After our hard freeze a bit ago, I decided to empty out and refill the hanging chicken water when the temperatures rose back above 40. The chickens do have access to unfrozen water in a heated dog dish, but I’m glad I dumped out the ice blocks that had formed in the chambers.
Even though our temperatures were above freezing the week after, it still took over five days for the big block of ice to melt.
Our front window at our house gets the most sunlight, enough that cactus are happy. This would be a great place to start seedlings, so I ordered some hanging acrylic shelves to put in the window.
I received two sets of three shelves, and installed them centered in the right and left window panels. The idea is that it gives me more space for sunlight loving plants, and raises the plants above the windowsill so the cats too can enjoy the sunshine.
The shelves consist of formed acrylic trays, twisted-steel polymer-coated flexible cable, and tubes threaded for screws that act as stoppers. The assembly wasn’t difficult, but did take some time. Could I have made a wood and rope version? Absolutely. I like that the acrylic lets light through.
The jute rope wrapped around one of the scratching posts was really getting worn. I ordered some new 1/4” rope, then cut off the top of the old rope. The bottom portion was still in decent shape, so I stapled the old end to the back of the post (which is actually two 2×4 boards.) I then stapled the new rope on and wrapped it tightly around the wood. I cut off some of the carpet so I could take the rope higher, because I have a couple long cats. I used a heavy duty stapler designed for furniture, with 1/2” staples.
I was down to two hair combs and a few pins. Where are all my hair ties? They usually end up on my side table after a long day, but there weren’t any where I usually leave them. At least, they weren’t on the surface. They were all in the side pocket. It appears Thor the cat (really a kitten since he isn’t a year old yet) has the “let’s push it and see where it goes” feline tendency. At least that is my theory on why all my bits and bobs were at the bottom of the pocket. It is a good thing he is cute.
I haven’t checked under the couches yet. Hm.
I was commissioned to do a desktop inspirational piece on leadership recently. The parameters required fancy paper and something subtly rebellious. I found deckle edge recycled cotton paper, and did a design in Adobe Illustrator that says “Leadership is helping others grow” with custom mirrored leafy vines. The dot and dash borders are actually morse code and the bottom line says “let me work”. The top line uses more colorful language.
The paper went through my inkjet printer beautifully. I painted the leaves with various colors of iridescent inks, so each piece was unique.
I then suspended the finished paper in a purchased desktop frame that uses two sheets of glass slid into a slot in the side of the frame. I really like the look of suspended art, especially with the lovely raw edge of the paper.
This design is also now available on my brand new TeePublic site!
Site note: My slide over to the blog title: Critters and Craft seems to have worked. The old link ofchickensandcraft.home.blog links to the new crittersandcraft.blog domain. Gotta love dynamic labels.
Critters and Craft 