Art Installation...

It rained all day yesterday.
Midnight was the first to be fed, he was sleeping on my swing all night, so he is the first to greet me, purring like a tractor and rubbing round my legs. He even comes into my study now. I put the different bowls of wet cat food under the dry cover of my large wooden swing. He was making his tiny squeaking noise he makes. He has got the tractor purr right, but not the miaow.
He doesn't demolish every dish now, but tastes daintily from his favourite foods. And I can stroke his full body now
Then he gets back on the dryness and comfort of my swing and surveys his domain.
Every now and then he gets down to have another few bites, then back swinging on the swing again. (All my cats while I have lived here have slept on the swing most of the time, despite having free access to my bungalow and garage through the cat flaps).
The cat flaps were big enough for my then Hearing Dog for the Deaf.
But Midnight is bigger than my dog. I would have to replace the cat flaps with dog flaps.
But we will see.
I got my Hearing Dog's old harness out yesterday. Just to see, because I would have Midnight on harness and lead if I took him to the vet. No chance of the harness fitting Midnight, far too small...he would need the dog crate as well (still kept it), no chance of stuffing Midnight into a cat basket, even if he did cooperate which would be extremely unlikely.

Jade was second to feed at the cat diner yesterday, and she has realised she doesn't have to be scared of Midnight, but she is still trying to snatch the wet food to get into the undergrowth before she eat, .and so I put some solid cat pate out to allow her to do this. 

Then The Merlins, then Calico.

Midnight oversees all this...

Mrs Bluetit came out in the pouring rain with her little ones. But I was worried to start with. There was just Mrs Bluetit and just 2 babies. Then a bedraggled Mr Blackbird, it is pelting with rain, comes sweeping in to attack the bluetits. Little Miss, teenage sparrow, who the bluetits have adopted as part of their clan (she is a couple of weeks or so older than the baby bluetits) comes sweeping out of the bushy leaves, as bodyguard extraordinaire to attack Mr Blackbird who turns and flees, and so the daily chases begin.

Then Mr Bluetit comes over the tops of the trees with the 3rd baby bluetit. And they are feeding together again. They must have decided to divide up for safety.

It was not even 6 am by then. The ravens are flying overhead making their harsh noises. The seagulls are swirling, mewling away. 

And I can hear that fine twittering noises the bluetits are making. And other birds as well...

I have the Sensitivity Control turned up to maximum on my Cochlear Hearing Processor to hear all this. I have the Remote App for this on my iPad. The iPad app, updates and adds to this itself. And it is time to turn the Sensitivity levels right down, because at this high level, it picks up up and magnifies every other sound in the environment including my breathing which sounds horrendous, and picks up the movement of every hair on my head as I move and turn my head. I am getting a bit of a headache building up by now...too much incoming stimulus for my brain...but it was nice to listen to it all for a bit. I still cannot get used to the sound of rain...

Creative is another Art Installation. The Leaning Tower of Strawberry Pots (Pisa). It had more lean than the Pisa one, and keeled over. Then I wired it together...it keeled over. Then I added cable ties...it keeled over. Then I duct taped it...it lasted a little longer....then keeled over. It wasn't beating me. Some rebar round it next. Thar appeared to solve the problem...but then I put soil in the strawberry pots...it started leaning badly. The soil was heavy. I had some orange washing line, put hooks in the wood bit of the garage door, tied the washing line round and round. Then I planted my peas and beans seeds in it. It is still sort of standing upright this morning.

Time for a coffee and to begin the day...