Large Finch Flight Cage

So two months ago I bought some zebra finches. While they do go against my standard pet rule, easily handleable, they're cute, and require less attention then some other choices. I bought a pair with the intention of letting them breed at least once so I could have a small group rather than just one pair. I may or may not swap some of the babies with others just so I don't have a group of all related birds. They had four chicks that just left the nest this weekend. I've been planning out their cage a few times and settled for the largest one that can fit in my living room (it actually can't fit out of my living room with out being disassembled...

They've been living in my old cockatiel cage, which I realized in two days was much too small to let them fly as much as they want, a 30" x 18" x 36" dome top... The new cage is 5' long by 30" deep, by 3' tall. This is roughly 4+ times the interior space. The top has plexi doors so I can see the birds without wire in the way which they should learn not to fly into (the adults were from a store that had glass fronted cages, and they seemed to figure it out easily, I'll probably drape something over it for a while to keep it from being an attractive exit), and the bottom wire. The sides and back are solid at the moment, which will supposedly keep them calmer, though they mostly ignore the dogs anyway, and the top is wire for ventilation and so I could add lights or heat lamps in the winter.

Awful cell phone pic of the birds through their thick wired cage.

DIY Vertical Terrarium Conversions

I'm slowly dealing with the annoyances of my pets. I have three not particularly tame (one actually bites, and the other two flee in terror) male crested geckos. They've been in 20 gallon high aquariums with screen lids for a few years. The downsides of this setup are numerous, but the worst is any time I open the cage if startled they rocket to the top and I have to close the lid to keep them in, and wait for them to calm back down before I can do anything. This means I don't feed or clean as often as I should because it's a pain.

A few months ago I thought why not flip the aquariums on their sides and make the top the front. This was partially caused by picking up some Exo-terra terrariums on clearance and loving the front opening aspect, meaning I can leave a heat lamp on the top but still feed or clean. The Kenyan sand boa is so much easier to deal with when I don't have to take off the lamp, pull at the cage locks, then look for the snake. Same with the leopard gecko. So I had the flipping idea and looked around. Plenty of other people had done it, notably dart frog owners and breeders. They'd silicone a small piece of glass to the bottom edge of the new opening, use an aquarium lid hinge to attach it to another piece of glass that acted as a door. the very top would have a custom screen for air exchange. There were even companies that made kits. Kits were about $25 maybe per set of two pieces of glass hinges and a screen. I had to purchase the frame pieces for the screen, and had a glass shop cut the glass (Awesome experience with Ace Glass.) Turns out I had all the other parts. I had some silicone, took apart two aquarium hoods for the hinges, and had just enough screen left to make these small screens.

I used 6 inch tall glass for the bottom and 13 inch for the top, width depends on your specific tank. Of the three tanks I used one was very slightly smaller. I bought unfinished glass (it's cheaper) so did have to sand the edges at home with a sanding sponge. I also bought a glass cutter so might just cut my own glass next time if I can find 1/8" thick, all the local stores sell 3/32" which is just slightly too thin. And at $5.00 or so a piece for the largest pieces I didn't see much point it buying a large piece just to test how bad I am at cutting glass.

Some links I used as inspiration.

• Making PDF Tank vertical tank 3D Background
• 20 gallon vertical conversion live terrarium
• diy 10 gallon vertical vivarium
• 10 gallon vertical dart frog terrarium construction

Note: this conversion only works for animals that do not require UVB, mostly floor or nocturnal dwellers from very heavy rainforests, if your animal requires UVB the top of your cage needs to be mesh to let the light through.

DIY Dog Gate

So one of my dogs is nine years old and for most of that time I've used those crappy plastic and wood tension baby gates. For a few months when I first got that dog I used a 4 foot tall piece of plywood that hung on hooks on the door frame to keep her in my kitchen. She just jumped baby gates. Eventually, I graduated down to stacking two of them, and fast forward to now when I can just lean a baby gate across the door and she mostly won't cross it. The problem with the gates was me, and how I always assumed I could clear the baby gate because moving it was too annoying. It was of course just that extra inch too high for my second foot to clear easily, and I tripped over it a number of times, but notice it never made me move it. My other dog was also terrified of them and panicked if one hit the floor and wouldn't come near the door if they were there.

