Journal: Bats in the Belfry, and Fourth of July

Last Tuesday, a cousin was telling me about one of her little great-granddaughters falling off the couch and biting completely through her lip, poor little thing.  The doctor didn’t think she needed stitches.  My cousin later got a picture of the little girl happily sucking on a popsicle.

That reminded me of a story Larry tells:  When he was a little guy growing up out in Trinidad, Colorado, he was running pell-mell down a mountainside near his house, tongue out, the better to make the motor noise for the motorcycle he was pretending to ride.

He tripped.

Down he went, hitting his chin on the shale and biting completely through his tongue.

“Believe me,” he says, “I never made motor noises that way again!”

His tongue healed well, but the incident sure made an indelible memory.

It rained hard that night, and hailed a little bit, too.  The ceiling in the kitchen leaked for the first time since Larry fixed it over a year ago.  Not that fixing the ceiling prevents the roof from leaking... but the wind must not have been from precisely the right direction to make it leak, since then.

And then...  

Everybody run for their lives!  There’s another bat in the house!

Or at least there was.  The dumb thing came crawling under the stairs door and into the living room.  He saw me in the recliner and dodged back under.  While I tried to get Teensy off my lap without hurting him, the bat reentered, and wouldn’t go back under even when I hopped up and stomped toward him just as if I was quite brave an’ ever’thang – and then that furred flyin’ critter took flight from the floor. 

Some people say bats can’t do that, but our bats haven’t read the manual.

I fled into the bathroom, rousing Larry from his bathtub nap.

He finished his ablutions while I went into the bedroom with my laptop.

I hate bats.  They always try to lay eggs in my hair.

I said that once on an online quilting group, and several sweet old ladies hastened to inform me that bats are mammals, and no mammals lay eggs.  I waited awhile... and several other sweet old ladies came to my defense and assured the first batch of sweet old ladies that I was smart enough to know that ----- and then I flummoxed them all by announcing that there are mammals that lay eggs:  duck-billed platypuses (platypi?) and four species of echidna (also known as spiny anteaters).  Ha!

Larry came out and helped me look for the bat.  We looked high and low, and then we looked low and high, and we finally discovered him behind the box for the big screen brace in the living room.  Larry shoved the box against the wall, and the bat bid this world adieu.

Larry went to bed... and then I heard another bat smack into the stairs door.  I opened it stealthily, only a crack – and found the bat hanging on the door, a foot off the floor.

I woke Larry up, and he got rid of the bat.  That made three since the previous Sunday night.

Yeah, yeah, I should learn to take care of the things myself.  And I will, too.  Just as soon as Larry isn’t available to do it for me.

A friend reminded me of the time, years ago, when a bat got into our church and roosted (yes, that’s the proper word, even though they’re upside down) up near the ceiling on some vents.

Some men came in with a ladder, someone got a couple of thick towels, and then while one man held the ladder, another climbed up (remember, these men were in their Sunday suits) and captured the bat, not without trepidation.

Meanwhile, I, the church pianist, was at the piano mere feet away from all this drama and excitement.

“I remember you were sitting at the piano,” my friend continued, “looking straight ahead, not moving a bit.”

Yes, well... in my heart, I was running madly, flailing, and screaming in the streets.  But I done got raised by a Mama who taught me bettah!  I know how to be a Stoic, oh, yes I do.

I’m brave and courageous when it comes to facing down big, burly Harley Hoggers. 

But bats are another thing entirely!  Harley Hoggers don’t take flight and dive at my head.

The next night, would you believe, we killed five of the dumb things in our house??!!! 

Uh, that is, we killed bats, not Harley Hoggers.  We usually catch and release the latter.

Movie at 11.

We had our long-awaited graduation service for our graduating seniors Wednesday night.  It was an enjoyable evening.  The high school children, maybe 100 of them, sang a variety of songs for us – and they hadn’t even rehearsed.  Boy oh boy, can those kids ever sing.  In four-part harmony, it was, and accompanied by piano and organ. 

We are extra thankful for these things, having been deprived of them for a time.

Home again, I put another load of clothes into the dryer, and some into the washer.  I came around the corner from the kitchen with some things to hang up – and there was a bat that had just shimmied under the stairs door.

Larry dispatched it with the broom.  I suggested he go on up the stairs to see if there were any more.  He found one on the floor right outside my quilting studio door.  Another came crawling out from under the library door and tried to take flight, but Larry got it.

I took a towel upstairs to tuck under the door to the little office, since that’s obviously where they’re coming from.

