Nimbus busy snarffling up any crumbs left over from dinner.
He likes being high up
22 Likes
My cloud kitten Cirrus likes to be up high too, but she’s … umm … not athletically blessed. Her attempts to get to high places like the top of the refrigerator take multiple attempts and involve collateral damage to objects in the vicinity. But she doesn’t give up.
18 Likes
Nimbus is definitely a cat built for jumping. His back legs have stayed longer than his front and he can jump over 5 and half ft from a standing start.
But that big muscular booty does cause collateral damage regularly. He just doesn’t seem to grok the size of his rear end when he turns around or thinks it will glide through the same slim space as his shoulders. He’s surprised every. single. time
19 Likes
My wife and our daughter took a road trip to the Toledo zoo today to help celebrate the 1st birthday of Kirkja the baby elephant. Everybody that came got 3 minutes with her.
That blue thing is her birthday card.
There’s some fun video of her taking a bath in the story below.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with Kirkja, she has a pretty interesting story. When the Toledo Zoo first announced an African elephant, Renée had given birth to a baby boy, people were overjoyed.
Initially, this elephant baby was called Kirk. However, a short while later, the zoo announced that they had made a mistake in identifying this elephant’s gender. It turns out that this male elephant was actually a female the whole time. So, they gave Kirk a new name, Kirkja, and made a big announcement on social media that took a few people by surprise, to say the least.
18 Likes
I had a bunch of cardboard boxes at home and a cheap unused tray around. So I decided use them and to make a scratching box for the cats. I think they enjoyed the manufacturing process more than the final product.
24 Likes
The ones I used to buy arrived sprinkled with catnip. Maybe that makes a big difference! 
18 Likes
As that is our cat’s favorite type of scratcher, I’ll suggest that the cardboard was too thin when stacked on its side. The scratchers I’ve seen all use cardboard thick enough that there is an internal wigglyness (official terminology!) to rasp one’s claws against.
18 Likes
“corrugated fluting” is the term. B flute or C flute corrugated board has larger flutes and thicker cladding and therfore is more stirdy than the lighter, somewhat more common E flute.
sorry. paper nerd in me. i apologize for the “mansplaining” as you are perfectly correct in what you already said.
also, our cats love these scratchers as well, and as @PsiPhiGrrrl pointed out, catnip gets them excited to tear it up!
16 Likes
Mr. Diabetic Feral (Boo) with his bad rear legs can’t use the many scratching posts and cardboard thingies anymore.
He just lays on carpet and scratches it, I got him one of these it’s made out of that sisal rope stuff.
He slept on it last night. (not our cat)
He was trying to jump up on the couch to beg some chicken off my wife, he really had to concentrate and try hard but he made it.
We started talking about when he was wandering around our yard 7 years ago and climbing the tree 25 feet up.
I can not believe how fast they grow up and how sad it is that he went from this to having messed up legs.
23 Likes
But I like my term better!!
17 Likes
frankly, i do too!
it would have been fun to refer to it as such when ordering corrugated board from my vendor.
“i need those bigger internal wiggles for this batch.”
17 Likes
He’s very beautiful
15 Likes
We have a few of these around the house. I bought them at Daiso, a Japanese store that usually has slightly more affordable prices.
I liked knowing the name of this type of cardboard. I always thought of it as cells. I used what I had on hand and I think cutting it with the box cutter made it narrower. But little by little they have been using it. Since we have three cats, we have to have a lot of these scratching posts spread around the house to avoid fights over possession of the environment’s resources.
The scratching posts we bought also came with a sachet of catnip. The cats liked the spice, but they quickly lost interest. My wife bought another herb called Matatabi, but she uses it with parsimony. I myself have never given this matatabi to cats and I don’t know if they like it or not.
16 Likes
I have debated on making my own cat scratchers from shipping boxes, nice to see someone actually executing on that 
One thing that i would like to figure out is if it was possible for me, a chump with not a whole lot of wood working skills and very basic tools, to make a decent cat tree. I am often really frustrated with the cat tree/perch offerings online. Most of the time they look gaudy, and the last one we bought has been flimsy as hell.
15 Likes
Just to be clear, MY name for it was all in fun… @KeybillyJefe gave you the real term: corrugated fluting.
14 Likes
I have decent wood working skills and appropriate tools.
I’ve also wrapped my share of scratching things with sisal rope.
What I don’t have is upholstery or design skills.
I almost made one last month for our recent feral acquisition but when I started pricing wood I just ended up buying one for a lot less money.
I may try again when I get bored this summer.
My wife found this one on Chewy for less than 70 bucks, I’m surprised how sturdy it is.
15 Likes
My problem is that i just don’t like that design/look of cat tree. I used to buy a relatively modest looking one that was around 70 bucks and instead of carpet or faux fur (or w/e you call it) it was wrapped in a durable jute type of material. I had bought 3 of them over the years but it is now priced at 120-130 buck and i’m just not spending that kind of money, and if i was i would rather build my own or pay someone to do it for me.
12 Likes
If you have wall space, this is a pretty cool Ikea hack, using their stools (very cheap!):
17 Likes
That is neat!
16 Likes