Kitty Proofing the Sandbox

When we moved into our house three years ago, one of the first things my dear husband did was build a big sandbox.  Fritter loved it and spent almost all of his outside time playing in it.

Can you believe he ever was so little?

Then we got a cat that spent some time outside as well.  And one of the first things she did was adopt the sandbox as her personal toilet.  So for awhile, every morning I would go outside and clean out the litterbox sandbox so Fritter could enjoy it.  We tried putting a tarp over it, and the next night a colony of ants moved in.  Off came the tarp and out moved the ants.  Here in Arizona, the grass of choice is bermuda grass.  When we laid the sand down originally, we put that black weed control stuff under it, but the bermuda grass couldn't resist the sand, and the black stuff was no real opponent to it.  It really just became a headache, between pulling out the grass, and cleaning out the...you know.

Eventually, we got a cheap playset on Craigslist, pulled down the boards of the sandbox and plopped the playset where the sand was.  I still had to clean out around the playset from the cat, but the kids didn't really dig there any more, since most of the sand had disappeared. 

And things remained sandbox free for sometime.  Unhappily so, I might add.  The kids would try to dig in unlikely places, like the flower pots, or the rocks around the swimming pool.  This Christmas, while looking for gifts, I came across the covered sandbox at Magic Cabin.  I also found another idea for a covered sandbox on Pinterest.  It didn't take much convincing before my engineer husband had laid out his own plans.



Is there anything more attractive than a man building something for his kids?

The little gecko that fell out of the tree branch we cut down.  Sorry we chopped down your home little gecko!

A closed sandbox.  Haha cat!  Try getting past these defenses!

The finished product with happy kids.  Bonus!  The roof acts as a shade to block the harsh Arizona sun.

I spy a Ladybug happily digging in the sand.

Yesterday, I sent Fritter out to play, and he spent all of his time in the sandbox.  I'll say that's a success!