Larry came back downstairs to finish eating his late supper...  and then we heard another bat fluttering around in the stairwell.

Larry slowly opened the door, the bat came flapping out, and Larry clobbered it.  It must’ve been hiding somewhere other than in the little office, because it couldn’t have gotten out of that room.  It took some convincing to get Larry to go back upstairs and look around again.

We found another bat in the little office, and Larry whacked it.  Now his father Lyle’s picture is behind my rolltop desk.  😶

We set off a bug bomb/fogger in the office, from whence the critters be a-comin’, tucked the towel back under the door, and tried to get back to life as usual (whatever that is).

The next day, I ventured up there and peeked in to see if there were any bats staggering around with X’s instead of eyeballs. 

Nothing.  Maybe the fogger had chased them off?

(It hadn’t, we would soon learn.)

We had dispatched five bats in one night.  Five!  That’s a new record.  We no longer catch and release.  We kill.  Ugh, I hate them!

Not only is there a danger of rabies from bats (though our bats – not that I personally claim them – act perfectly normal, like any bug-chasing bat might behave), but there is a danger of various types of hantaviruses, which can be spread through bat droppings, as can happen with rodent droppings. 

I am pretty sure I had some kind of hantavirus back in 1995, when I found a big (and old) mouse nest in the nether regions of our basement.  Somebody (we won’t name names) had thought it smart to store a few bags of cornmeal down there.  I didn’t know where that stuff had vanished to, and finally decided I must’ve used it up faster than I thought.  Well, I found it – along with the mouse nest – when I went down there to put away grown-out-of clothes and get out next-size clothes.  I kept these all sorted and labeled in boxes on shelves.  The mice had gnawed through a couple of the boxes and destroyed some of the clothes, creating their palaces and citadels. 

I went into a giant flurry and cleaned the whole basement from top to bottom.  I did not know that the dust from droppings could be so bad for a person.  I had a fever and severe muscle aches and sometimes stomach flu symptoms for a good three months.  To this day I cannot stand the scent of the Lysol cleaner I used.  😜😝😛🤪

At least we don’t have an attic for the bats to dwell in.  And I never leave any bat droppings in the house, if I ever happen to find any.  I sure wish my house was finished, and all sealed shut!

Thursday, Amy told me that Emma really likes the apron I once made for Amy, and Amy asked if I might be able to make one for Emma.

“Would you believe,” I answered Amy, “I just collected an apron like that from Loren’s house!  It was Grandma Norma’s, and it was hardly used.  I’ll iron it, and Emma can have it.  Okay?  It’ll be a keepsake from both her great-grandma and me.”

I ironed the apron, and it looked as good as new.  The name of the quilt block is ‘Arrow Crown’.

 I spent a couple of hours on the phone that day talking to a couple of people at Loren’s bank... a manager at the post office... and then listening to beautiful, calming, relaxing music 👿 while waiting for someone at Verizon to talk to me.  I hung up after a little more than an hour, because I had to go.  It was going to be troublesome at Verizon, because, for some reason, all of their phones, both Loren’s and Norma’s, are in Norma’s name.  It’s practically impossible to get a real, live human on the phone, at Verizon.  I will keep trying... and trying... and trying...

When I took Loren some food that afternoon, I picked up his clothes to wash.  As I headed out the door, he said, “I need to have you show me how to run the washer!”  He thought of that a couple of months ago, but not again ’til now.  I agreed, and headed out.

I’m always agreeable.  Not that I actually do what I’ve agreed to.

Next, I went to McChristy’s Jewelers with Norma’s rings and pearls to have them appraised.  I even remembered to take two of my watches and have batteries put in them (pricey, but I can’t open them myself, and the watches are small and delicate and expensive, from Larry).

Then to the Goodwill to drop off a bunch of Norma’s clothes... then to one of my blind friend’s houses to work on her computer... back to the Goodwill with another bag of clothes (one more receipt – which is good, come tax time; Turbo Tax allows a little bit extra for more drop-offs)... and home again.

Soon a load of clothes was put away, a load was in the dryer, Loren’s clothes were in the washer, and supper was in the oven.  I’m very glad for my large-capacity machines.

After supper, I poured myself a large mugful of Maine Blueberry Crisp coffee and went upstairs to work on the Old-Fashioned Sewing-Machine quilt that was on my frame.

A little after 2:00 a.m., I finished the quilting, trimmed the quilt, and removed it from the frame.  I have not yet had time to put the binding on it.  Mañana!  ... I hope.

