BATS

Not the kind you swing, the kind with WINGS....as per usual, Tom was not around when I encountered the bat in the KITCHEN, just flittin' about and all. That is not a sight that one would expect at 5:25 in the morning and I was freaked out, but not so much that I would be crazy - I closed doors to key areas and then called Tom at his office and to let him know that things were not quite right. Then decided that I needed to document this momentus occasion with a 30 second movie taken with the digital camera.

I did not realize that I would not be able to rotate the movie like I am able to with photos afterwards, but here it is....

Tom assured me that the bat wouldn't hurt me or anything, but the thing is, it's a bat and it's in the house and I'm not a fan of things that can fly - that are flying around my kitchen. After about 15 minutes I was able to continue with my morning routine as the bat, I'm guessing, made it down to the basement. I wasn't really in the mood to find out so I got ready for work and headed out. Tom will have to deal with it when he gets home.

On a positive note, Decaf jumped up on the counter next to the refrigerator in an effort to get to the bat and immediately jumped down. Turns out that the plastic carpet runners (with the pokey nubbins on the reverse side) when placed on counter tops with the pokey side up work well to deter small furry animals from being in places they shouldn't be in.

winged creatures, Part 3

When I started chemo in September 2004 I continued to work thru the treatments even though the drugs made me incredibly tired and it was getting harder each month to deal with the side affects. So in November I started taking medical leave from work so I wouldn't have to worry about work and just focus on resting and taking care of myself during chemo week.

Most months were uneventful, but there were a couple where something totally unexpected popped up. My morning routine was to sleep in as much as possible and then spend the day doing stuff around the house and resting as much as I needed to. This one particular morning I made the trek to the kitchen and this is what I encountered...

There are a few questions that run thru my mind - First, how is it that it was the FIRST thing I saw when I stepped into the kitchen? HOW did it get into the house? Is the bird going to move? WHAT am I going to do?! Also, how is it that the cats don't see this bird and if they do what will happen?

NOT GOOD.

Well, since I didn't know what to do I called Tom. He has been at work for hours by the time I call him and really, this bird was disturbing. Just its mere presence was enough to send me into a slight panic. I don't think he liked the idea of having to come home to take care of this problem, but I really wasn't ready to spend the day sitting in the kitchen making sure that the bird doesn't go anywhere. Besides, who knows how long it had already been frozen in that position, it might want to stretch it's wings and I really wasn't in the mood for that to happen.

So Tom came home and took care of removing the bird from the house and went back to work. I have to admit that I felt bad, but when something is not right what do you do?

winged creatures, Part 2

As I was thinking about all the weird stuff that we have encountered at our house the most disturbing has got to be the bats and the birds that have found their way in.

Alright, so I am a pretty schedule oriented person and I know what should happen when, more specifically, morning routines. Tom is up at 4:25 most mornings, rises soon after the alarm goes off, goes downstairs and feeds the boys. After that he is in the shower and then back upstairs to get dressed for work. Well this one particular morning I was keeping track of the routine and there was a long period of time between Tom getting out of the shower and coming up to dress...in fact, he never did come upstairs.

So, I am pretty sure that something is not quite right so I make my way down the stairs and open the door and Tom is standing in the hallway waiting for me to look out and he tells me

"You might want to go back upstairs. There is a bat in the house".

I don't need to be told twice, I immediately went back upstairs and stayed there until Tom said the coast was clear.

It was hard to say if the bat was really gone, but it certainly wasn't making it's presence known. So when Tom did finally come back upstairs I asked him how he knew there was a bat and he said it was Decaf. Decaf was sitting on the arm of the couch and tracking the bat flying around the living room...good boy! Can't catch him though, but at least Tom got the clue and figured it out before I was to rise and get ready for my day.

I am pretty sure that I was ready for work lickety-split that day...can't risk another bat situation.

winged creatures...

