Garden Mastery Tips
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September 2008 |
Midnight Madness
Living in a rural wooded environment, I experience bats cruising around the perimeter of the house around dusk picking off moths, mosquitoes and other such pests. Not such a bad thing, except for when one manages to slip into the house and continues his frantic flight path across my living room and down the hall. I'm sure it was just a mistake he ended up here, right? Bats don't really want to roost in my home, do they? I'm not so sure they don't.
The first time I experienced a bat in the house, I was sleeping and felt something flutter across my face. Well, I'll tell you, I was awake immediately and shaking my husband and yelling "We have an intruder". He is up in a flash, light turned on and looking around. Flying around the ceiling, in and around the fan that is going full blast because it is an extremely warm evening, we spot the culprit. I holler to turn off the fan before we have bat guts all over our bedroom. He obliges, and as he does the bat flies right into a crevice in one of the purlin logs (we live in a log home). The crack in the log isn't that large, but he is a small critter and fits just fine. Now I am getting a little concerned. Is he living in my logs? How did he get there? Does he have buddies in here or in other parts of the house? I am definitely not getting any sleep tonight.
The bat emerges from the crack and makes his way in a loop-to-loop fashion around the room. Think, I say, think. How are we going to get it out? I really don't want to hurt it, I just want it gone. Bright idea comes to mind.....turn on the outside lights, open the bedroom double doors and let it out. No problem, right? Seemed like a good solution to me. So my husband opens the doors and poof, another bat comes in. Yes, now we have two bats flying around the bedroom. Am I wearing some really cool bat pheromone perfume or something? Attracting the bats in is not my plan. Why my home? What is wrong with the great outdoors?
We decide to quickly vacate the bedroom being careful not to let them escape into the main part of the home. We left the outdoor lights on and doors open praying that come morning they would be gone. Lucky for us, it actually worked. Now we think we are pros at this game.
Then Thanksgiving evening arrives and after the huge meal we just couldn't convince our over full bellies and bodies to get up off the couch and do dishes before bed. We had left the large roasting pan with some drippings/gravy in the bottom. Hearing a strange noise, we investigate and find a little brown bat flapping away in the pan, completely drenched in turkey fat. We extricated him from his dire situation and set him outdoors. I wasn't sure he was going to survive, but I was definitely not the one who was going to clean him up before releasing him. A while later we looked out where we had left him and he was gone, so we figured we had a successful rescue mission.
After relating this story to a good friend, my husband is now known as Batman. We chuckle every time we hear it. We continue to have ongoing bat encounters. Each one unique and hoping it is the last, but knowing it isn't. Sometimes we will stand outdoors on the deck at evening and observe them. Go bats! Eat those bugs! DJ Miles, Master Gardener
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