Bat and pipes

Cold, freezing rain (low 30s)

Oh! Today was so exciting. When I stepped into the bathroom, I noticed something small and brown on the floor of the shower. Gingerly peeling back the curtain, I discovered—lo and behold—it was a bat, lying motionless on the plastic.

A bat? How does a bat get into the shower we just closed off? It would have had to fall, and then crawl, and not be able to crawl out. Well, okay, so the bat’s in the shower. I got a cup and cardboard to try to take it out, and when I moved the cup over the bat’s cute little face, he shrieked, hissed, and bared his sharp little canines. I drew back to reconsider. Carlo and I were just talking about rabid bats, and I became a little nervous. I tried to cover him with the cup, and he spread his wings wide, and then the cup wouldn’t have fit over him anyway, but I accidentally knocked him over, and then he was lying on his back, wings outstretched, his tongue stretching out, on the floor of the shower.

I got a bigger container, and moved him to a tree outside, where he slowly and carefully crawled up the bark. When I checked on him half an hour later, he was about six inches up; when I checked a few hours after that he was gone, whether to a peaceful roost at the top of the tree or to a predator’s mouth, I know not.

After bat time, I spent the rest of the day destroying and hauling pipes out of the woods. When camp abandoned the old water system, whoever was in charge decided it would be fine to just leave all the old piping in the woods. I’ve hated looking at it for years, and so the kids and I moved it today. It was ridiculously fun, tromping through the woods looking for bits of pipe while getting soaked by freezing rain. Well, it was ridiculously fun for me, at least.