Thursday, July 24, 2008

But we don't have a belfry!

On Sunday The Tramp and I decided to sort out his workshop. This house is a '70s ranch and the workshop space is what was originally designed to be the carport. The original owner had it enclosed when the house was built but never used it as a garage. The previous owner used it as her "art room" and we are using for overflow kitchen storage/broom closet/cleaning stuff and badly organized workshop.

The Tramp has some large floor-standing tools such as a drill press, table saw, chop saw, and scroll saw, as well as all the small stuff you have in a workshop. He's finding it almost impossible to use them! The room has built-in counters on three walls and a few kitchen cabinets. We moved a whole bunch of stuff (which is now laying all over the kitchen/dining area...sigh) and got busy tearing out to make room for the big tools. We've got our eyes on some big cabinets at Lowes to store the kitchen and cleaning stuff.

We also keep the dog food in there. Everything is closed up in plastic bins but even so we've had to set out mouse traps. About a month ago I started complaining it smelled like something died, each time I went in there to get something. I looked! I really did! The mouse traps were empty and poking around didn't find anything else. The stink disappeared after a while and I didn't think any more about it.

On Sunday we started the reorganization job by surveying what we had and what needed to go. And for the first time...I looked UP!


Yep. That's a dead bat up there. About 10 feet up. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. The Tramp stood on the counter and gingerly (with rubber gloves and plastic bags) removed it. He stuffed the holes with steel wool. There hasn't been any evidence of bats in the attic but now we're going to have to look closer. It got in somehow!

The kicker is, yesterday he sent me the link to this article (and I found another, less sensational version, and the BBC version [funny how they are all different]). Cripes! Bats don't particularly freak me out but I'd rather they weren't in my house...or in my underwear!!! I guess I'll be shaking my clothes out better when they come off the clothesline!

4 comments:

Tine said...

Bats are such strange creatures, their Danish name means flying mouse :-)
I've been lucke enough to see a big flock of them in the wild...They looked so beautiful. However, I don't think I would be too thrilled to find them in my house either! LOL!

Candace said...

I'm pretty much the same on all wildlife no matter how many legs or wings, I don't begrudge them life as long as they stay out of my house. Even then, I would prefer they live, but out of my house, and depending on the species, out of my property.

meggie said...

I met a woman who keeps the small bats in her clothes to keep them warm. (Not her bra!) She rescues the wounded ones, & nurses them back to health, & keeps them on her person. They do smell rather nasty, even when they are alive!

Lynn said...

That's scary. We had cooperheads in our yard and garage last week.