bats, bats, bats

A month or so ago, somehow a bat flew into my parent's house. For all of you who know my mom this is a very funny thing because whenever we get bats in the house, a more frequent occurrence that one would assume, Mom gets on the bed and screams, "WOA WOA WOA!" I realize that none of my mother's actions make sense because bats fly so getting on the bed will NOT protect her, but this has always and will always be her bat plan of attack. Anyway, when Nathan and I got back from our travels, my parents mentioned to us that there had been a bat in the house and that they had no idea where the bat ended up.

A few days later Nathan noticed that the kitties were looking at something in the corner, he looked down, and voila, the missing bat. He yelled to me to come get the bat away from the cats so that they would not get rabies. I got a bag, picked up the shrieking, well chirping, bat with the bag and put it outside. While attempting to set the bat free, I realized that it had a broken wing. I was sad but I did not have the heart to do anything about it. Later, Dad came home and smashed the bat, thus putting it out of its misery.

There are many bats in Vermont so every night when we're taking Stonewall to bed, we see bats whizzing around eating bugs. I have always loved bats because they eat mosquitoes and anything that eats mosquitoes is Ok by me; this opinion is not shared by Nathan who is horrified by bats (see above story).

So, last night I was fast asleep until 2am when I was awakened by the feeling of someone watching me. I looked to the edge of the bed and there was Nathan kneeling by my bedside clutching a towel. I was so confused but Nathan whispered, "There's a bat in the room." At first I said, "Get the towel, get the bat, and put it out side." Nathan said, "Ok," and continued to sit by the bed with the towel half covering his face. While this dialogged was going on, the bat flew from one wall to the other with Lenny and Carl running and jumping to follow it.

I soon woke up enough to get out of bed, take the towel, which Nathan gave to me before he left the room, climb up on the dresser and get the bat. By the time I got up on the dresser the bat had flown to the curtains by the open window. This made my job much easier and I was able to just shew it out; Nathan was happy the cats were sad.

In the morning Nathan told me that he woke up when he heard one of the cats jump on the wall to get the bat, then fall to the floor. Crazy cats and bats. I haven't yet asked my parents if they heard the hubbub.

This picture is to show how little the bats here are, they try so hard to look and sound tough, but they're like 2 inches long! I guess it works, Mom and Nathan are still scared.