Then a few weeks ago someone (miraculously not me) went over one with a bucket of water and spilled it all over my living room. I'd just taken apart an ikea bed frame at my cousins and saved the boards that made up the mattress support because why not. They were just about perfect. I added one on each side to anchor the gate to and spent two hours fiddling with some others to make the gate. I knew I wanted it tall enough that I'd have to open it, and it had to be easy to open. I also spent some time making sure it was level so unlike every door in my house it will stay open or closed without being latched. I added a small barrel lock to keep it closed, but the dogs aren't super interested in pushing it. I may paint it white, but I really like the look of it. And I get to throw out my bent baby gates now. Ignore the foam in the background, it was also from the bed deconstruction and the dogs are getting more comfortable beds out of it.

Cold Frame Attempt

This is what I finagled to keep the snow off my blooming bulbs. I made a second one and scraped all the leaves off the first planting bed. The sides are open, so it will really only raise daytime temps a little, help dry out the planting bed and keep off snow. I used four windows that have been languishing in my basement for over a year. I'll be using two more to fix the wall of the shed I kind of left open over the winter.

Note to me, the lettuce and tomatoes came up Friday, but I missed the lettuce for a bit too long and some of it got leggy before going under lights. I might just leave it as I'll be planting some more next week anyway. So far nothing on the strawberries.

Upgraded Plant Table

I needed more space for the seeds this year. I had to chop the existing hangers shorter then added a second level. I have another shelf to add but I'll have to dismantle the tables base to add another level. I probably shouldn't go lower then table height, as the dog's tails already hit the pots sometimes.

Newest Cat Scratching Post

I must make a new one of these every year or so. Abby had destroyed last year's, and was eying other things in my bedroom as replacements. As you can see I went basic this time. It's a 2 x 4 with sisal rope wrapped around and stapled or glued as needed to keep it attached.

Please ignore the wires, I'm working on a way to hide them while making them accessible at the same time. The post is part of my redesigned desk. I removed some parts to make the desk bigger, then took leftover parts and added on to it to make it wider. I still need to figure out a real top for it, so at the moment it's different heights.

Seams

Here's a picture that will mean just about nothing to anyone but me. I wear t-shirts maybe 90% of the time. I have one long sleeved shirt, I like the design, but it had awful cuffs on he ends of the sleeves, and I don't like sleeves anyway so I never wore it. I caved last week and bought a double needle for the sewing machine. The entire reason was to fix that shirt. I did it. I chopped the sleeves off and ran the double needle along the new sleeves. It worked great. Admittedly, the seam allowance on the sleeves doesn't quite match, and definitely doesn't match the hem, but they are the same length and I'm mighty happy about being able to wear the shirt again. Even better since the dryer works now I ran my painted shirts through the wash, and the paint set perfectly. Now I have to make a few more.

Freezer Paper Stenciled Shirts

So I may have a Pinterest problem, but there are so many fun ideas. I played with freezer paper stencils yesterday. It took me two tries to get it right. The one above, a space invader stencil, bled a little when I added paint. As you can see my second attempt, decepticon logo, went much better.

Tips I recommend. Foam brush, dab, don't brush. Iron for as long as you can stand to get the paper stuck. Cut carefully. Simplify the design as much as possible, but it can hold detail quite well if you are careful about placement.

I already have some other ideas I want to play with, batman comes to mind. Other link I found about them.

Freezer Paper Stencils

So, I have an unhealthy obsession with Pinterest recently. Mostly I browse the craft pages looking for ideas. The best one so far has been freezer paper stencils. For the measly price of $2.79 I can now put whatever I want to on my many blank shirts. My shirts are blank of course because they're so much cheaper without anything printed on them. Since I own almost exclusively t-shirts I'm going to have some fun with decorating them as i figure out what I want. There is a very faint square of film around the stencil that I'm hoping comes out in the wash. Otherwise I'm quite happy with the usability. I did do one other shirt, but I didn't iron the freezer paper down enough, and it bled a little, kind of ruining the effect. Now I just need to decide what to put on them.

