The Porch

The Porch.  Not a big one or a wrap-around-the-house kind...but big enough to sit on and relax late in the day on a sunny afternoon in the shade of the house.  It's covered by the roof and with it's advanced age (127 years old) for a simple wooden construct it has done quite well.  It's on the north side, the cold and wet side and shady side of this house.  Dry rot (a misnomer if ever there was one) is an ever present danger to these rather lightly built subfloor structures.  The wood is white/live oak or worse yet common fir...and it simply can't take the weather.  Oh it's painted, the same grey paint the body of the house has but it isn't enough protection.  Thus the corner column has pushed it's way into the structure as the floor and the structure supporting it are rotting away at a stately pace.  I started today to repair the damage before we do any travels (IF we do any travels) this summer.  It isn't extensively damaged, just the corner and a few boards along the front will need replaced.  The supporting beams and whatever underneath are more interesting and MAY take a bit more construction than the simple flooring will require.  I will be finding out soon...as I used floor jacks today to jack the overhang off the corner a bit (about 1.5 inches) so that I could examine the rot better and decide what must be done.  The jacks are quite stout, they are railroad train car truck jacks and probably could lift a good portion of this house if it needed lifting.  They are substantial!  Tomorrow I'll dig further into it, strip off some dead wood and see what kind of beam and joist material will be needed.  Then off to my nemesis HOME DEPOT to acquire the wood.  Check back tomorrow, I'll have some pictures of the rot and what I'm up to.  Til then...so long for now!

KATS!!!

Yes, it's that time again...more, ever MORE about KATS!  Last Sunday was Repair our Feral Kats day.  We had caught (trapped) 6...our quota per the rules of the kindly folks who do the neutering and spaying of the feral population monthly.  6.  It's simply not enough and too much at the same time.  Trapping them is a easy chore, food in a trap and stand back for about 10 minutes and that's one.  Then another follows suit and soon you have 6 cats in 6 cages ready for water, covering to keep them from seeing each other in another cage and freaking out.  Then days go by before the date with the knife.  Most just lie there with baleful eyes, a sad mat of fur hoping for the best and expecting the worst.  This time we had trapped 6 total, 3 males and 3 females...two pregnant which meant we had to house them for a few extra days after the surgery.  The trapping itself was over in 24 hours, we had the six to be fixed.  That was Thursday.  By Sunday the truck smelled like shit...cat shit...as the "matter" fell from the cages onto the bed of the truck to be peed upon subsequently.  The truck was almost uninhabitable!  Whewww. Off to the animal shelter just outside of Fairfield where the cats would be received, surged and returned to their caretakers in short order.  We unloaded and stood in line with the other kind folks with their own broods caged with them.  Then the doors opened and the registration begun.  They collected the data on each kat and gave each a number and took them away to await the deed.  We returned home.   Later Sunday we received a call to inform us that we could return to the shelter and pick up our Kats.  Back to the shelter we drove in our stinking truck to retrieve the little beasts.  Soon they were all packed in their cages in the bed of the truck and we returned home.  Now the real work began...feeding and watering 6 caged cats that don't want to be there and are now drugged and scared out of their minds that MORE is about to happen! Meowwww!
alas, there is no "more" coming except to be kept for three days with water and food and the stench of the ages as company.  In their state Sunday they mostly dumped the water and food overboard to join the pee and poop below on the truck bed. Yuk!  Yuk! Yuk! Each day passed rather uneventfully and we set the three males loose yesterday.  Kelly, bless her, decided to attempt a sort of (!!!???) "taming" of the one unpregnamt female that was to be released yesterday as well by allowing the little sweetie to come into our house and "meet" Fur-R-Eee, our Queen.  Good idea.  NOT!  So it promptly ran off to lose itself among the myriad of hiding places available in a 120 year old Victorian! Shit, shit! and more shit!  Then...as the Kat is nowhere to be found...she leaves for her date with Katy, her sister and her niece Gillie in San Francisco!  This leaves ME to find and remove the damned Kat!