The Not So Bastard Gate Arrives
There was a rare dry and slightly sunny day and I took advantage of it, my muscles having *almost* recovered from my last two sunny days when Not So Bastard Gate was assembled in three panels.
We now look like this from across our driveway:
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| This is the NSBG. You can see that the warped paling isn't all that significant where it is, and was a freebie from the landlord so we're not looking a gift horse in the mouth, plus I'll replace it. |
Down to the left you'll see our present package delivery system, and just above the temporary sign will be where the new parcel delivery hatch will be located. That'll be Pt 3 of this series and probably the final one.
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Some Backstory: It was also the start of the pandemic soon after the new arrangements had begun, and so the incidence of deliveries rose. (Also, we'd been shopping online for most things except food items for years, but I also started gaining an interest in 3D printing and perhaps sharing projects etc online and so I was loath to use cobbled-together parts when I could get a better-looking part INEXPENSIVELY mailed from overseas instead.) Anyhow - the front fences were all overlapped paling fences and the BG was this heavy shitty monstrosity made with pickets and the bendiest (but heaviest) hardwood I've ever seen, and yeah we always had cats from less conscientious owners running free around the place and yowling-through-the-BG-fights were common, to the point we were locking the cats in with us overnight to keep the noise down for everyone. When I asked Mt (the elder landlord, the junior landlord's name also happens to have the initial M so they are Mj in all references) if I might build a new fence and gate he was receptive, and provided a stack of palings for the gate and some old wood offcuts. I had the round poles from CatYard One, the original yard we'd erected to keep our fuzzy little buddies safe from being squished on the highway just outside the front yard. So here we are. |
During trial fitting, one panel fell down and pancaked our old parcel delivery tub, which seemed kind of foreshadowing if you ask me. Because my plan had been to cut a parcel delivery hatch in the front fence, except that the landlord put so much effort into it and I was sure if I modified it without their permission they'd be quite pissed, and also if I'd asked permission I'd probably have been refused.
(No the tub in the picture isn't the original one, we had to replace that and chomp up the old tub so I can recycle it in into useful plastic bits. I'm still looking for some way to either buy a plastic grinder or bits to make one, if you can help see the footer of this or any of my articles.)
Adding to that is that driveway space is limited near the front and the delivery people would have to squeeze between the car and the fence to get to a delivery point there, whereas the rear has (as you can see in the image above) the whole width of the driveway available.
And of course the Not So Bastard Gate is MY project so if I slip in a delivery hatch well that's all good, right? 😸
So On To Today
Had to include that video snippet because it stars the brothers Archie and Pickle, both of whom we saved from going to a cat refuge when the owner of an unspeyed cat dealt with the kittens by offering them up online. We already had two cats, a mother and son we'd rescued years earlier from a similar situation and we're responsible so they'd been neutered/speyed and had all their shots and annual updates in all the intervening years and been kept as indoor / cat-safe yard cats - we had the space for them.
Sp Pickle and Archie came to live, and got all their shots and were also neutered, (you may notice I stress responsibility & care all the time that's because cats are in a special case for me, I've had them since I was three and the grandparents' cat wanted me so much he jumped out a window to be with me and somehow ended up attached to my head and face leaving scratches and stuff - and the thing that worried 3yo me the most was "I called him - not his fault, not punish!" and to this day I have to say I've always taken care for pets and animals under my guardianship seriously and if a few other people were the same we wouldn't have feral anything issues in Australia.)
In the video, Archie controls my workmanship while Pickle controls EVERYTHING.
Anyhow - all that to get to this point: The two boys have NEVER been outside a controlled environment all their lives, they have two (albeit small) yards and the full house they can run full tilt from one end to the other of - and do so with gusto - but we're not prepared to let them learn about the Big Bad World Outside on our watch. Gates have locks, locks are used, visitors by arrangement, and parcels delivered contact-free.
So - Finally A Few More Pictures
The next few pictures are just to show where we were to where we are. The 50mm square "flower wire" mesh are a common garden supply and the whole backyard was made with it, very thin s it didn't obstruct the view, cats can't climb it because it's too thin for them to be able to hang onto it, and 2.1m high and a slight inward wing at the top is good enough to keep them from going over.
UNLESS there's things (like gas bottles or parcel delivery hatch covers) that they can gain some purchase on. Which isn't the case here, we've left them the run of the yard for half the night (when they do most of their "casing the joint" missions and find the loopholes) and they don't dare jump on the wobbly plastic panel I've laid across the gas bottles, plus anyway even before I did that, the only reason they sat on the bottles was so they could see the stray cats and feel safe in a superior position.
They couldn't get over BG's battlements from there, NSBG is slightly higher and already has an upper wing, and all in all I couldn't be happier with the safety and security of it.
Marrying up round poles with rectangular timber was a bit of a special case, at first I tried an 82mm hole saw but it proved easier to just mark the circles and use a jigsaw. I'll have pics of that on Pt 3 I guess, along with the designing and making of the parcel hatch.
You can see in the second picture the gas bottles, landlord said they'll be shifted outside the small yard anytime soon, and it's a job I can do but I'm not sure of the legalities so for now, gas bottle #1 will get disconnected and the pigtail taped to prevent wasps nesting (don't laugh - back in the Wild West days when people could fit their own gas installations in their own castles I helped Dad set up our first and second gas installs and in both cases there was a mud dauber wasp nest in the pigtails before we got to day two...)
So for the moment we'll just use bottle #2 until it's empty and then disconnect it and attach #1 when needed, and I reckon the new gas installation'll happen this summer anyway so probably not such a long way away.
As for the parcel hatch and weather-and-cat-proof enclosure inside, a sloped metal roof will stop them gaining height, and an access door inside will keep them from exploiting the parcel hatch as an exfiltration point, to use some seriously ops-oriented jargon.
Heartwarming PS:
Just to demonstrate the total interactiveness of the fur kids: I just went outside to see if I had a piece of material to photograph for this article (I do but it's still doing duty as a temporary brace) and found one of the fuzzy tinkly ball toys sitting right on a plank that's currently propping BG against the wall to stop it squishing cats and other stuff.
The NSBG has the Pickle Seal of Approval!
Pickle has the tinkly balls as 'his' - Archie prefers to nick off with my wife's craft yarn balls, and George likes getting under blankets and rugs, and tunneling.
George's mum Missy was claimed by the sister-in-law during the lockdowns as a companion and they've become inseparable so that arrangement is now permanent and she has SiL as her favourite ever toy. This latter development has actually been the best thing, Missy was always a bit taken aback by the brothers and she never formed any attachment with either of us as she has with SiL, and SiL has never formed as much of an attachment to a pet as she has with Missy.
So nawww, yeah.
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