Balcony Time
22/08/2011
Just thought I’d share Yuan enjoying some balcony time chasing the light coming off my suncatcher. 🙂
Yes, he only has balcony time when I’m out there with him (though yes, I do run in sometimes to grab the camera or something). I looked into possible ways to screen in the balcony to be safe – I’ve read enough reports about highrise syndrome! – but I’m not sure how I’d do it in my situation. First of all, I rent, so I can’t install anything that would damage anything or be permanent. Secondly, it’s aluminum siding out there so the best I could do would be to hook it from the siding hooks I got for the roof to hang the windchimes and suncatcher from, and I would have no way of anchoring it to the sides; also since I have my balcony garden on the ledge, I suppose I could pin it down underneath the pots but then it would bulge out and there would still be a cat-sized gap on the side that I wouldn’t be able to do anything about. Any ideas, oh kitty type people?
kittehpeacesummit 
…and it just dawned on me if I attempted to hang screen from siding hooks, which only support five pounds (and I have no idea if the screening supports any kind of weight), he’d try to climb it like he does the screen doors sometimes and likely cause it to crash and then he’d be more likely to fall than if I just left it open where there isn’t anything close enough for him to make the leap to and I am training him to stay away from the top ledge and he’s doing pretty well with that now that we’ve been out there a few times. I let him look out the bottom gap, but it’s low enough that he has to pop quite the squat to poke his head out of it and though he could potentially slither through it, he couldn’t jump from that angle… so I think we’re safe there. I think I’m just going to leave it as is and just watch him.
I tried to get the girls to go out with me but so far, no dice. 😉