Friday, July 3^rd, would have been my father’s 104^th birthday.  Hard to believe he’s been gone for 28 years.  I was 31 when he died at age 76.

I took Power of Attorney papers to Loren’s bank, then fixed him some food and took it to him.  He is still able to keep his large lawn looking nice, and I saw that he’d vacuumed his house, too.

We had an enjoyable time with Joseph, Jocelyn, Justin, and Juliana that evening.  Earlier that week, Larry had traded his older white Dodge flatbed pickup for a dirt bike.  We took the motorcycle and the RZR to a wooded area near Genoa and rode them on the hilly trails alongside Beaver Creek.

On our way there, we stopped at the convenience store (the one and only) in Monroe and some got hamburgers.  I didn’t... Larry didn’t ... and Justin and Juliana didn’t eat much of theirs.

The last couple of times we took the RZR somewhere – once to the trails in Nebraska National Forest near Thedford, and another time to the mountain trails near Creede, Colorado, I couldn’t drive it, on account of De Quervain’s tenosynovitis in my left wrist.  This time, though, I was hale and hearty, and drive it I did, up and down some rather steep trails.  Once, I took it over a small hill – Larry calls those things, when they come in rapid succession, ‘whoop-do-dos’ – a little too fast, and brought one of the front wheels off the ground.  If Larry had’ve done that, my hair would’ve stood up on end.  Since I did it, I called it fun.

By the time we came home, some of us were hungry.  I warmed up Campbell’s chicken noodle soup and chicken sausage gumbo.  Justin and Juliana had the noodly sort; Larry and I had the gumbo sort.  Joseph and Jocelyn weren’t hungry.

With everybody’s tummies happy again, we went and parked in a lot near the new high school and watched fireworks, put on by the Columbus Chamber of Commerce.  The pyrotechnics show was better than usual this year.  

I should’ve put the binding on that sewing machine quilt when we got home, but I was plumb out of steam.  Therefore, I sat myself down in the recliner, tucked a heating pad behind my back, and began answering emails from my quilting group and making a digital birthday card for Dorcas, who would be 38 the next day, July the 4^th.

Once upon a time as we drove home from a fireworks display at Columbus’ Agricultural Park, Dorcas, having turned 5 that day, sighed happily, “Isn’t it nice that all these people celebrate my birthday? And they don’t even know me!”

I took a sip from my coffee mug and added another animated picture of a baby goat to Dorcas’ ecard.  (They raise goats, after all.)

And then a bat flew into the stairs door and crash-landed.

Larry destroyed it.

In my rush that day, I’d left the towel out from under the office door.  I’d gone upstairs to tuck it back under at about 11:30 p.m.  When I opened the door, I saw two bats scrambling hurriedly up the unfinished wall between the studs next to the door to the addition.  {{...shiver...}}  Larry thumped the area around the door, but they wouldn’t come back out.  We looked in the library and quilting studio, but didn’t see any.  Obviously, we missed at least one.

That made nine down since the previous Sunday night.  I wonder how many there are in this vicinity, on this little hill where we live?

Our Fourth of July church picnic was canceled on account of COVID-19.  Bah, humbug.  This is the first time I ever remember it being canceled. 

Larry went golfing with Caleb and one of Caleb’s friends Saturday morning.  Early that afternoon, I had just enough time to cut and piece together the binding for the Old-Fashioned Sewing Machine quilt while Larry got cleaned up and ready to go to Cabela’s in Omaha.

In Columbus, we stopped at the Hy-Vee convenience store to get a salad, sandwich, boiled eggs, cran-grape juice, and strawberry yogurt parfait for Loren.  The parfaits with their fresh fruit and granola on top looked so good, we got a couple for ourselves.  I chose strawberry; Larry chose blueberry.

We exited the store, climbed in the Jeep – and it wouldn’t start.  At least Larry now knows exactly where the trouble is.  But... he was in nice clean clothes, and needed to shinny under the Jeep!

Fortunately, we always keep a 12-volt blanket in the vehicle, summer and winter.  Larry unrolled it, laid it on the ground (it was a cement parking lot), slid underneath the Jeep, and wiggled the troublesome wire.  I cranked the starter.

The Jeep started.

Larry slid back out, rerolled the blanket, and away we went to Loren’s house.  I told him it was a ‘Fourth of July meal – enough for lunch and supper’.

Then we were off to Omaha.

At Cabela’s, we got a game cam to use as a security camera on Loren’s house, and a GPS tracker for his vehicle – a couple of measures to keep him living safely in his home as long as possible.  Using the points on our Cabela's cards, we saved $75.

