The number of cat enclosure options available in Victoria is staggering. Where we live, the options are much more limited. There certainly aren’t products like the one available below in kit form for purchase. Perhaps there is more demand down south for enclosures of this type where the weather is substantially more….shall we say erratic? I like the idea of an under cover area – it contains sleeping nooks and there is ample room for a litter tray as well. The wire enclosed area has an open bottom so they can nibble on grass – no doubt to be later regurgitated inside.

I think a pot planter of cat nip in the corner will be a perfect addition. The roof has slots in it so the grass and any plants we place inside will still get rainfall. All we need to do is hook up one of our existing tunnels to the side mesh and that’s it! I plan to order it in the next week so hopefully by the time we go on holidays in September, it will be here ready to be put up. Fingers crossed that all goes well!

From "Design A Shed" - very noice style!

Even Rosie is loving the cold weather. Especially out on the sandstone blocks – they warm up quite a bit during the day when the sun is on them and I’m sure in kitty language, that is just heaven! They also make a handy scratching surface it seems. This is probably the first time she has been outside unharnessed and unleashed yet not inside a cat park. She is easier to catch though and she doesn’t jump six feet in a single bound so I am happy to let her out when I have time to watch her like a hawk. Unfortunately Mojo has proved conclusively time and time again that he cannot be trusted – so he had to enjoy his time in the sun wearing his harness. I’m sure if he could, he would complain about the unfairness of it all.

PS – Yes this does mean we haven’t done anything with the cat park yet. That would require us to not procrastinate and actually do something about putting it up. I’m sure the cats have lost hope that it will ever be put up.

Wouldn’t it be awesome if cats had opposable thumbs? They could help you hang out the laundry.

But then they’d also be able to raid your pantry, your fridge, mess up the linen closet….okay, maybe it’s a good idea they don’t have them. Otherwise they might be worse than kids.

So we looked at a few other options but so far, we are yet to come across one which is worth it to avoid DIY activities reasonably competitive and will give the cats the amount of space we would like them to have. We’ve investigated using aviaries, DIY kits and netting but none of them seem to fit the bill. So it looks like it will be the DIY route if we are going to do it at all. It should be easy enough to do but fairly labour intensive. By my best calculation, it’ll be a good weekend’s worth of work. And that’s assuming we have the faintest idea of what we are doing once it comes to doing it.

I’ve put in a very dodgy concept drawing below. The idea is to put in a cat flap in our dining room window, use some of the existing tunnels from the old cat park to create a walk way into a bigger timber frame enclosure which will be about 4m long x 5m wide x 2m high. Whack in a couple of timber ramps around the edge, some hammocks, encase the whole thing in chicken wire and voila, DIY cat park. There’s even enough room in there to put a small garden setting in there and perhaps a few plants. The only thing I haven’t quite figured out yet is how to protect their litter from rain. Maybe a small dog kennel?

It’s still just a concept but it’s a bit more of an idea of what we can do than we’ve had previously.

]]> http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/reclaiming-the-bathroom/feed/ 3 http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/wordless-wednesday-4/ http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/wordless-wednesday-4/#comments Tue, 04 May 2010 19:29:47 +0000 admin http://moggie-madness.com/?p=603

I’m in the midst of looking at different destinations for an overseas holiday in a few years time and I was surprised to find this story about a couple who travelled some 15 000km with their kitten. They are French, so the entire website is in French. My knowledge of the language from my high school years is now fairly residual….I know enough to be a bit dangerous with it. But from what I gather, kitty travelled with them from Miami US to some place way down the bottom of South America, Ushuaia.

I think this is one of my favourite photos that they have shared from their trip. Cuteness!! There are plenty more in the Portfolio section of their website Turn of the World.

]]> http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/have-kitty-will-travel/feed/ 0 http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/the-view-from-my-front-door/ http://www.eucalyptuscountry.com.au/the-view-from-my-front-door/#comments Thu, 15 Apr 2010 08:03:04 +0000 admin http://moggie-madness.com/?p=590 It’s been a very uneventful few months around here, at least as far as the moggies are concerned. Plenty going on in our lives but they are just doing the usual – lounging round the house and waiting (somewhat impatiently) for us to decide what form their cat park is going to take. We still have components from the one at our old house (the new owners didn’t want it) but it was designed to fit that site. Where the new one will go is relatively flat and the modules we have don’t really lend themselves to this kind of terrain. I’m even going to and fro about whether we will go for a CatMax kind of enclosure or another CatNip inspired creation.

In the meantime, they are just chilling out inside. I snapped this photo of them from the front door as part of the My Place & Yours Theme for this week at Hello Owl. One cat on the kitchen counter waiting impatiently for dinner, the other curled up on the recliner and most likely reluctant to give it up. Now the cooler months are here, I imagine that it will be even harder to extricate Rosie from her cozy spot there. There’s no doubt about it – she is an expert lounger. She could definitely give Zoe a run for her money.

Mojo was out and about everywhere by the looks but Rosie was a bit more reluctant to venture outside into the screened enclosure. I have my theories on this. The fortnight we went away coincided with some pretty hot weather. Glenda is kind enough to air condition the indoors on those really hot days. Mojo loves the heat but Rosie, like me, struggles with it and prefers to stay in cooler temperatures. It really wouldn’t surprise me if she stayed inside purely to make the best of the cooler temperatures.

Thank you very much Glenda!

Thankfully, the time of the Christmas tree is nearly over

Mojo and Rosie would like to wish you all a very merry Christmas! If you have cats, I hope you have got plenty of tinsel on the tree for them to pull off and chew to bits. It may make a huge mess but at least it distracts them from the food cooking in the kitchen.