I’m only human. Look at how damn cute that critter is. Of course it manipulates me. It gets what it wants.
I already have a cat. It’s an elder cat and it’s been ordered to stay the hell out of the house (not just me, but also Mrs. Curmudgeon says so). We live in a climate that’s like Greenland but with better hunting. Then what?
I cycled through several solutions over the years. I started by outfitting a “stall” in the chicken coop (complete with a cat door). That worked well until I eased out of the chicken hobby.
For years after the chickens (the damn cat will live forever!) I made makeshift structures from straw bales. I made a new one every winter. Straw is a great insulator and cats like them but I spent all winter fretting over heat lamps. I worried I’d burn the farm down. (The chicken coop had heat lamps too but that’s part of the “joy” of winter chicken coops and it’s maintained daily. The straw bales just felt like a wick about to blow.)
Another note, I maintain for the cat (and apparently all the cheeky elements of the nearby forest ranging from cute chickadees to infernal skunks) a heated water bowl. It never freezes. Water is key!
It was all very cheap and ad hoc and stupidly labor intensive… like me. What we needed was a cat house.* In January 2023 that’s exactly what we bought. We (and by “we” I mean Mrs. Curmudgeon who has a lot more sense than I) bought a GDLF Outdoor Cat House Feral Cat Enclosure 100% Insulated All-Round Foam Weatherproof Solid Wood Large Size for Multiple Felines 34.5″ L*21.5″ W*27.2″ H.
We paid about $150 for the object. I was appalled at the cost but I’m unreasonably cheap. It came as a flat pack from God knows where. It’s made of the cheapest materials known to man. On the other hand, it held up for 3 winters. The elder cat for which we bought it seems to like it.
Inexplicably, the same damn thing is now $100. Why is it $50 cheaper? I’ve no idea! Nothing is cheaper in 2026 than not-inflation adjusted 2023 except apparently cat shelters. Such are the mysteries of buying shit that was made in China.
Anyway… it works. The elder cat is our responsibility and the shelter took care of its needs. I’m not as gruff as I sound, I care about the damn cat. Many of the coldest nights of very cold winters I slog my ass out into the gloom and check on a heat lamp crammed in the wood box and the heated water bowl (which is a miracle). Mrs. Curmudgeon is not worried. She stays happily nestled under warm blankets by the fire. My worried mind is never correct. The shelter does its job well. I’d find our asshole, annoying, ungrateful, wretch of an elder cat curled up and snoozing though the worst of blizzards.
This year, I upgraded. I swapped the fire hazard heat lamp for a battery heating blanket. It works great. The lamp never worked great except when dangling from a chain in a chicken coop. It also tends to blow the bulb which is why I always ran more than one lamp for the birds. With only one lamp I fret it’ll go out on a -35f night and I’ll find a cat-sickle the next morning.
There is another cat. “Intruder cat” is not my responsibility. He’s a stray. I don’t like him. He doesn’t like me. Sometimes he’d try to kick my cat out of its shelter. That’s not OK! I’d remind him that I own a boomstick.
Don’t get all “internet” on me; I didn’t shoot him… but I sure as hell chased his ass off the farm with implied violence. Over time, “Intruder cat” made peace with our cat and got renamed “Frenemy”. He wanders off for months at a time; which I like.
“once you have paid him the Danegeld. You never get rid of the Dane.“
Because I didn’t nut up and blow Frenemy to kingdom come, he repaid me with more hassles. He got lucky somewhere and dropped the resulting kitten into my life. It became my problem.
I tried to name the kitten “Half check” and keep him outdoors. It’s not a bad idea. However, the little beast has the ability to teleport. He’s now called “Schrodinger”. He lives inside the house. He bosses everyone around.
Before he moved inside (and only grudgingly consented to let me live in his house) I was building him a shelter. In my defense, it is a hell of a shelter.
Here are some photos:
Frenemy teaching his kitten Schrodinger life skills… like stealing food meant for our cat.
“See here boy, watch the horizon for threats while I feast on this loser’s food.”
A perfectly good cat house. Plenty of room for two cats. With indoor heat once it’s winter.
The kitten was a fast learner. I thought I had photos of him and our pre-existing elder cat sharing the shelter but I couldn’t find one. I was happy with this arrangement but the kitten soon learned to teleport.
This is the super awesome, incredibly insulated, luxury cat condo I built. It was done after Schrodinger learned to teleport. The elder cat stays in his accustomed (and heated!) house. My structure is like a bad real estate deal in China; looks awesome but so far has never hosted a tenant.
I’ve been fiddling with my files. More cute cat photos will ensue.
A.C.
*Am I the only one that has a different association with the word “cathouse“?
