As you all know, we have seven wonderful cats who are all indoor/outdoor cats. Unfortunately, cats are known to be curious. We’ve had issues with some of our cats disturbing our neighbors. Well Kati and I decided that if we want to keep the peace in our neighborhood, then we are going to have to find a way to contain our cats to our yard. However, this is not an easy task. After searching online for different ways to keep our cats in our yard we found the Purr…fect Fence.

There were two options, the free standing kit or the conversion kit. The conversion kit is much cheaper, but it requires an actual fence. We considering getting a privacy fence and buying the conversion kit, but this would have been a much pricier and much harder task. So we opted to purchase one free standing kit. You cab order online but I had a few questions first. So I called them directly. It seems like a pretty small operation; the guy I spoke with was extremely nice. He was very helpful with my questions. I would have felt comfortable calling him back for anything else.

I did not document putting the fence up the way I wanted to. But it is actually pretty easy. There are several components to the free standing kit. The first thing I did was measure, measure, and measure again. You are suppose to put the poles at a maximum of 14 feet apart. Butted up against the house, we were able to get a 40′ x 28′ area for the cats to call their own.

Tools I used:

• Measuring Tape
• Hammer
• 8lbs. Maul (I think this actually worked out better than a normal sledge hammer would have)
• Drill (actually go to buy a new one for this project)
• Tin Snips
• Muscles
• Brain
• Step Ladder (for drilling the u-brackets)
• Flags (for marking where I wanted to drive the pole inserts)

I would recommend (but did not use):

• Stanley Hog Ringer

Putting Up The Fence (pictures at the bottom of this post)

I used some thin rope and a few stakes to measure out my straight lines and angles. Then I followed the line and measured out the points where I needed to place the poles. The poles actually go into an insert that you drive into the ground. The pole inserts are 2′ long and you drive them in to about 1′ 11″. This was actually pretty hard work. I used a maul to drive my inserts into the ground. Once the inserts are in, you slide the poles into the inserts and screw the insert and pole to secure them together. The only trouble I had was with the poles against the house. The inserts that I drove in went in at a slight angle. So the pole was right up against the house, which made it very tight going into the insert. I actually had to use the axe part of the maul to wedge between the house and the insert to get some slack for putting the poles in. I put in all the corner poles first to make sure I had the correct angles and lines, then I put in the other poles. I used all eight poles that come with the kit (do not forget to put the pole caps on).

The next step was to attach the pivoting arches to the poles. I was not as precise with this step, basically you just slide the arches on top of the pole and tighten them. I put the arches on so you could just see the pole cap. I made it as straight as possible by eye and tightened them with a wrench. Be careful not to tighten them too much and strip them.

The next step is to attach the polypropylene fencing to the arches. I strayed a tad from their instructions on this. Starting with one of the poles closest to the house, I attached the top part of the fencing to the end of the arch with a small zip tie. Then I went on to the next pole to do the same. I did this until I reached a corner pole and went back to start zip tying the rest of the fence. Basically you just move down the arch from its tip. I did a large zip tie immediately before and after the pivot and one at the base of the arch. Then I did one more at the very bottom of the fencing. I did not worry about the middle part of the fencing until later. However, this ended up being a bit of a problem for me.

On the corner poles, they actually recommend cutting the fencing and starting fresh. I did not really want to do this. I wanted to preserve the fence as much as possible, in case I decide to extend it, or if we move and decide to take it with us. Instead I folded the fence over itself and zip tied the arch to the fence. It was a little tricky, and I actually ended up snipping part of the fence to make it look better. Then I moved onto finishing the fence.

Once I got to the last pole, I needed to go back to each pole and start putting more zip ties around the pole and the fencing. I basically did one large zip tie for ever arm length (wrist to elbo). Except on the poles closest to the house, I did one large zip tie every two fence squares. I think this is what they recommend, because you do not want your cats squeezing out through any loose holes. As I was putting the extra zip ties on I discovered my error at the arches. Apparently in my attempt to make the fence as taught as possible, the middle (unzip tied) section of the corners was a little bowed out. Which meant that if I wanted to zip tie them, it was going to be extremely tight. I was able to do what I needed but it would have been much easier if I had zip tied the whole pole as I was going.

After I finished zip tying the polypropylene fencing to all the poles and arches I noticed that the arches against the house were pulled away a little bit. They actually include some u-brackets to screw to the house for this issue. I probably should have installed them first, but I was hoping I would not need to screw holes in the house. It turns out I did, which was not a huge deal, it just required that Kati come out and help push the poles up against the house while I maneuvered around fencing with an electric drill, u-bracket, and screw.

