The Kitty Melter, Improved!

Katherine gets a major checkmark. Also she gets kudos. (And I get some of the aura). When we moved to Kenmore and Kitten Farm West, the house had a direct vent gas-fueled fireplace (AKA The Kitty Melter). Flick a switch, even during a power outage, and it goes on (the pilot light powers a tiny generator ... I think). It was even installed with an outlet and a wall switch for a fan to actively pull air under the firebox, push the air around the firebox, and blowing it, now heated, out the top.

But it didn't have a fan actually installed. It had been on my wish list for years to put a fan in. I've poked around and never found a source, and Katherine viewed the entire project as "Drew is tilting at windmills." I got a break this May when the HVAC contractor who installed our A/C in 2015 came in to do our annual A/C service, and I saw they had "fireplaces" listed on their invoice. I called their office, who pointed me at a second contractor, who pointed me at a third contractor, who pointed me at Amazon. Bingo (and it was cheap). I ordered. The fan arrived broken, with a spade connector for a wire having come loose. Months passed as we ignored it (it wasn't fireplace season), tried a failed fix, and finally I pinged the Amazon merchant. They asked for photographs, then they asked for our address, and then a new (intact) unit magically appeared. Interweaved with all this, we opened the fireplace access panel, and we determined that:

1. The gas feed was in the way,
2. The line needed to be
1. unhooked and
2. moved out of the way, and
3. not done by us.

I went through another round of phone calls. and this time we ended up with Puget Sound Energy (our gas company). The nice PSE technician who came out explained the flexible metal hose can simply be safely shoved out the way -- no disconnection needed.

Yesterday, it all came together -- after various consultations and a trip by me to the hardware store for two tiny nuts, Katherine got it in. Windmill defeated!

Better Purring Through Technology

While the original Summerhill Kitten Farm (built in 1890) was transformed into an electronic cottage before we had cats, these days many of the technological advances at the Kitten Farm West are actually driven by the Feline Overlords.

For example:

• The main reason we own a an HP CP2025dn LaserJet is not because it's a fast networked duplexing color printer, and that it uses powdered toner which doesn't dry out. No, we bought it because by combining the function of a color inkjet and a B&W Laserjet, we have a single taller printer that leaves more space in my office for cats and makes a better launch pad for Whitey or Penwiper to do a spider-cat worthy jump to the top of the library bookshelf.
• Recently, we adjusted the shelving in the living room entertainment center so that the receiver, a smarter brother of the Big Black Kitty Warmer in my office, now has the shelf clearance to be used by a feline for its true purpose of keeping a cat toasty. They haven't discovered it yet, but they will.
• Back at Christmas, we replaced +Katherine Derbyshire's aged iPad 2 with a iPad Mini 4, which is faster and smaller. With the recent addition of a Zagg keyboard and an iOS beta of her favorite writing tool, that means more futon time in place of sitting at her desktop, with more room for a feline in her lap.

Alas, our work is never done.

Yesterday, Katherine pinged me from her office to ask me to print a document that she'd put on the cloud. I found this odd, but complied. While I printed it and fetched the result, she explained that she was on her futon with her iPad -- and the cat on her lap had decreed she didn't need to get up just then. She had already searched for how to print directly from her iPad and found something called AirPrint, but our monster of a printer, released in 2009, has never heard of it. Fortunately, Google search has.

After I chatted with our local server, the Chief Kitten Valet can now print from her iPad. I don't know how she'll retrieve the result, though.

p.s. We interrupted writing this post after the word "complied" to worship the just-arrived-on-my-desk Penwiper. He was petted, and settled on a desk pillow to groom himself. 

We then returned to our previously scheduled blog post ...

Oscar's Take on Remodelling

So ... we realized we were overdue to have the grout in our shower redone, and we called a local contractor.   The contractor came in, looked at it, and showed us that the wall itself was damaged.   The wall itself had to be replaced, and of course they had to retile the whole bathroom (tile is a bear to match, it seems).

This kicked off in mid-January.  Progress has been steady and professional, if slow and expensive.

Oscar, he who is easily startled, now calmly takes our contractors and the associated noise as routine.

Any project which goes on long enough for Oscar to accept as routine is too long.

Administrivia: Oh, bother

It would appear the software I used to move to the blog posts from MovableType to Blogger lost the author and used me as the writer for everything.  Annoying, but Katherine doesn't care much and I'm annoyed, not frantic about it.

