Feral Cat Shelters

Several weeks ago, I found three large styrofoam igloos at a thrift store and decided to make them into feral cat shelters. I gave those three to my father and his porch cats have loved them. The igloos are used to ship refrigerated RX and I’ve checked with thirteen local pharmacies and only one has gotten in touch with me and they gave me three more igloos. 

*I tried a half dozen times to get these photos in the correct order and wasn’t able to. 

If you can get your hand on the igloos, they’re very easy to construct. You’ll need a 6” opening. I did a circle (traced a flower pot) on the first one, but have been cutting squares on the rest. I like to line the edges with tape to secure the styrofoam  I used Gorilla Glue masking tape  

 Line the igloo with ~2” of straw. Of note, the lid is larger than the bottom, so I made the lid the bottom. 

Tape the lid down and then run tape around the entire igloo at least once. 

Cover the igloo with a thick plastic trash bag. I used Husky industrial bags and some blue bags I had on hand for the largest igloo. Tape the bag closed as if wrapping a gift. 

Cut the hole for the opening and tape the edges of the plastic inside the igloo. Sit outside, out of the wind.  Once cats are familiar with the shelter, you can drape something over the opening as a flap. Do not put cloth items in the shelter, straw only.  Cats paws can freeze to cloth items in really cold temperatures. 

Hopefully another pharmacy will reach out to me with igloos so I can continue to make them for cats in need  

 

Snowmen Pretzels

 Stitch night in December includes treats. I opted to bring dill pickle dip (recipe can be found under the label Appetizer) and pretzel ring snowmen!

They were a mess, but a lot of fun to make once I realized I could only do 3 at a time or else the bark would harden making it hard to attach the eyes, nose and buttons.

The eyes and some of the buttons were mini chocolate chips.  The noses were either orange tic tacs or orange mini M&Ms.  Some of the buttons were mini M&Ms.

To adhere them together, you first laid down a thick strip of almond bark and then laid 3 pretzel rings on top. Fill the rings with melted almond bark and then add eyes, nose and buttons. 

A little help for our friends!

With low temperatures below zero and wind chills -15 to -30 range, I decided to built a shelter for the local tom cat. 

 

I used a tote that I wasn't using, an empty 20 lb cat litter container (also already had) and straw. Josey assisted. 

 

I cut a whole on the side of the tote (the most difficult part of this project) and added a layer of straw on the bottom. I removed the lid from the empty cat litter container, turned it on its side and stuffed straw all around it and on top of it. 

 

Josey consumed several pieces of straw!

I taped around the opening as the cuts weren't perfect and added straw to the litter box. 

 

I taped the lid on top and sat it out end of December.  I think someone has been in it, but I don't believe anyone is sleeping there overnight. I still see the tom daily, so I guess he's got another place to keep warm. 

 

Of note, I suggest doing this outside before winter arrives! I had straw everywhere! 

Winter Decorations

Some years I’m in the mood to decorate for Christmas, other years not as much.  This is one of the latter years.  I brought up the Christmas tree, but took it back down after a few days having decided not to decorate it this year.  Rather I decorated the mantle and the front porch and called it good for this year. 

As a reminder, where was my autumn mantle;

 

And here is my winter mantle;

 

This will remain up through February.  I think its still missing something, but I don’t know what.  Maybe I’ll figure it out by next year!  It's certainly better than last years;

 

Josey and Lyncoln were a lot of help (not)!

 

 

Heres how I decorated the porch;

 

Nothing too exciting, but pretty at night. There are also plastic, flickering candles in most of the windows.  

First Snow!

The first snow fell on Halloween! Officially we received 0.02", but I got more than that. 

It was a pretty snow that melted by morning. 

 

Warmer weather has returned.  Winter predictions have us being dryer and warmer than normal, but I have at least one friend who thinks we may see more than normal snowfall. Only time will tell.