SQ Rambles

This is a personal blog. I mostly reblog things related to visual media.

I'm in my 30s. I run a vidding discord server called BentoVid. You can find more of my social links on this page.

Personal Tags: #vidblog - seldom-updated vidding dreamwidth blog

#sqland - Related to my house (usually my pond or landscaping) #sqpondupdate specifically for pond updates. Pond update index post.

#sqcam - Photos & videos from my security cameras. Usually wildlife.

#sqvid - my vids (mostly AMVs)

I originally built my catio (outdoor cat enclosure) in 2022. Parts of it were upgraded a few times. In 2026, I upgraded it yet again. There is a pet door in the side of my house. This leads to an outdoor passageway (pway) that goes to a fully enclosed mini shed. This enclosure is for the litter box. The litter box is connected to the actual catio - an 8x8 ft screened enclosure.

In 2025, the cat litter part was rebuilt, but it used the same roof as the previous build. I really wanted the litter box part to have a roof that lifted upward. I also wanted to rebuild the pway. Additionally, I wanted to use plexiglass on one side of the catio instead of screen. The one side of the catio always got pelted by rain and wet the entire inside of it. I figured plexiglass would fix this. So I did all of those things. The catio is now 99% done... I ordered 12in wide flextape so I could protect the crease and the hinges for the roof. I'm now just waiting for that tape to arrive. Other than that, everything was completed in about 2 weeks. The roof on both the new pway and the litterbox area are PVC.

I've had a cactus garden for 3-4 years now. It's worked out pretty well. In 2024, I added these planter trays on the ground to use as bird baths. The birds loved them but they were a huge chore to continue to refill and wash.

So in late 2025, added a pond. Because of course I did. It's about 6 inches deep at its deepest end. I made it out of landscape timber and tarp.

I expected to have to replace the tarp with actual pond liner after winter. But the tarp surprisingly held up and had no rips or tears. So in 2026, I made it pretty by covering the edges with rocks and adding a solar fountain that is slightly fancier than your typical floating ones.

Some toads decided this was definitely the place to bang, so it's currently full of tadpoles. The 6in deep pond. Used as a bird bath. In the middle of a cactus garden. WHY?

I have a mouse problem. I've tried a billion things and one of them was buying a bunch of stock tanks and putting them around the perimeter of my house and planting them full of mint. Believe it or not, this appeared to help. Until animals started burying under the stock tanks and messing with my concrete pad/foundation. I removed some of the stock tanks. Late 2025, I decided to make another pond with them. I drilled a hole between the wall of two of the large ones and connected them, then put a smaller stock tank on top. Plan? Smaller tank is a waterfall into the two larger tanks. It looked pretty garbage, but it was mostly a proof of concept.

All tanks are 1ft tall and wide. The bottom larger ones are 6ft long while the smaller one is 3ft long. In early 2026, I redid the waterfall part and made it look nice. The ground it's on is not level and I didn't really think ahead, so the stone I put around the tanks has some questionable spots. But it's way better than it was before.

For the waterfalls, I used solar water pumps and "waterfall bath tub faucets." I originally used actual waterfall spillways but they all have open tops and my original purchases were warped. Since the pumps are solar, the water flow is very weak and I couldn't compensate for the warped spillway. The bath tub faucets ended up looking better in the end. I'm glad I found them. This was yet another plumbing adventure with tons of online-only parts and a lot of wasted time and money. Spend basically all of April dealing with it. Anyway, looks pretty good now. It currently has toad tadpoles in it. --- Last year, my backyard got overrun with 5ft tall weeds. On the left of the stock tank ponds, I used to have my pitcher plant garden. I decided to replant them in a stock tank behind the stock tank ponds. (Sidenote: I also laid a ton of mini clover seed to try to outcompete the weeds)

It's not in the photo, but one of them is flowering! Hopefully I'll remember to take a photo of it later. I've found I don't care to update the internet much these days.

The bottom back stock tank is mostly pitcher plants with 3 variegated sweet flag plants. The stock tank on the top (with the waterfalls) has sweet flag, potentilla, some type of rush, and lizard's tail.

screenshot text: I could've gone to bed but I stayed up doing stupid shit it sucks doing this even more these days because I gotta get up at 10 every morning to give my stupid cat his stupid pill and I bought an auto feeder precisely for this but this impatient motherfucker keeps trying to get the treat out before it's ready which dips it into the previous bin half the time resulting in him not getting his pill which is why I gotta get up every morning to watch him at the feeder to make sure he gets his stupid ass pill the pill that makes it so he doesn't vomit all day long AUGH I'm not actually mad at HIM I'm mad at myself for the 3am thing

I worked on the stupid contest. I got kinda far and then I hit a part that will take "actual work" and I realized I don't actually want to do the work which made me realize why the hell did I even start this, I don't need $500, I don't need clout, who am I even making this FOR AND I HAVE NO TIME the year is already 25% over and I still haven't finish rice shit, I have like 3 other big projects I need to finish and I'm wasting away doing some 21 second AE piece staying up too late because I'm a god damn idiot with no time management skills in fact actually I'm exporting this and showing it and I'M DELETING ALL THE PROJECT FILES AND EMPTYING THE RECYCLE BIN THERE IT'S DONE WE'RE DONE NOW FUCK OFF GOOD KID CONTEST

[here is the contest though if anyone wants to not have a small breakdown over it: https://letshangout.gg/cicada-amv/ ]