Simple Plate Shelf

A few weeks ago I slightly reorganized my cabinet and ended up with my smaller plates stacked on top of the bigger ones. It was slowly driving me mad. I have more salad type plates as I use them for eating, but the bigger ones are for food prep, so I was yanking them out regularly anyway, and it was taking two hands.

Being completely unwilling to spend money on the solution I stewed for a bit before taking a plate downstairs and making the freaking shelf. I can't add too many more large plates, but I can grab them with one hand now. It's just two pieces of 1 x 6 I had in the basement cut to the size I needed. I put two screws through the side of the cabinet, but left the bottom side loose. It is only holding a few plates. And yes I can now see the screws next to the sink, but my cabinets are 30 year old white melamine, they have plenty of problems beyond two tiny screw holes.

Playing with the Sewing Machine

Did I mention my sister is wonderful to haul this 17lb sewing machine around three airports just for me :)

I've been mostly playing with it. I have a few projects in mind, but they are all missing some part (zippers and stuffing primarily) so are sort of on hold. I have made a basic reversible fleece hat, two draft blockers and spent some time playing with the stitch settings.

Look at all the pretty stitches the machine can make. I even read the instruction manual so now know how the buttonhole foot works and what those other feet are actually for.

Sewing Machine

On first glance it may look as if I got a sewing machine for Christmas. Technically that is true. My sister dragged my sewing machine onto two planes and across a few airports to bring it back to me. I'd hauled it out to North Dakota over a year ago when I thought I was moving, and have dearly missed it since. My good snow shoes are still out there. I spent some of today trying to remember how to use it and making little pillows my sister requested. I only have five or so projects I need to do now.

I need two more dog beds, I just need stuffing and zippers. The curtains in my living room need bottom seams as I just chopped them off with scissors to keep the dogs from shredding the bottoms. I have to devise a curtain for my new metal back door that is light enough to hang with magnets. I want to make curtains for my bedroom, a temperature blocking curtain for the critter room, and a curtain to keep the heat in my bedroom from the hall.

Holiday Cards

I spent the afternoon making holiday cards for family members. It only took four or five hours of running each card through the printer twice, and then going through making sure all the cards looked good then attaching the photos. 96 cards in all.

NaNoWriMo

I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year, so updates will likely be even less often than usual. I'm up to 22,026 words as of right now. I'm also slowly painting my kitchen floor tan, which there may or may not be a post about later.

Kitchen Floor

This sucker has been eating my life. I'm painting the floor of my kitchen replacing the blue vinyl tiles I've been living with. Since I need to use the kitchen I've been doing it in chunks. Half the tiles peeled up on their own over the years, and the other half are stuck amazingly well. I've been peeling up chunks of 6-12 tiles and painting the sticky floor with some tan floor paint we had sitting around. I'm not sure I'll be sticking with just the flat tan, or doing some effect to the floor, but the paint is much better than the old floor.

NaNoWriMo Word Count:

22014 / 50000
(44.03%)

Finished Corn Snake Cage

The cage. It's mostly based on a plan I found here. I used melamine along with a piece of 1 x 4 and two conveniently sized door from ikea. I have the tracks for sliding doors, but since I don't have the money to go get some glass cut right now the ikea doors were a better alternative, and still give me very large openings to work with. I still have to add a heat lamp, though with the room temps this is less of a concern then one would expect. I had an idea for one already, but discovered it isn't going to work and have to try again. I may just cut a hole in the top, cover it with screen and put an outside lamp on it since I'm no longer planning to stack the cages, and that solution would be basically free. I also need to add a side vent, but the one I had was too large for the space, and had gaps just slightly too large as well. I expect I'm going to make it out of wire instead of using something pre-made.