Administrivia: A new place, new look, a new RSS feed?

For those of you (both of you) actually subscribed to this blog, please that note we've switched blog software and gone to a new address for it: http://kitten.kew.com.   As side effect of the move and/or new software, we may have broken any RSS feed you had, in which case you will need to resubscribe using the new address.

The good news is the software is easier for us to use to post (note how we actually posted today!), faster for both us and our readers, and less maintenance for us as well.

(Not that it will be perfect, for example the service we are now using had a major outage in early May.  But I won't have to fix any issues.)

As always, report any problems to me, ahd@kew.com.

p.s. This is actually a the most visible part of a major change for us, but I'll save the detailed description for posting in another blog on another day.

The Day Spa from Hell

We were organized enough to do an errands two-fer yesterday, and the boys are still recovering.

Errand # 1 was to get the boys teeth cleaned and be given their annual shots. This meant they all went to the vet without breakfast, got general anesthetic, and generally thrown for a loop.

Errand # 2 was to get the carpets cleaned. This meant when the groggy disoriented boys came home, their Kitten Farm was rearranged and smelled funny. Billy and Oscar both were demanding more personal space than normal, with some growling and hissing going on.

Even after we got the furniture put back in place, they were sufficiently disoriented and generally unhappy with the state of things that Whitey was both late for dinner and didn't finish it, and Oscar barely had anything.

Whitey also asked to burrow under the covers overnight (which is often his happy place during the day, but not normal at night), which Katherine blessed. Oscar didn't sleep on the bed at all. Billy found his normal spot, chest high between his valets.

They all seem more like their normal selves this morning, I'm off to feed them breakfast and see how they are doing.

Update:

The Catzilla brothers are only dismayed by that their breakfast treat (some wet food, in case their teeth hurt) was only half of breakfast.

Oscar, on the other hand, needed to be catered to upstairs and then only took a few bites. Since he ate something, we're monitoring him but not panicked ... yet.

Mouse Inspection

The human mouse inspector came today, and found no signs of our departed visitor having brought the family. A few small possible entries into our crawl space will be sealed when he comes back in a couple of weeks to check some traps he left.

The boys were not allowed to help.

Remodeling Redux

As noted, moving the speakers in my office to new shelves drove remodeling for the benefit of our feline overlords. Now, I have moved Katherine's office speakers to shelves that were also installed last month.

As for access to the now vacant top of the bookshelf, we moved a cat tower next to it immediately. The boys approve.

Remodeling

After Katherine saw one of the boys do the leap to the top of my bookshelf and back down, she decided I had great idea in moving a cat tower into my office. And she implemented it immediately. At 11:30 at night.

(Did we mention I was already up past my bedtime that night?)

This made the user of the office quite grumpy, but made the feline overloads, especially Whitey, pretty happy. Now he has his choice of easily accessible high or really high.

Photo Fridays to follow ...

Security Begins at the Farm

It's the end of an era.

My brother, a professional carpenter, is visiting, and he's doing a number of handyman type jobs for us while here.

This includes putting magnetic latches on the cabinets.

Thus will end the era of self-storing cats putting themselves away where they don't belong.

Cozy Kitten

One small feature of the Kitten Farm West is a fireplace in the living room. Mostly we use the room for the television on the mantle, but the fireplace is a nice touch once in a while. It's especially nice because as a glass fronted gas fireplace, it's cat safe unless someone takes a nap leaning against the screen and does a slow roast.

Whitey was curled up in between the coffee table and the fireplace yesterday evening when I sat down to relax after flipping on the fireplace. I stayed around for an hour and watched some TV with the fireplace still going. When the program was over, I looked down at Whitey and realized he had recalibrated for a warmer climate, as per our cat thermometer diagram.

No pictures alas, as I woke up him up calling for the camera, but he enjoyed his evening.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot like Christmas

With the Kitten Farm West, we have both ~ 75% more space and a room (the library) that has a latching door that the boys can be locked out of without seriously disrupting them or us.

So this year, we're taking plunge and getting a Christmas tree for the first time since they came to run the place. A full sized artificial tree (a first for either of us), so the boys don't poison themselves with the tree water or needles, prewired with lights to reduce the dangling wires which can be attacked,and all plastic bulbs which are shatter resistant.