I have had bad luck with creatures that FLY. More specifically, Bats. There have been 3 separate occasions since we moved into our house that we have had bats in the house and if you ask me that is 3 too many occasions!

The first one happened while Tom had traveled to Alaska for a project - this just figures! I was sitting in our TV room watching something fascinating (I'm sure of it) and something came flitting into the room, then circled the room and then out the door again. It was far too big for a fly I knew that much, but it moved slower than a bird (we have had issues with birds, but that is a future post). So naturally, right away I'm on edge. Well, now I can't risk this thing coming into the room again so I close the door - that was short lived. I realized that at some point I am going to have to leave that room and perhaps go to bed or whatever. So I start walking around the house looking for this thing - well after another pass I figured out it was a bat - YIKES! What the heck?!

Quickly I start to think of people to call. The only time that I really need to get a hold of someone and NO ONE answer the phone! I called all the families that I felt totally comfortable with and no one was home! That's just my luck - Tom is out of town and evidently all of our friends are away from their homes. Luckily I had gotten a hold of a friend of ours that lives nearby...so he said he would be over in a few minutes.

In the mean time I successfully got stuck in the coat closet. Where do you go to avoid flying creatures? Well the coat closet of course. The door knobs on our old doors don't always work and this was the one time that they didn't...just my luck! So I start twirling that stupid thing and thinking I need to get out of that stupid closet because Jim will be over soon and the back door is LOCKED. Yes, anything that could possibly go wrong did - here I am in a panic and twirling that door knob like a mad woman. After what seems like an eternity I get the door open, prayer really does work in times of panic, try it sometime. Fortunately Jim hadn't arrived yet so I had some time to poke around the house to see where that thing could be...no where to be seen, so I was in luck.

I have been told that bats are pretty harmless and beneficial and eat bugs. I'll deal with the bugs in the house thank you very much. While it is true that they are not bad animals, having a bat flying around the house is not comforting by any stretch of the imagination. Plus, this was just the beginning of our bat experience in this house.

After a few more minutes Jim shows up with a bucket and a net and we start going around the house looking for this thing. I know that it isn't on the main floor or the upstairs because I closed that door. So we go into the basement and are looking around with a flashlight. Those things are hard to find when they don't want to be found. We eventually find it and Jim, so cool, was able to trap it with the net and then get it into the bucket and then take it outside where it belongs.

People love to hear about the bat story, I don't get it, it was a bat...bats are not funny.

Mouse Trap

Once upon a while ago (few years) I was up early on a Saturday and waiting for the sun to come up so I could go for a ride. Riley was acting very strangely that morning and kept dorking around my book case. Since I never know what to expect in our house I wasn't about to take a look at what might be behind the book case. I figured I would let Tom take care of it.

So it got to the point where I could go for a ride and enjoy a quiet morning out on the road - off I went. I was hoping that Riley would lose interest in whatever was behind the bookcase or maybe it was nothing, my hope of course. After my return about an hour later, Riley is STILL very intent on getting behind the bookcase. Well, now I really know that I don't want to take a look! There has got to be something back there.

Not too much time goes by and Tom wakes up and comes downstairs. I inform him of his cat's interest in the bookcase so he moves the bookcase just enough to look - then this little creature came darting out! Well, now we are trying to not lose the creature which turns out to be a mouse and keep Riley away and I was trying not to go crazy because it's a mouse. I don't remember when or how, but one of us had enough sense to grab a bowl to trap the rodent which Tom did.

NOW I'm interested in looking at this little guy, turns out he was pretty cute so I had to take a picture before our visitor's departure....

Riley doesn't have any front claws so his hunting instincts are purely in theory alone there is not a lot he can do by slapping his paw on a defensely little mouse. He could possibly win a stare down though, check out that steely look!

This one may have been cute, but I still don't like mice. Especially in my house.

Feeding the birds?

Tom is really big on putting out bird food for our winged friends and small furry creatures. This morning I spied other bigger furrier "friends"...

This is the second one I saw this morning...then her brother came along...