The GPS tracker might drive me berserk, because Loren still goes places fairly often, and still drives well.  We’ll see.

After leaving Cabela’s, we drove Riverfront Drive, then got some takeout supper from a Cubby’s convenience store and grocery near the Old Market, and ate it in the Jeep beside the Missouri River whilst people-watching.  And believe me, there was no dearth of Things to View.  We walked over the Missouri on the Bob Kerry Walkbridge as the sun went down behind the Omaha skyline.  It was quite a sight, driving back through Omaha after dark, watching fireworks going off all around us, hearing all the big booms.  Plus, we were enjoying New York Cheesecake Blizzards along with the show.  Our GPS first directed us to a defunct Dairy Queen, and we barely made it to the next nearest one before it closed.

Jeremy and Lydia and their four children (Jacob, Jonathan, Ian, and Malinda) are home from a two-week vacation to the Smoky Mountains; it seemed like a looong time since we’d seen them!  They visited Todd, Dorcas, and Trevor, who live a little northeast of Knoxville on a small farm.  We gave Lydia and Jacob their birthday gifts after church last night; they had birthdays while they were gone.  Lydia turned 29 on June 25^th, and Jacob turned 11 on June 24^th.  Ian and Trevor are both four, only a few days apart.

Today I returned to the nasty job of trying to get through to Verizon to set up an account online for Loren’s phones, and to cancel Norma’s phone line and Internet connection.  I started this operation at 2:30 p.m.... gave up for 45 minutes to fix Loren some food and take it to him...

He’d finished mowing shortly before I arrived, and was setting up water around his lawn.  He has in-ground sprinklers, connected to big pipes that hook up to his well.  I don’t know exactly how it works, but it’s not automatic; he has to turn the sprinklers on.  He has quite a large yard, and I don’t think his pump has enough pressure to water everything at once.

He’d made a fresh pot of coffee for me – maybe in order to keep me there a few more minutes.  I think he gets lonesome.  So I sipped coffee, burnt my tongue, and discussed the fireworks we saw in Omaha Saturday evening, and the thick haze of smoke that hung over the city.  He laughed when I ended, “And there was nary a bug to be seen!”

Then he asked how long I’d been bringing him food... guessed it to be three weeks... and worried about it a little, so I told him, “Oh, it’s all right; I bring you the scraps from our own meals that would otherwise get thrown to the pigs.”

He laughed and retorted, “I don’t belieeeeeeeeve you!”  😃

It’s been a hot, muggy day.  I made a gallon pitcher of lemon-limeade when I got home, using Lucy’s 100% Lemon and 100% Lime juice.  Mmmm... it tastes like fresh-squeezed lemons and limes.

I called Verizon again when I got home... annnnnd… an hour and a half later, after listening to Beautiful Music, finally got through, paid the bill (one day before it was due), turned off Norma’s phone, and set the wheels in motion to have the account transferred to my name.  My ear and elbow hurt.  (The mic on my phone doesn’t work well enough to use speakerphone when I’m trying to talk to someone and hear them well, especially when that someone’s mother tongue is Gujarati.)

So one (1) o.n.e. ... piece of Loren’s Financial Stuff is partially done.  I’m wondering, Will I have to go through this with every other financial institute with whom Loren does business???  Good grief.

Larry came home, ate supper, and headed to Genoa to work on his friend’s vehicles.

Bobby, Hannah, and Levi brought a box of Norma’s albums, and some photos that need to be put back into other albums.  They were in a hurry, because a storm was approaching.  We were issued a severe thunderstorm warning, but the worst of it passed to the north, and we wound up with nothing more than a much-needed rain.

Another storm is following the first, but it will probably stay far enough north that we won’t even get a drop of rain.

Upon learning that various essential oils help ward off bats, I mixed a capful of peppermint oil (no, not that expensive Young Living oil! – some nice-smelling but cheaper Laguna-moon oil) with water in one of those Mrs. Meyer’s glass spray bottles, then went upstairs and doused the area around the door between the little office and the addition.

Bright lights in the area where bats are prone to sneaking in help, too.

At 11:30 p.m., as I stood typing in the kitchen (if I sit too long, I grow moss and creak when I get up and try to walk; therefore, I put my laptop on a decorative box on the table, the ergonomic keyboard on a flat neck pillow in front of the laptop, and the mouse on a short little stool to the side – and voilá, I have a standing computer station), I heard that telltale ‘ker-splunk’ of a bat hitting the stairs door.  They don’t cope well with that flat plane at the bottom of a dark stairwell.

