A clean garage

We spent the weekend cleaning the garage. It had gotten so full, even though I park the Miata in it even night, that we literally couldn't reach the back end of the garage. Now it is all accessable, lots of junk thrown out, recycling done, and everything in reach. The incentive for doing this is winter; in the winter, we leave the garage door open a crack, so the outside cats can come in. Although they have their own entrance to the feed room of the barn, full of bales of fresh hay, a heated water bowl, and lots of old rugs, etc., for beds, they still insist on coming into the garage. Once there, they climb all over everything, knocking stuff onto the Miata (which had two lovely dents from the cat carriers falling) and in general making a mess. This year, one entire bench top is cleared for them, there is no loose stuff to knock over (I hope) and I bought a heated kennel pad to go on the bench, with some old blankets. All we need to add is a BIG cardboard box with one side cut out, to help confine the heat, and serve as a wind block. I'm going to see if we can install a cat door in the garage door, so we won't have to leave it ajar for them to come and go. In previous years we had a small heater in the garage, it barely warmed the area directly around it, and all the cats huddled right against it; I'm hoping this pad will be more efficient and having it up on the bench will be warmer too.
Do we have too many cats? Yes. And we're hopeless softies when they get ill, or injured, or go missing. The indoor cats are more indulged, but we can't have them all indoors, we'd have to buy another house for the people!

In other news, the jury is still out on whether or not I will need surgery; more blood work done today, although I don't know what they expect will change; the whole question is being relayed to me in installments via the nurses at the practice, presumably at some point the doctor himself will talk to me. I have a cough I can't shake, 6 weeks now, I can't imagine that would be acceptable going into surgery....