Bat Sitting

When I woke up this morning I had a list of things to get done as my parents, Grammy Poe, and Andrew and Rachel (a niece and nephew) were on their way to the house for a weekend visit. Never in a million years did I think I'd spend 2 hours dealing with a BAT! It just didn't make the list.

Unfortunately, this little brown bat took a couple of hours out of my day. I left to run a couple of errands and noticed this little brown thing by my tire. It was a bat. At first I thought it was dead. My husband suggested (from the car a few hundred miles away) that I take a shovel and put it back in the woods. I figured we should call animal control. Then...it moved.

Ewwww. It was alive! One of my neighbors and her 2 kids came over and leaned down to look at it. The bat raised its head and opened its mouth. Not a very chipper participant, huh? We guessed that it was injured or sick.

Animal control directed me to call the police station who would dispatched someone. The first return call was from a woman ho asked if anyone or any animal had come in contact with our little friend. Yes seemed to be the correct answer.

The second call came from the person who had been dispatched. Here's how the conversation went.

Animal control lady: "I'm at least 20 minutes away. I'm going to need you to go out there and put a plastic container over the bat so that it won't get away before I get there."

Me: "What? I don't think I have any kind of container that will work. It is so close to the tire that won't work. And anyway this creature had been here for a while and isn't going anywhere."

Animal control lady: "That may be, but I'm gonna need you to make sure it doesn't get away or a cat or something doesn't get it."

Me: "Huh? I didn't even think of that! I'll do my best." [yeah, right...do you really think I'm going to interfere with this little creature if he chooses to leave?]

Now how in the world was I going to stop this animal if it got a notion to fly off or what exactly what would I use to keep another animal from coming over and following its instincts.

When the lady showed up, she brought her picker-upper claw thingy (probably not the correct technical term) and put him in a bag. I know for certain that it's a him because she proudly announced that after she got it in the bag and checked out his parts. He promptly spread his wings. She surmised that he got stunned and thought he was hiding in the shadow by the tire. By now the bat has met his untimely demise since they are so high up on the potential rabies list.

My family got here safely and Rachel and Lauren made an instant bond. Andrew is having a ball with all 4 kids. Austin is in heaven. His cousins are sleeping in his room in his bunk beds. I'll have lots of pictures after the weekend of our fun.