Hello there! Absolutely no requirement to answer this, but I love the outdoor cat run you've attached to your home! I'd love to do the same, but I live in the American South, where mosquitos are very rampant, and it is very hot and humid in the summer. I would appreciate any amount of info you had put into practice or learned while making it, or if you had any insight to accommodate a different climate. It seems that the opening comes through a window, is it still possible to close it off? Thank you again. Your cats seem to love it, amazing job!
Can do! I also have some asks about how this is built, so let me try to explain that first. This is only attached to the house with two screws--under the ramp, not really visible, is a section of 2x4 (red rectangle) that is screwed flat into the siding (blue dots). That's what the ramp rests on, and the ramp in turn is attached to the doorway box with screws from the side (green lines). The box is also attached to the board with screws from the side (purple lines).
On the inside of the window, I stapled the window screen directly to the wooden frame. I don't have a good picture of this from inside, but in the first picture, the staples are on the inside where the yellow dotted line is. I then cut the window screen on that green L line (whoops should be a U, so that it's a flap!) in the same picture. The screen gets pushed open by the cats on their way in and out, and then flops back closed like a cat flap. You can see it pushed up in the first pic, on Mal's back in the side view, and closed in the third pic.
The other end of the ramp is attached to the catio with a pair of screws (blue lines in pic of end of ramp) and is zip tied to the wire and stapled to the wall (white lines).
Yes, I can still just close this window like normal. This doesn't affect anything on the inside, and if I wanted to remove this, I would just replace the screen fabric in this window (the frame is not affected at all) and put woodfiller in the screw holes in the siding. So this window continues to work like normal, with only small gaps where the screen flap hangs! If mosquitos get to be a problem, I would wrap the whole tunnel in window screen--which you can buy by the roll--and put another rectangular frame at the end of the tunnel by the catio, with another "cat flap" of window screen at that end. That way any mosquito that makes it through the first flap has to then make it through a second one to actually get in. If you were concerned about air conditioning escaping, I would actually fully enclose the tunnel with sheet foam insulation, and make a cutout that would fit in the open window of sheet foam as well. It wouldn't be perfect, but it would help. You could use an actual plastic cat flap for one end too!
To be clear, this is a complete impulse build out of scrap materials, so there's definitively refining to do! I'm probably going to put some kind of weight on the end of the screen flap to help it swing down, and treads on the ramp. It's also worth noting that this is NOT predator proof--if safety is a concern, use 1/2 in welded wire hardware cloth instead of this large-gap hog fence.
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[Image Description: a small embroidery hoop that is securing a gauzy white fabric. In the hoop is a crudely cross-stitched black outline of an uneven heart shape. Within the heart, a little bit off center, is a Palestinian flag (three horizontal stripes of black, white, and green, with a red triangle facing right on the left). The right point of the red triangle ended up being uneven and off center, throwing off the balance of the stripes, leaving the green stripe noticeably thin at the bottom. End I.D]
Fuckity. I can live with the wonky heart (I can't even draw a heart without it looking wonky) and the slightly off center flag, but I didn't realize the triangle being uneven and how thin the green is until the literal end of the flag. I'm a rookie to cross-stitch and am unsure how it would look I embroidered red thread over the white and green to even it out, or to bulk up the green stripe by going into the white. Is there any way to salvage this or do I have to start over? I've been working on this for three weeks because my health keeps interrupting it.
[Image Description: a closeup on the flag part, showing also that the bottom of the green stripe is a bit uneven. End I.D]
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I usually feed Odyssey in the evenings (just cus that's how my schedule usually shakes out) and when I drop his food in, he ALWAYS slams it full force like he has to kill it. Anyway I fed him later than usual a couple nights ago and when I dropped the food in he didn't hop off his perch to get it. And I was IMMEDIATELY like "oh no he's sick, he's dying, this is a Symptom, my BOY,," (bc illness symptoms in raptors are often rapid-onset)
But he finally (carefully) hopped to the ground from his perch and walked over to the food and I realized that it was just slightly too dark outside for him and he was uncomfortable flying. Lmao
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Window 95 Not Ok Computer T Shirt
https://homeboy.storenvy.com/products/36493081-window-95-not-ok-computer-t-shirt
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