The next step in installing the Purr…fect Fence is to install the chew guard. There is actually about a 10 inch gap between the bottom of the polypropylene fencing and the ground. Do not worry, they do this on purpose. They supply you with a chew guard, which is welded wire, instead of polypropylene fencing. This helps prevents other animals from chewing through the bottom of the fence and getting in… or letting your cats get out. It was actually pretty easy to work with. You are suppose to bend it into an L shape, with at least two squares at the bottom. I choose to do four squares, two might have been better. You are also suppose to attach the top of the chew guard to the polypropylene fencing. They recommended doing this every four inches (four squares), but I did it every two inches. Two inches just made me more comfortable. However at about 94 linear feet, I ended up pulling around 560 zip ties — not including the zip ties I pulled for the rest of the fence. Needless to say, this was extremely tedious. They actually recommend using a hog ringer to do this, it is much quicker and easier. However, I could not find any place around Athens that sold hog ringers (or even knew what one was). And it turns out they sell for 100$ online, which was way too much money for a single project — not to mention I was not about to wait for a tool to ship in order to put up a fence. I can also buy a hog ringer later and replace the zip ties with hog rings.

The last step in putting up the Purr…fect Fence is staking the chew guard to the ground. They provide you with plenty of high quality stakes for this job. You are suppose to put one stake every 2 feet and alternate between the front and back of the chew guard. I would rather pull 1000 more zip ties than drive these stakes into the ground. For the most part our yard is just Georgia clay but every once and while I would hit a rock that would not budge. It was quite a pain the butt and I was very glad to be finished.

Once you have the fence all setup, you just need to go around and clip the ends off your zip ties and clean up any mess. I ended up with about 7′ of fencing left over. Which is about right, I think I ended up using 94′ one side was 28′, another was 26′ (because the house extends 2′) and the back was 40′. I have about 6′ or 7′ left over. I really wanted to have enough to fence in my garage, but I needed 17′.

I actually went back a week later to clean up my fence, to go around and cut all the excess off from the zip ties and to clean up the corners. The corners I just cut from the bottom of the arch to the top, straight through the middle. Then I laid one part of the fence over the other and zip tied it all together. It actually turned out really well and the cats seem to be enjoying their new restricted freedom.

We have had one great escape though, but it is no fault of the Purr…fect Fence. I moved my grill and did not think that the cats would be able to jump from the grill to the roof. But sure enough, Monday morning I heard a bang. I did not think much of it until I let some of the cats in and noticed one was not there. I went outside to look to see if she was hiding somewhere and she was touring the roof.

I have since moved the grill back to its original location. I am considering using the leftover fence to build a barrier to the roof so I do not have to worry about it… it is just an idea floating in my head though.

Here are some pictures of the fence (some are before I cleaned up the zip ties) and my animals. If you have any questions, I would be glad to answer them.

Day 1 – The Drive Down

My friend Paul got hitched to his lady Carrie at the end of February. Paul and I have known each other since the womb when our mothers were pregnant together. So, I of course made plans to go down and take part in the wedding festivities. I decided it would be best to drive down. I figured it would probably take me just as long to get to the airport and fly down and would probably cost the about the same.

So I headed down to Florida on Thursday, February 25. I made a pit stop in Tifton, GA to see an old friend, Jason Jones. We had lunch, talked about life, family, God, etc. It was good to see Jason again. I have not seen him in years. By the way, they just confirmed that they are pregnant with a baby boy… they currently have two girls. So this should help even things out :).

After lunch I hit the road again for St. Petersburg, Florida. On my way down I listed to various podcasts (Beyond The Box Podcast, Jeronimo Jack’s Beard) and most of the book The Magicians Nephew (the dramatized version). I have listened to TMN before, but I ran out of podcasts and could not find a good radio station. I also got a call from one of our (Full Throttle Development) clients whose site had been injected with some nice little PHP malware. It was not very good timing, as I was on the road for another 3 hours and Glenn (another owner) was at the hospital with his pregnant wife.

All-in-all it took me about 10 hours to get to St. Petersburg from our house. Including the 30 or so minutes I was lost in Tifton, I figure I spent a little over 8 hours on the road. When I got to St. Petersburg I checked into my hotel, the Ramada Inn. After getting checked in and working on the malware issue, I left to find something to eat. The only place that “sounded good” was Boston Market. Later that night I went to Paul’s hotel and hung out with him and all the guys who came down for the wedding.

Day 2 – Here Comes the Bride

The wedding and ceremony did not actually start until 5:30PM, so I had plenty of day ahead of me. I ate a quick bite at the hotel breakfast and drove to Walmart to buy a toothbrush. After heading back to my hotel, showering, and working a bit, I decided to spend the afternoon at the St. Pete Pier.

I perused some of the tourist trap shops and found a nice place to eat called Captain Al’s. I ordered “The Works” which was basically everything on a cheese burger.

