Sparrow Lorelei photo gallery

Our garden balconies and our cats, 9 March - 9 April, 2010

We were out on the streetside balcony and I was hanging up some nappies. I've got a second clothesline out there now, because even when your normal clothesline is inaccessible due to waterproofing activities there are still always nappies to get dry. And this balcony does get whatever morning sun there is, it's always nice, the nappies are next to the window so I don't forget they're there, and I've removed any plants I don't want her to play with so it's as safe as it's going to get. As I'm hanging out stuff I can not watch her quite so closely and she's usually OK. Then I turned around, and found her with this. It's a carrot. She reached into the pot that's in front of her and pulled it out herself, turned it over a few times then spent the next hour or so holding it in her mouth and occasionally attempting to chew on it (only two teeth, remember). I didn't even know there were carrots in the pot - caterpillars had eaten all the leaves back to stems and I just thought it was all parsley that had bolted. Sparrow has now harvested her first vegetable for herself. Liked it, too.

Playing with Thomas. They were trying to pat each others hands and paws across, around and through this cinderblock.

Katerina has found a sunny spot that is not quite as out of the way as she'd hoped. Sparrow is about to pick up that tail and rather roughly wave it up and down. Katerina is about to whisk the tail from her grasp and stalk off looking a little offended. Sparrow is getting better at the idea of gentle, but really loves to yank tails and paws up and down. It's a version of her "I'm so excited!" wave, but with something in her hand. Under this duress Katerina has discovered that there's a spot under the bed where I store the spare quilts and sleeping bags that is sunny, warm and peaceful and where she can sleep without babies and kittens realising she's there. She has adopted that spot on a semi-permanent basis.

Some toys are so great that everyone wants to share them. We still have to keep an eye on Thomas and make sure they share toys safely. Sparrow loves this 70's metal belt because it shimmers and jingles and dangles, and Thomas likes her making it jingle and dangle.

However, there's an easy way for her to keep it all to herself. Right now she is chewing on it and "dancing" to the tinkling sound using one hand on the window frame to keep herself steady.

She is getting better at standing. This month her record for standing unassisted was twenty-five seconds, which she did a few times. She would often get longer times by cheating a little though, such as here where she's occasionally leaning forward just enough to touch her shins against the step. This may also be one of the last times she wore this suit - no more alien measles.

Standing on her toes, watching the forklifts circle and dance. It's so odd to see the alleyside balcony this bare. I'd taken everything off it so they could resurface and waterproof it - between Melbourne's flash rainstorms and watering my garden the supermarket stock below kept getting a little wet.

The new surface is not entirely to Sparrow's liking - it's much rougher than the plain concrete was, and harsher on her soft skin. She was doing a lot of this kind of crawling, on her feet rather than her knees. The new coating however is definitely waterproof - Melbourne had a huge damaging hailstorm come through the day of the second-last coating, and everything below stayed dry. That was when there were five-centimetre hailstones landing in several suburbs, up to 50mm of rain falling in 15 minutes, Elizabeth St in the CBD went back to its origins as a flooding stream and part of Southern Cross Train Station roof collapsed under the weight of the water. It was about a week before Perth had a huge hailstorm as well.

Working out how to put the garden back took a lot of thought. Its previous arrangement had been more a matter of gradual increase than actual design, though it had started well planned. Now though I needed to think carefully about what plants went where and what was OK to be within her reach (now that everything is!). The fruit trees came back in easily - they mark off the edge of where the rain lands - but everything else could be replanned. She obviously liked being able to stand and look out. I decided to make sure there was still a place she could do that.

I turned the boxes to sit narrow instead of wide, and placed them all up at height to make it even as well. That made it all more compact, easier to get around and more space around the clothesline - and also easier for me to contain her inclinations towards garden activity or protect my plants when needed. None of the smaller pots came back out - edible and safe things joined the streetside balcony collection, and non-edible or non-safe things got removed completely or offered to friends. So the containers in each garden are now very uniform.

Now she and I have a running battle over this end box. She really likes taking the dirt out and dropping it on the ground, and occasionally eating a choice bit. I want the dirt to stay in the box because it's really hard to sweep up off this new surface. And as for eating it, well, I discourage that in general but put more of my effort into making sure that the dirt is just that: dirt. And not cat poo, fertiliser, water crystals or garden chemicals. I've always used organic mix with no additives and generally avoided chemicals so it's as safe as plain old dirt can be, but even so it gets a little frustrating for me. I've had to start only bringing her out in the garden with me when I'm going to be able to deal with it, and that's not most of the time which is a shame. She loves being outside and looking at the plants and touching everything, and I want to encourage that, but she's just got too hard to manage now.

Roar! The cat! Wow! There is a reason Thomas is sitting behind something that a baby might not fit through, though he hasn't quite worked out the flaw in this plan yet. He did a minute later. I've taken the corner that used to be full of boxes of rubbish pots and dried weeds etcetera, got rid of everything that I didn't need to keep, and reclaimed the space for using. It's the sunniest and brightest spot in this garden in winter. So now there is a trellis with plenty of room for my climbing rose and James' passionfruit vine to take over. Just need to fix the trellis to the wall before the next lot of high winds. Sparrow is sitting on a towel, because I thought maybe having a towel down would give her a space she enjoyed crawling and sitting in and it would keep her away from the plants I didn't want her to destroy. It didn't work, but it was worth a try.

The towel got left out a couple of times and occasionally rained on, and I thought to myself "What would be better is some kind of waterproof mat..." and then remembered I had a couple. So they now live out in this garden. Sparrow has not yet worked out that she can escape this enclosure. Right this moment she's having a conversation with me about how this situation is very different but she is not too impressed with it and any time that I'm done here she's ready to come out.