come spring. 
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That looks nice!
The catnip plants are a good idea, maybe plant some cat grass seeds around the perimeter as well?
Good job on the paint. And great to see some are using it.
I’d put a nice 3 sided hedge around the hut to block wind and soften the look. And maybe a shade tree near a corner.
Don’t ya just love all our work suggestions?
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Whatever goes around the hut will be LOW. There’s already a substantial (well, it will be) shade tree 30 feet away. The site will have plenty of shade. In fact, I backed it up a bit away from the tree to be able to catch some sun, too. (You are facing south in that shot; the back side of the house/hut gets ample sun.) You all can’t tell from this shot, but there are two sugar maple trees. I bought them back years ago, well before the new house went in, from part of the payment for my first full-length published book, which was a commissioned history. Loved that project – history lights my fire.
They loved it, too, and when they paid me, I purchased two sugar maples from a nursery as landmarks for the occasion. They were six-foot lollipops on a stick back then. I very carefully planted them 150 feet apart precisely, because although there was nothing there yet, I always knew that I would build on this site. I’ve always been able to see the “eventual” farm, from the day I bought it. Not all in the eventual plan is here yet, but we’re making progress. I figured that 150 feet apart would allow the sugar maples, when mature, to frame but not crowd a 75-foot building in between. I missed it by a foot; the new house is 76 feet long. The house is set precisely 15 feet back from a straight line between the two sugar maples and centered between them as you look from the front. The maples are about 25 feet tall at the moment, still in adolescent gawkiness and not full-bodied sugar maples yet, but the show improves each year.
I got amused at the foundation guy. He came out to mark the property at one stage in the new house plans. He asked where the new house went, and I said, “See the two sugar maples? I want it 15 feet back and centered between them. And I do mean centered. Not kind of centered. I want the same number of inches between each front corner of the house and the nearest tree.” He looked at me for a moment, then he handed me his fistful of surveyor stakes and said, “Why don’t you mark the corners yourself?” I was glad to. Of course, I realize that the trees might not grow absolutely in sync, so proportions may minutely change. But on the day the foundation went in, it was the same number of inches from each front corner to the nearest tree.
I’m into dressage. When I say centered, I do mean centered.
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Here’s a picture of the new house this last autumn, west to east. The hut is on the east side of the house and would be out of view around the corner in this shot if it had already been there, which it wasn’t. But you can see here the two young sugar maples. The farther one, the east one, is in full show. Those two trees, despite being 150 feet apart, have never quite been on the same color schedule. They are about a week apart at peak. But here you can tell what I mean about the shade trees, and they will be LARGE shade trees, right in front. The hut is in the middle of the east side of the house; compare using the west side that is visible here behind the west-most tree. A shot with both sugar maples is difficult to get because of the long distance between them, but I did try.
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