In the spring I'm also going to have to haul the cage outside and silicone all the joints. The corn snake is dry enough I hope he won't do too much damage to the melamine before i seal the edges. That central piece of 1 x 4 also will be painted to protect it from damage as well. The edges aren't perfectly square, but if I build another I'm borrowing a circular saw. A jigsaw isn't great at cutting straight for long distances.

Mind you all the pieces of this cage have been hanging around in different rooms of my house for months. I finally cut the back Tuesday and that led to finishing it. The walls, top and bottom had been together for months sitting in my reptile room taking up space.

And here is the slightly annoyed inhabitant. I need to add more decor and such as this was just what was in his old cage. The footprint is 49 x 24 giving the corns snake about 8 sq ft of space, almost doubling the 4 1/2 sq ft he had previously. Since he's about 5 feet long now, I felt awful keeping him in a 3 foot wide by 18 inch tank. The next snake to be upgraded is my older ball python who is in the same size cage, and is approaching the same length.

Procrastination or Finishing a Snake Cage

Since I decided yesterday to maybe try doing NaNoWriMo i.e. writing about 50,000 words in one month, I suddenly managed to finish building my corn snake cage. The walls, top and bottom have been sitting in my spare bedroom for over a year and it all kind of hinged on getting the back cut. I finally cut it and the jigsaw didn't mess up too bad. I then stared at the open front for about an hour before deciding what to do. I had one perfect glass door from ikea sitting in the room and while I did have a second matching one it was on my TV stand. I dismantled that and had two matching doors. One is misaligned about 1/4" but I'll fix it in the spring, when I'll be taking the cage outside to silicone the joins and paint the few bare wood areas. Since the inhabitant is a corn snake I'm hoping the cage won't warp much before i can seal it. I also have to figure out how to wire a heat bulb in there sometime tomorrow. Something will have to be done about my TV stand as well.

Shed Doors

My project of the day, involved finally covering over the giant hole I made in the shed sometime in the summer. There used to be a rotten window here, and I carved out the wall, put in new studs and cut the existing doors to fit the new space. We used to have two large doors, but realistically the doors only need to be large enough to get the wheelbarrow and lawnmower out and back. I ended up with one large door, and on the left of it a 9" wide extra door. I considered making them equal widths, but that would have involved cutting two 62 1/2" pieces of plywood straight with a jigsaw. Since my jigsaw prefers to cut a little wavy I nixed that idea.

The shed looks all nicely buttoned up, but there is technically an even larger hole on the other side of it where I removed the doors to hopefully replace them with windows. I want to make it into a giant cold frame, so I can use it to extend the harvest, and possibly start some seedlings. However before I can do that I have to figure out what to do about structure. Termites have eaten out all the support on that wall so I need to figure out how to support my windows, without jacking up the building and starting over.

Cinder Block Plant Pots

I got this idea while browsing at a bookstore in this book Garden Anywhere. They were highlighting growing hens and chicks in bricks with holes in them. I dug some smaller cinder blocks out of the basement and transplanted my much abused sedums into them. I put the cinder blocks on a piece of plywood so I can move them around since I didn't figure out how to deal with the hole going all the way through. The sedums have been growing in a pile on the top of a rock in the rock wall. They were sitting somewhere you can't see and got next to no care. They already look MUCH happier.

New Plant Table

Months ago when I thought I was moving I downsized my plant collection substantially. I went down to 5 potted indoor plants. My outdoor plants were all planted out and I was ready to move. Things change, and I've been slowly accumulating more houseplants again. I had a small set of lights under a kitchen cabinet, but that space was painfully full (trying to raise ferns from spores again). Now I'm in the process of reviving / rehabilitating some african violets for my aunt and needed some more space.

For $1.00 in new lumber I made the table above. I cheated in that I already had the lights and the table itself, I just needed to devise a way to put the two together. Two clearance 4 foot pieces of 2 x 4 solved that problem. It's 4 feet wide, 2 feet front to back, and 2 feet tall. I really wanted a multilevel plant shelf, but this will have to do. I can add a third or even a fourth set of lights for spring when I'm planning on starting massive numbers of veggies inside again (I should be able to fit 4 flats). Too bad it's already full :P.