:)
So our mouse catcher was outside crying D: He (Xavier) was yowling and sounding generally upset. So I went out to greet him, and he practically runs into my arms.
Guess what? His winter weight and fur hasn't grown in yet! Which sucks because it is below freezing.
So I brought him in and he was having a blast with me reminding him to PLEASE not pee while he's in here, but he says, "I'm warm now, so I want to go back out now" like he does every year when it's frozen outside. Sometimes during the day I'd let him out anyway -- one time after an ice storm so everything was covered in snow and ice and he started crying again in five seconds, lol. That was when the Carolina wren had gotten into the house so it was beneficial to now have him inside yet. He was pretty upset when his toes got too cold, though.
I am thinking about building him an insulated cat house, but I am worried he won't use it if I make it. I know that cats prefer several exits in case of a predator appearing. So that would immediately make it a little bit harder to keep warm. I was thinking a gentle reptile cage warmer adhesive-d to the wall of the thing, and filling it with straw. And it being made of two layers of wood. One set of wood for the actual walls, then some foam insulation and a smaller bit a wood over that to keep him from trying to eat it.
I could also check the depot nearby for spare supplies. Back when we had an outhouse for the indoor cats (it was a hut structured outside a side door so the indoor kitties couldn't get out), I'd go over there all the time to get messed up roof tiles so I could salvage good ones and put them on the lid of the outhouse. It got too messed up to be salvagable when I left home. No one took care of it for five years. I got home to my mom complaining that the mentally retarded cat, Tiger, kept getting outside. Idiot humans. They took all the tiles off the lid to replace the lid, but left the new lid to the elements so it obviously caved in after a bit. That, and no one was doing cat litter, so they were all overflowing when they got filled with water and exposed to wonderful creatures. So much diversity in those litter pails.
Luckily, I had gotten back with Brandi against my will, and I managed to recruit her to help me tear it down. She was too afraid of annoying the neighbors to hit it with a bat, though. The only reason she agreed to help was because she views me as a weakling unable to do anything myself.
Luckily for me, Brandi was too afraid to do much of anything so I did most of it anyway, lol. But she helped as much as she could figure out how and I didn't make her pick up shit because (1) rude and (2) that was her literal paying job at the time -- pick up shit -- so that's fun. Not.
That was actually a really fun day. Brandi and I had a lot of fun that day. It's too bad she didn't get help. She could have been a great friend if it weren't for everything else.