And of course, we have the library door in case they try mangle it anyway.

The Inmates and the Asylum, Summer 2007 Edition

It is time for that annual summer event, the running of the asylum by the inmates.

I tried make lemonade out of lemons this year, taking the opportunity with Katherine being gone to install a high-speed wired network in the new kitten farm, and make it truly our West Coast electronic cottage.

Having found a larger electrician who routinely works on Saturdays, I thought I had the perfect plan that would minimize both my time off and any interruption to Katherine. I even planned it out for the boys carefully. In particular, at my request Katherine moved the boys' litter box from their own upstairs bathroom back into the master suite, so they can have the self-contained master suite to themselves. (In other words, I was going to jail the boys while the electricians were running around.)

Alas, my glorious plan to avoid disturbing Katherine was foiled! The company I had chosen had sent an experienced low-voltage (network) person out to do the estimate, and we had carefully scheduled two weeks in advance to do the work. At the time of the estimate, the estimator had specifically said that they probably needed two people to do the work. However on the appointed day yesterday, they sent a single high-voltage person out who had no expertise with data wiring, and did not even have the parts required for a new light switch in the garage which was one of the few high voltage items that were part of the original estimate.

The end result is that the kitten farm is still not fully networked yet, and the work will have to be rescheduled in a couple of weeks when we can get the proper people with proper equipment in. For now, the boys litter box is relocated back to their dedicated bathroom. No doubt they view this as the bright side, as the migration caused me to distribute kitty treats in the bathroom to remind them where the litter box had come to a stop.

Sputter ...

After almost three years in loyal service, the pump for the largest PetMate water fountain decided to refuse to start consistently. We swapped in the compatible pump from the small one (which is almost as old) and off it went giving the boys their filtered waterfall.

Since I got a third fountain last month for use when the boys arrived from the east coast without most of their luggage, we're fine for now.

We did make a note to order two new pumps.

Photo Friday: The Summerhill Kitten Farm (West)

Our first photo Friday posted from the new kitten farm is ... the new kitten farm. This is the first photo we ever saw of it, from the real estate MLS Listing.

Administrivia

While our new web server hasn't physically moved (it's somewhere in Texas), the Kitten Farm staff is now all on the West coast. So our time zone for this blog, including the historical posts, has been changed to US Pacific Time.

Permanent Vacation

The Summerhill Kitten Farm, at least in the form of the 1890 Electronic Farmhouse, is but a memory.

The house still stands waiting for its new owner, but the boys have been sent on vacation in the local Residence Inn, and they will not return. Instead, the contents are being packed for shipping with them out of the way, the truck will leave Tuesday, and on Wednesday Katherine will bring the boys west.

Katherine is staying with them, of course, but they have done their share of mewing about the missing comforts of home.

We're doing the best we can for you, boys. Honest.

Photo Friday: We are NOT Amused

Someone was not happy with me taking photos back in mid-April. No wonder ... I was shooting pictures while inspecting his indoor empire as the new site for the Kitten Farm West, and he doesn't come with the house. So our nameless ruler has to move by late May to make room for the upstart Catzilla brothers.



As an aside, we don't think he's been doing his job. With a house that size (nearly double the current kitten farm), he could burn off some of that kitten fat with a proper patrol of the premises more often.

Dead Hardware

The SSSCAT is dead.

Bummer.

Actually it's not dead. Rather, it decided to start beeping every four seconds. We thought "low batteries" or "empty air can", but nothing helped.

As much it we love it's function, it's not a good implementation. Back to the vendor it goes.

Photo Weekend: Our Secret Weapon

If you follow my personal blog, you know one of our cars is a British Racing Green MINI Cooper S. If you follow this blog, you know the Spider-Kitten once tried to fall off the second floor through a gap in the stair railing.

Those two items came together this past week. Our secret weapon is a new radio controlled MINI Cooper S positioned to drop shake cans on the first floor by pushing them off the ledge.



It met my requirements nicely: Cheap, locally obtained, too wide to fall through the gap itself, and can be controlled from the bedroom so the cats can't hear me preparing to launch. And of course, it's so cute Katherine doesn't object.

We have not actually used it yet to quiet a cat, but if even if we never do, we still have a car to match our die cast Miata model built in the same scale. The MINI is cheaper plastic, but the Miata is a static display (not self-propelled).