The Cat Alarm

Jim went and bought one of them driveway alarm things that makes a loud noise when somebuddy drives their car in the driveway. It also works when somebuddy or some animal walks in front of it.

It's called a Driveway Patrol™ and you ken jest hang the thingy on the right in the picture on a fence or something, and the other part goes in to where you are working, or taking a nap, or whatever, and when something passes in front of the outside thingy it sounds a loud alarm bell that lets you know somebuddy is out there so you ken then wake up, or wipe the lunch off from around your mouth, or whatever and go see what's going on.

Well, one day I woke up after my before-lunch nap and got to thinking that I haven't been doing much thinking lately, so it was definitely time to get around to some more thinking, cuz that always leads to some new invention that I ken make to help mankind.

About that time I noticed a cat walking across the back yard without my permission, and that's when I got the idea to use that Driveway Patrol™ to try to let me know jest how many cats was sneaking around in my back yard.

After the old folks quit working fer the day and they went up from the basement to get ready fer dinner, I took the looker thingy and put in the back of the yard, behind the little Christmas Tree, so it would find any trespassing cats and let me know right away.

Since I have reel good ears I decided to put the noise making thingy out under the little Christmas Tree so it wouldn't get rained on if it was to suddenly rain. And I also knew I could hear it from there and it wouldn't wake up the old folks in case some cat went by in the middle of the night.

Well, I had some exter strong decaf coffee with dinner, so it made me sleep reel tight and I didn't hear nothing all night. The next morning before the old folks finished breakfast and headed downstairs to the basement to go to work, I went outside to put things back to where they were supposed to go, and I was completely sprized by what I found out there.

There was 3 cats on the ground, with their legs pointing to the sky, and big X's on their eyes, and their chests was all puffed up like Cats limping off after waking up they had a heart attack or something after hearing that alarm go off in their ears! Then, as I was trying to decide if I should squirt the hose on them to wake them up, one-by-one they woke up and staggered away.

The next night I put the Driveway Patrol™ back outside, and when I came out the next morning there was 2 more cats there, and I think 1 of them had a heart attack and a stroke cuz he kinda crawled away reeeeel slow.

The third night I moved it closer to the path where they always walk past, and I found out that the alarm thingy had another part of the switch that I could push up and make it even louder. When I came out the next morning there was 2 cats up in the little Christmas tree & they also had X's on their eyes till they woke up and fell out of that tree and helped each other hobble away.

Ever since then I haven't seen anymore cats walking through the back yard. Therefore I would recommend that Driveway Patrol™ fer anybuddy that has a reel bad cat problem in their yard. You ken jest type in Driveway Patrol™ on your computer thingy and find out more about it if you are interested in breaking the bad cat habit! I think Jim paid $15.00 fer it at Harbor Freight, so the "Per-Cat" price is quite reasonable.

Somebuddy also makes some kind of yard alarm that squirts water on trespassers instead of scaring them to death.

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The Rain Gauge

Gloria's sister that lives in Kansas sent us a rain gauge that measures how much rain you get so you ken then make decisions about what to do about that much rain. She was a farmer, so I guess she knows what to do with those different amounts of rain.

Here in the city, we're having a drought that means there isn't much rain falling. After getting that rain gauge, we started getting a lot of rain all of a sudden, so it must also manufacture rain somehow. Anyhow, I got to noticing that even after it rains a whole bunch, there's still jest a little tiny bit of water in that little glass bottle that is supposed to catch rain and tell you how much landed in that little tiny bottle.

That's the problem--that little tiny bottle is too little to catch very much rain, so I decided to make an invention to help it work more ~~effishiantly~~ ~~efishante~~ly better. I got a big funnel and some duck tape, and now the rain will get put into that little tiny bottle so you ken actually catch some of that rain & see how much you really got. We used duck tape to hold that funnel in cuz of the wind we get on our deck might blow the funnel away, & cuz ducks like water, & also, fer safety reasons, a feller doesn't want to use lecktrick tape cuz you never want water & lecktrick to be around each other. I'll let you know how things work out as soon as it rains again. I'll also leave that tape roll out there in case something else happens, I ken jest roll the tape back onto that roll & I wouldn't have lost none of that spensive tape.

We also had a bit of an accident after the last picture was took. Dexter took his leg off of holding the ladder still fer me, cuz he wanted to scratch his back, and that special ladder made from a train track took off and flipped over the railing on the back deck and the other end landed in a tree, or else I woulda crashed onto the ground below and probably woulda got hurt or even dirty if there was any mud down there.

I was lucky, and I was able to scurry back up that ladder to safety. I don't know why everything always has to be so dangerous, even when I'm jest fixing a little rain gauge.

More Bad News: Oh, great, we had another rain and that little tiny bottle filled up with water and it ran over, so I don't know what I have to do to get that silly thing to jest work like it's sposed to. I guess now I'll need to get a bigger bottle to catch all that water. I'll update this story as soon as I get the thing working properly. --Sparky

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Our Jet Ski

Brian & Cathy gave Jim a little tiny Jet Ski for Father's Day. Since he didn't start playing with it immediately, I took it upon myself to put in the batteries and try it out. Gloria wouldn't let me drive it in some water in the kitchen sink. Then she told me not to even think about running it in the bathroom basin, and we all know not to ever play around in the toilet, so I finally found a little bucket in the basement and filled it with water and almost fell asleep running that little Jet Ski round and round.

Then I hit on the idea to run it around out in the back yard in our goldfish pond. Them crazy goldfishes decided that since the top of the water was wiggling after I put that Jet Ski in, it must be time to eat, so they was all racing around like they was all crazy and almost knocked that Jet Ski over. I let them calm down fer quite a while before trying to run it around in the pond.

They finally got back to lazying around in the bottom of the pond, so I fired up that Jet Ski, and jest when it was about to get up some reel speed, it landed on top of some of them frog lily pads and got stuck.

Then every time I tried to get it back into some clear water, them fishes went crazy again, so I finally gave up and took it out of that pond and put it away until I could figger out a better way to use it, cuz it's a reel cool Jet Ski, and it's a shame to let such a machine go to waste by putting it in the closet or something like that. Course, I could jest take the batteries back out of it and use them in my Powerful Steam Shovel and Powerful Bulldozer when it becomes battery time fer either of them.

That's when I was sitting out in the back yard in my special back yard chair, thinking about how to use that Jet Ski, and it got pretty hot out there, so I went inside and got my portable Palm Tree to make some shade, but it made shade on the wrong side, so I was jest having a reel bad day, to say the least. Picture of an idea

That's when I got this great idea to fasten that Jet Ski to my portable Palm Tree and run the perpellers backwards to make a little fan to keep me cool.

It sure works GREAT!!!!!

I took some lecktrick tape and taped that Jet Ski to my portable Palm Tree. (If you look reel hard, you ken notice that I left the roll of lecktrick tape still fastened to the tape I used, so when I decide to take the thing apart I ken jest roll that used tape right back onto the roll and I won't end up wasting any of that spensive tape). Then I used some of Jim's Sea Clamps to hold in the perpeller buttons on that remote control and laid back and enjoyed the cool breeze coming from that Jet Ski.

Now all I need is a great big paper cup full of Root Beer or Iced Tea and one of them straws that bends like a rubber hose, and some tater chips, and some chocolate chip cookies, and I'll be all set fer the summer.

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