Wildlife Update

Feathers:

So now we know what happened to the bird whose feathers formed a flotilla in the pool: Harvey the Hayward Pool Cleaner ate it.

The last I saw of Harvey yesterday, he was whipping back and forth on the back of the pool at a great rate. No problem. This morning, not so much. The dove feast gave him a bad case of birdstipation, and he had come to a dead (heh) stop.

So Harvey is down at Leslie’s, there to be discombobulated and cleaned out. The Leslie’s guy was less than perfectly pleased. I suggested that maybe we should throw the thing out. He said, “No no, don’t do that…I’ve (gulp!) done gross jobs before”

“We could bury him in the backyard,” I said.

“With the bird inside?”

“Sure… A $300 bird casket.”

{sigh}

Cats:

Finished mounting the last few strips of carpet tacks atop the castle ramparts. These should repel the neighbor’s effing cats, with no problem.

I’m feeling pretty pleased with this project. The things look a lot better than they did after my first effort, installed a couple years ago. This time I secured them with a zip tie through every decorative cinderblock hole — about 32 zip ties per column-to-column length of wall. That many ties pulled good & tight tight forces the wooden strips to lie down flat flat atop the rows of block.

So the lash-up is surprisingly unobtrusive. Along most lengths, you can’t see them at all. In places where you can see them, they’re not obvious.

But…they surely will be obvious to any wall-jumping cats.

😀