This bat must’ve been a leftover from Friday night, when I hadn’t wedged that towel back under the office door.  It was evidently hiding out in one of the other rooms upstairs, and finally came winging down the stairwell, only to smack into that door.

I grabbed the tennis racket and prepared to do battle.  Then I looked at the clock, changed my mind, and grabbed a towel to poke under the door.  Larry would be home soon.

Indeed, I had barely finished stuffing that towel under the edge of the door when the back door opened and Larry came walking in, bearing ice cream and energy drinks.

I greeted him happily.  “There’s a bat on the steps!”

“My ice cream will melt!” he objected.

“Not if we hurry!” I said encouragingly, handing him the tennis racket, flicking on the flashlight, and pulling the towel back out of the way.

He opened the door.

There was the bat, hanging from the edge of the first step.  He disposed of it.

“Now let’s go check upstairs!” I chirped in my best ‘let’s have a party’ tone.

Larry scowled. 

He hates bats as much as I do, but he doesn’t want me to know it.  Why, he even ducks when they fly overhead outside.  And then, like Piglet (of Winnie-the-Pooh fame) tracking the Woozle and unexpectedly coming upon an extra set of footprints, he jumps up and down in an exercising sort of way, to show he hasn’t been frightened at all.

For some reason, bats don’t bother me in the slightest, when they’re outside.  Maybe it’s because I feel like they’re more prone to accidentally (or otherwise) crashing right into me, in the house.  Outdoors, that’s a lot less likely.

Larry, evidently unable to resist my chirpiness, accompanied me upstairs.  We looked in my quilting studio... we looked in the library... we looked in the office ---- “and while we’re up here, let’s look in the addition!” I chirped in even brighter tones.

Larry didn’t merely scowl, he actually frowned.

“Oh, come on,” I cajoled.  “Don’t be scared!”

That did it.  He will not be accused of being scared. 

I turned on the flashlight, aimed... and Larry opened the door between office and addition.

Like Barney Fife in The Haunted House, he took a rapid glance, said, “Nothing’s out there,” and prepared to slam the door shut.

“There’s one!” I cried, shining the light in the direction of the shadowy flapping I’d seen.

We advanced, in combat mode now, armed and dangerous.  Or at least armed and jumpy.

Larry turned on the spotlight that he has hanging in the room, and took up a position near the bat’s flight pattern.  His second swing of the racket brought the critter down.  I heard it land on the floor in the corner near a pallet of quarter-log siding.

Larry, a little hard of hearing, and not sure he’d made good contact, thought the bat was still on the wing.  I lifted my light to prove him wrong – and spotted another bat hanging on the wall.

Larry took care of that one with a long-handled shovel, and then we tracked down bat #1.

After a cursory look around for any others that might be evilly lurking with malevolent intent, we headed back to the door – and met up with an angry black mud dauber. 

Aauugghh!  I don’t like wasps, either.

Still, wasps usually fly anywhere from 7-10 mph (though they can fly up to 20 mph), while little brown bats (the kind we have around these parts) generally fly about 12 mph, with frequent bursts of speed up to 22 mph.  That extra two miles per hour makes a difference, oh, yes it does.  Furthermore, wasps don’t have wings long enough to wrap around my head.  Nor do they have teeth, nor are they ever possible carriers of rabies.

So, not having a flyswatter handy, we let the wasp live another day.

Why, I’d like to know, do bats come into my house, when there are no bugs in here – while right outside in the big, wide world, there are millions, gazillions, and bajillions of crawling, flying insects, free for the taking??! 

Well, Larry got back to his ice cream before it melted, and I had an energy drink – Caffé Mocha – before it got warm.

And now it’s bedtime. 

When I was quite young, I once commented to my father, “We sure could get a lot more done, if we didn’t have to sleep!”

Daddy looked at me soberly, and I thought, Oops.  “David wrote in the Psalms, ‘He giveth His beloved sleep,’” quoted my father.  “We should appreciate the sleep God intended us to have.”

So I revised that notion, and decided to be thankful for sleep.

Not long afterwards, I found this verse in Proverbs 3:24, written by Solomon, David’s son:  “When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.”

Since those days, I have surely learned how valuable sleep can be, especially when things are difficult.

We deal with these things – because we have to.  And we look for the blessings in the midst of trials.  There are many.  But sometimes one must purposefully look for them, when the troubles weigh heavy.

Lots of other people have gone through similar things.  I have new sympathy for them!

,,,>^..^<,,,          Sarah Lynn          ,,,>^..^<,,,