Sunday 11 September 2011

Building the BIG outdoor cat run

Pixie Kitten said: "Can we have a bigger cat run please?"

Please build us a bigger cat run!
It had been a while since we built our original cat run and it was time to take the plunge and build our two cats a bigger and better cat run to give them much more space in their secure enclosure.

At the moment we have a cat flap, cut into the side of the conservatory, which leads out into the cat tunnel. The tunnel takes our cats down the side of the garden and opens out into their existing 6' x 6' cat run which is joined onto the garden shed.

The plan is to cover the whole of the patio and garden, between the conservatory and the existing cat run, with a big pergola/cage enclosure. This area is about 6.5m x 5m and we wanted the whole enclosure to be about 7' high so that we could also walk freely within it.

Tuesday 23 August 2011

Improving the Cat Run

So, we had already built the cat tunnel and run but as our girls got bigger we wanted them to have more space to play in and explore. It was a "3 dimensional" space... as they could climb ON the Kitty Shack and the wooden crate as well as get inside them and they had the large tree branches to climb on... but they soon got used to it and kept looking into the garden shed through the window!

You could see them thinking "I wonder what's in there?"
So I got a saw...

Tuesday 2 August 2011

Wetherby Photos Past and Present

Fascinated by how things used to be compared to how they look now...

I am hoping to start a photographic archive of Wetherby - comparing photographs from the past with those of the present.

See, also, our page of photographs and information about Wetherby Railway Station

Here is a start:

York Road - HMS Ceres Naval Training Base - (now Wetherby Young Offenders)


HMS Ceres, Wetherby, Main Gate
HMS Ceres, Wetherby, Main Gate
 This shows the main entrance and gatehouse of HMS Ceres Naval training Base. Originally built in 1942 and intended to be one of two hostels for the munitions workers at the nearby Thorpe Arch Royal Ordnance factory (now a retail park!). However it was commandeered by the Admiralty and became the training base HMS Cabot, renamed HMS Demetrius in 1943, finally becoming known as HMS Ceres.

In 1958, when the Navy base moved to Chatham, the site became a borstal - Wetherby Young Offenders Instiute - and is now known as HMYOI Wetherby Secure College of Learning and this next photo shows the same view today.

Thursday 28 July 2011

How to Make an Outdoor Cat Run

Tigerlily and Pixie Kitten
A while ago, we got two feral kittens. We rescued them, when their mother got killed on a busy road, and named them Tigerlily (on the left) and Pixie Kitten (on the right). However, we also live on a busy road so didn't want them to roam free as they would almost certainly get run over too: our previous cat did! At the same time, we didn't want to force them to be "indoor cats"...

So, we were faced with building some sort of cat enclosure, a safe outdoor cat run, where they could go any time they wanted.

We have a conservatory at the back of the house and an 8' x 6' garden shed about 28 feet away, at the other end of the garden.  Our idea was to build a large cat run around the shed... but how to safely get the cats from the conservatory to the secure run?

Wednesday 27 July 2011

Virgin Blogger

Well, here I am... 50+ years old today and still a virgin blogger... not any more though... wonder what I will have to talk about?