The Works

Before I actually received my order two pigeons walked in (after the busboy left the outside door open). The wandered over to my table. The waitress was able to shoe one away, but the other wanted to hang out with me. She freaked it out a bit and it tried to fly out the window. Of course, this freaked out the waitress. Being the animal lover that I am; I got up, walked over to the bird, gently grabbed it as it was trying to fly through the closed window, and walked it outside freeing it from its prison. A few of the restaurant’s patrons said I should get a slice of key lime pie for being a hero. Unfortunately, I do not like key lime pie… fortunately, the restaurant did not offer me a slice anyway.

The pigeon I rescued...

After the adventure at Captain Al’s I decided to head on up to the St. Pete Pier aquarium. The aquarium was smaller than my house, but it had a lot of interesting fish to look at. I spent about an hour walking around and taking pictures of the various fish. Here are a few of the pictures I took:

After the aquarium I headed down to the ice cream parlor and got myself a scoop. It was about 3:30, so I thought it would be a good idea to head to the hotel and start getting ready for the big wedding. Little did I know that my adventure at St. Pete Pier had not ended. I walked around the pier a bit eating my ice cream and started to make my way to my jeep. As I headed to my jeep a giant deranged seagull flew from behind me and took a big ole bite out of my ice cream! Now, I have lived less than 5 miles from the beach my whole life and have never had a seagull attack me for my food before. I was stunned! Apparently this is not an uncommon occurrence in Florida. Well after I got over the initial shock, I laughed it off and headed back to my hotel and prepared for the wedding.

The wedding was really nice. Paul and Carrie looked very happy together. It was great seeing them get hitched. Here are some pictures of the nights events.

I had a lot of fun. Met some new people, caught up with some old friends from Maine, had some good food, and a little fun cutting the rug. I even got to see baby Danika for the first time, she was adorable. We ended the celebration with some great tasting cigars.

Day 3 – Homeward Bound

Well, I was planning on getting up early to drive home (like 4AM)… but I arrived at my hotel at 1AM. So I ended up sleeping until 8AM, got up and hit the road. On my way home I finished listening to The Magicians Nephew and caught up on a few more podcasts. I ended up getting home around 4PM, for total of 8 hours drive time.

Not much this week…

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A couple weeks ago I heard about this app called Sleep Cycle. Sleep Cycle is a bio-alarm clock that analyzes your sleep patterns and tries to wake you when you are in the lightest point in your sleep cycle. The app only costs .99$. It was actually the first app I have ever purchased. I purchased Sleep Cycle for two reasons. First, I definitely believe in the power of waking up at the right time. Two, I thought this was a pretty innovative app and was worth a try for a buck.

If you know anything about sleep, than you know we sleep in cycles. We move in and out of a dream states and a deep sleeps. An average cycles is about 90 minutes long. The theory goes that if you wake up during your deep sleep, you do not feel as rested. If you wake up when you are in the lightest point of your sleep cycle, you will be able to wake up and get out of bed much easier. I find this to be somewhat true, depending on how much sleep I actually get. Usually I sleep about 6-7 hours each night… I usually go to bed late and get up early.

One thing that I really like about this app is that it keeps a historical record of your sleep cycles for each night. The first thing I do in the morning is look at my previous night’s sleep. Check out my graphs for this past work week:

If you look at Thursday, you will see some weird spikes around 2:30AM and 5:00AM. Those were when Gus woke me up to drink some water and then woke me up to go outside (because he drank too much water, I assume).

As much as I love this app, I think there are two major flaws.

1. The app is a basic alarm clock, which is great. The way it works is, if you need to be up by 6:30, then you set the Sleep Cycle alarm to wake you up by 6:30. It monitors your sleep cycle and when it feels you are at the most “awake” point in your cycle, it will wake you up. However, if you are in a deep sleep it will wait until 6:30 to wake you up. This is fine, the problem is that you only have a 30 minute window. So it will wake you up anywhere between 6:00 and 6:30. The problem is that the average sleep cycle is 90 minutes. There have been times when my cycle dropped to deep sleep right before the 6:00 mark and it woke me up at 6:30 while I was still deep asleep.I think it would make more sense to make the “alarm” window 45 minutes or 90 minutes… or customizable.

2. I only use this app Monday through Friday because I generally do not need to be up at a certain time on the weekends. However, I would still really like to know what my sleep cycle was like on the weekends. It would be great if I could just set it to track my sleep, then whenever I woke up and I could see what happened through the night. Currently the only way to accomplish this is to set an alarm for later than you would normally wake up. Here is an example of what the graph looks like when I woke up on my own:

I guess those two are not really major flaws… they are more like, major feature requests. Some other feature ideas would be:

• Ability to customize the alarm sound from the iPhone’s music collection.
• Enable the recording device to record whenever it detected noise. So when I am in my dream sleep, I can click to see what I may have said through the night.
• It currently allows you to share your stats by email and Facebook, should add an option for Twitter.

Well, that is about it, overall I really like this app and have already incorporated it into my daily routine. I do not think it will help me get more sleep, but hopefully it will continue to help me wake up easier.

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