Bats & Spiders & Snakes, Oh My!

This is the week of weird happenings. Besides the unexpected horse, which Mark gets introduced to later today, he and I just spent a half hour chasing the 2 cutest bats out of the room. It's been raining for 2 days now and been in the 60s so we lit off a small fire in the wood stove. Apparently a pair of bats had moved into the attic over the summer and with the heat from the stove made it too uncomfortable for them and they came down through a hole in the ceiling that we never bothered to cover. 2 years ago we chased a bat out of here and that one left a whole lot more easily than this pair did. Maybe it was the fact that this was a pair. I felt bad about chasing them out into the rain but with Purrim (cat) and Daphne we wouldn't have been able to get any sleep and the poor things probably would have gotten themselves killed. As it was, I was afraid that we were going to injure the one that was really flying around while we were chasing it with brooms and a net that it kept flying through. I wouldn't have had any problem with letting them hang out in a corner by the ceiling, which is where it kept retreating to, until daylight when they would theoretically been easier to catch but they weirded Mark out too much and like I said, Daphne and Purrim probably would have raised a ruckus.

It was kind of strange, normally I have good luck with getting animals that I'd really rather not having share my living space to listen to me when I tell them that I'm trying to help them so that they don't get hurt, but the bats weren't hearing it. OTOH, the poor bat that we were chasing was probably frightened out of it's wits; I felt so sorry for it. I'm somewhat afraid of spiders but there's no way to keep them out of here and besides being other living creatures, I value their removal of bugs; that doesn't mean they don't freak me out though and I won't remove them if I can. I've explained to the spiders in the room that if they surprise me I'm likely to kill them and so far I haven't had any problems; when I tell a spider that I'm trying to catch what I'm doing, I find it normally stays still and lets me put a glass over it and slide a piece of paper over the glass. Sometimes they are so accomadating as to run into the glass so I don't have to worry about catching their legs as I cover the glass and then they leave very nicely when I put them outside.

We had a similar situation a couple of weeks ago with a snake. We were driving down the road and Mark felt something brush his leg, looked down and saw a not small garter snake looking back at him. Needless to say, he was a bit startled. When we got to town and he was in the bank I tried to find the snake since it already had almost caused an accident and Daphne had torn apart the vehicle the previous evening trying to play with it - at least that what we figure. I couldn't find it but did explain that it was not being wise and did have to leave and if it wouldn't let me find it then it should come over to the other side where it wouldn't cause so much of a problem. It was really weird but as soon as we got to our next stop and I opened the passengers sidedoor, it slithered out and went on it's merry way. Apparently it made it's way to nearby wooded ravine and I hope it has a long and happy life.

I wish the same for our 2 recent winged guests and hope they stick around; there's enough places for them to hang out. I know the possibility of bats getting and passing on rabies but it's not terribly likely and they have their valuable place in the local web of life. We did close up the hole in the ceiling though; more nocturnal visitors we don't need. Now to get some sleep before the sun comes up