An opinion on pets

This topic gets tossed at me frequently, “Maura, you need a dog/cat.” No, I actually don’t. As I have mentioned before I am HIGHLY allergic to most breeds of both. I had a cat that lived with us for about ten years and I lived on antihistamines the whole time–those are not good for you long term. Beyond the allergy I think keeping pets is inhumane. I can hear from here people going “inhumane? How?” I’m glad you asked.

Let’s start with Canis Familiaris, also commonly known as a dog.

Dogs in their wild version need amazingly huge ranges to roam and hunt. That alone means they need a lot of time to just walk, and run to stay healthy–sort of like Homo Sapiens. The typical suburban house sits on ⅛ of an acre and the typical urban yard here in St. Louis is about the size of a two car garage…nowhere near the vast swaths of land a dog needs.

Now let’s look at how the average dog spends its day:

Early morning a human will open its crate, let it out, open the back door and either the dog darts out bladder bursting, bowls, in an uproar–ever been on a long drive and had to go desperately? The dog quickly empties itself in pure desperation, then comes back inside. Back inside it scarfs down some food, slurps up a bunch of water, then is told to get back in its crate–not a normal response but a conditioned response usually beat into it either physically or electrically. The humans make their own mad dash around, and leave the house. Now what does the dog do all day? The same thing a human in solitary confinement does, nothing, stares at the walls, and we have to assume hopes for a better life or death as that is where depression leads a human. The human(s) are gone nine or ten hours at work, come home, let the dog out again, make dinner, let the dog back in, feed the dog, do their chores, and assume the dog is “just so in love” with them when the dog is just happy to be out of that 30 inch by 30 inch by 42 inch, prison cell! We know dogs get depressed, I mean why else would we have antidepressants for dogs? If the human gets home at six o’clock and goes to bed at ten that’s maybe four hours out of 24 that the dog is out of its crate. Now it is possible the humans let the dog spend the night out of the crate so it may have ten hours out of 24 where it is not locked in solitary confinement.

Now Felis Domesticus or house cat.

Again, in the wild cats need acres and acres of land to hunt. Solitary they make do with rodents and birds. In a pack they will bring down significantly larger game. Outside cats play utter havoc on the ecosystem as need to or not they hunt…it’s a fact that it is in their firmware to hunt and we can’t take that out of them. Cats are climbers because generally speaking they are ambush predators and this is why they climb furniture, appliances, curtains, and “hide” in boxes to camouflage themselves.

Now cats usually get the run of the house when the human(s) are gone, but they are still a confined hunter. We train their natural instinct to hide their waste into a litter box so we don’t even have to let them out of the house. Their prey sends its death knell via the can opener or the sound of the pop-top being ripped open. Cats do get depressed as well but we rub a special cream on their ears to ease the pain of being confined in a large, fancy, prison cell that humans call a house.

Basically the same issues apply to every animal humans keep as pets. In every instance we put an animal in a box, then leave it totally alone while we go about our life until it is convenient for us to take it out of its box. We imprison so many animals whose only crime was to be born.

So to me keeping a pet is inhumane because none of us would want to spend our entire life in a box.

Maura out

2-3-2025 yard & life updates

Over the weekend I had to use the tractor to drag my truck out of the mud that is my driveway.

Some may wonder why the driveway is a mud bog run, well I live where the ground is flat.  On top of that I don’t really want to literally dump a bunch of money in it for more gravel right now.

The long term plan is to bury the power-lines to the house and the shop.  The lines will run pretty much under or directly beside my driveway so why put down gravel that will just get dug up and have to be replaced at several hundred dollars a load?

I also want the driveway laid correctly.  I learned how roads are built from my grandpa who worked most of his life for MO-DOT.  If done right I have to remove about two feet (60 cm) of soil about 22 feet wide (6.7 m) and 80 feet long (24 m).  A base layer of rip-rap goes down about a foot (30 cm) thick, then three inch minus (8 cm) about four inches thick (10 cm), then two inch minus (5 cm) another four inches thick, on top of that is four inches of inch minus, then two inches of pea minus.  Now what does minus mean?  When rock is crushed it comes in two forms: clean, and minus.  When it passes through the crusher it hits a series of screens, the first may have spacing of three inch by three inch so anything larger is sold as rip-rap or fed back through the crusher.  Anything less than three by three would be three minus.  The next screen would be two by two, so anything larger would be three clean and smaller is two minus.  The screens get progressively finer until you get to sand screen and each one works the same.  Clean rock does not compact, whereas minus does.  All gravel will to some extent allow water to percolate through it, and the rip-rap allows for optimum drainage.  If laid and compacted correctly the result is a driveway that is nearly as solid as concrete.  The method is time proven as well since this is the same method the ancient Romans used to build their roads and quite a few of them are as good today as when they were laid 2,000 years ago.

Basically I don’t want to waste time and material because of digging the trench for power lines, gas lines, and an upgraded water main that can all go in the same trench, but as noted either under the drive or right beside it.  I want the power buried for both safety, and eventually a carport that happens to be on the end where the power comes in.

Once the shop is up I can start looking at digging the trench and driveway–another of those big tractor jobs that justified buying it.  That may be the first time I have to pull a permit for upgrades as well.  The catch is I may not be able to afford that as soon as the shop’s shell is up as the property beside me recently sold and I now need the yard surveyed to fence it.  I have to start the process of getting an encroaching building from that property removed, and a temporary easement to my disabled neighbor on the other side–she can only use her backdoor and her drive also encroaches…surveys save trouble, always survey before building!

So I have the shop going up, A LOT of fence to install–400 feet/122 m on just one side!  Plus getting a property lawyer involved–I did my divorce, I am not about to handle property issues myself 😳

On the shop, the ceiling joists are in place!  It is amazing how much that changes your perception of the space as it now feels much more like a room already.

And yes I set them in below freezing weather, with snow and ice all around.  As I am writing this the combination sheathing and siding goes up tomorrow. 

Thirteen sheets of siding doesn’t look like much, but with fasteners was almost $600 😳  I need another 21 sheets for the building…I need to write up a current cost breakdown of this project for y'all.

As most are aware I do everything by myself, and the first two sheets were a bit of trouble getting in place.  I had to stand them, align them, and fasten them...

Between sheets two and three I had an idea.

I wrapped the ratchet around a ceiling joist, then hooked under the bottom edge, and ratcheted them up!  Once sort of in place I could maneuver each panel securing a top corner, then lining it up and securing it lower.

By day’s end I had one side mostly sided–there is a small piece needed at the far left yet.  I’d have liked to have done the end too but time did not allow for it.  Between fighting the first two panels and the mud being three inches deep things went a bit slower today.

Next weekend by the forcast looks like rain--as does most of the week--but hopefully I will be able to close the ends and start on the bay doors.  With luck the roof on this section will go quickly.  Once roofed I can move some stored items about in preparation to drop the next section of the old building.  I should be getting into the areas where the demo will be slow, but most of the 2 by 4’s can be reused.

That’s all for now

Maura out