The Cat Tent

In my last entry I promised I’d explain the comment I made about building a tent for a cat. Okay, here it goes.

As I have traveled through J-Land, I have sat on more than one back porch listening to you tell me a story about a beloved pet. Yes, there are so many pet stories here in J-Land that I would not have believed it a week or two ago had you told me that I would be adding one more to the mix. No, I am not tiring of your pet stories, I just didn’t think I would be writing one.

Many of you know that we moved into a new house shortly before I started this journal. One of the best features of the house we moved from was the screened porch in back. It was perched over the pond behind us and we loved to sit and watch the wildlife from our protected vantagepoint.

My wife’s sister lives with us these days and she brought with her a little friend whom we have all grown to love. He is a black cat named Blanca. Yes, we do know Blanca means white, LOL!

Blanca loved the screened porch and would spend hours sitting out there soaking in the scenery and watching the critters through the screen. It was his favorite place.

The new house has a concrete patio slab out back, but no screened porch. After exploring and getting to know his new environs, Blanca would see us go in and out the back door, but was not allowed out. Blanca has been an indoor-only cat since he was a little kitten. He is fourteen now.

Thinking that this back door led out to a porch like at the old house, Blanca started sitting at the door begging to be let out on what he thought was a porch. I have to admit it broke my heart not to be able to let him out.

So, Sister and I put our heads together and came up with an inexpensive solution. I went shopping and found a screened tent enclosure that would fit over the concrete patio slab. We got some industrial strength velcro and velcro’d the bottom of the tent to the slab so Blanca could not get out under the sides all around.

I spent one full evening after work last week putting up the tent and positioning it over the slab. The next night was spent putting down the velcro and securing it properly. Sister then got some carpeted mats and laid them down and put our patio furniture inside the enclosure. Voila… instant-screened room for the cat right out the back door. He loves it!

   

I must confess that after sitting with Blanca in his new screened room, I really like it, too. The bugs can really be bad in these parts this time of year and sitting in the screened enclosure has allowed us to really start enjoying our new back yard every evening. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!!!!