Project days

     I haven't been posting on project days lately, but we've been busy. In fact, Saturday was a 12-hour project day, but you'll have to wait a few months for news on that. because we couldn't complete it in one go. In the meantime, here's a quick montage of finished projects.

     My friends S&N did 99% of the work on their chicken coop and attached yard, but I can still take pride in my 1% contribution. There are now chickens, about half-grown. They split their time between two homes - their warm-weather home of the coop, and their cold-weather home in the spare bedroom. Once they are grown they won't need central heating to survive.

     We laid more insulation. A repeat job is always faster, in spite of the surprises that always await you when you start repairs on an old home. This time I used my respirator, which seems like a good idea when you don't know whether there's lead in the paint. I'll only wear it when I have to because it's hard work inhaling and exhaling through those thick filters. It is fun, though, when you breathe like Darth Vader. 

 This attic had housed wasps in the past. After careful research, we determined that wasps had most likely vacated this two-foot structure. I accidentally verified this by hitting it repeatedly in my clumsy efforts to lay insulation in the very small space. Luckily, the wasps were indeed gone.

 I've come up with a classier way to feed my cat. I need to keep her food out of the dog's reach, and a while ago I realized that Ada could stretch to reach the bowl when it was four feet off the ground. (The difference between when the cat cleans the bowl and when the dog cleans the bowl is that the dog leaves absolutely no trace behind. In contrast, cats are more finicky.) As a stopgap measure, I constructed a makeshift barrier with laundry baskets and books, but this did not meet my normal style standards. This weekend, we sawed a hole in a cabinet I owned. I can open the cabinet door to easily top up the food.

 But once the door is closed, only the cat can fit through the hole on the side.