Our summer of fun is ending this weekend, when the carpenter comes to raise our deck. To be fair, we haven't been taking proper advantage of our lovely roof deck since we knew that this day would come, and therefore didn't stock up on the lawn furniture and snazzy grill quite yet.

You see, our building is starting its much needed roof work on Monday. And it is scheduled to last about 16 weeks. Now for those of you mathmaticians out there, you will realize that 16 weeks brings us into November (note: roof work not scheduled to be finished BEFORE hurricane season - if our roof was leaking in April, what's it going to be like in September?) That's a long time to be storing wooden planks in our living room. Theoretically, there should be some schedule set up so that once the roofers are done on our roof, we can replace the deck, but seeing as they're already starting 4 weeks later than the board told us, I don't have too much confidence in that.

Which brings me back to the idea I had when I started this post - the one thing I do have out on the deck is plants. Not a ton, but a few pots and a windowbox of herbs, and a big Japanese Maple that we're trying to wean back to life (heavy rains and hot sun not make plant happy). I was told that herbs don't do well in the kitchen because of the highly fluccuating temperatures. Unfortunately, that's probably the only place the cats are guaranteed not to get at them. Anyone know a good way to keep the pets away?

Posted by dahl at July 20, 2006 11:39 AM

I've heard something about mixing paprika, garlic powder and hot water and then filling a spray bottle with it, and spraying your plants to teach the cats to avoid the plants (paprika is apparently like anti-catnip or something) but you'd have to google it for the proportions - I'm not sure.