For the past month I had been hearing little scurry/scratching noises coming from the attic. Scott assured me it was most likely a squirrel and threw a handful of rodent poison up into the corner where I had heard the noises. Didn't work - the noises continued and were moving down in to the wall just behind my bed. YIKES!! So I sent him up there for further investigation and he returned with the verdict that we had "a bat" and that I was to research how to get rid of it on the Internet. All of the internet sites I found were way more concerned about protecting the bat, and most suggested that you could not do anything to bats in the summer months because of the possibility of babies. Now I understand that bats provide a valuable service to our environment, but Dude, come on, when they decide to take up residence in your house they need to go. The first thing that all of the sites said to do was to go out at dusk and watch to see where the bat exited from. So that night I went outside and stood in my neighbors driveway and watched as two bats exited from the gable vents, all the while hiding behind Scott's back and screaming like a 12 year old at a Jonas Brothers concert. My sister had given us the name and number of a friend of hers who has a critter control business, so I had Scott call him the next morning. When I checked with Scott for an update that afternoon, hoping to find out that the "Bat Guy" would be arriving sometime that day, my wonderful husband informed me that it would cost $900, so he found out what to do, and would handle it himself. WHAT??? Flash forward to dusk once again. My husband comes home with a BB gun and a flashlight. WTF???? Was this what the bat guy said to do??? No, of course not. That was a multi day process involving screens and a net to "exclude" all of the bats over time, and he could do all that, but, ya know, it's really hot and he didn't want to have to get on the hot roof, blah, blah, blah. Again I say, WHAAAT??? So the bat hunter goes up to the attic and proceeds to start SHOOTING at bats at they are preparing to exit for their nightly feeding. Meanwhile, I stood outside and counted as 21 bats flew from my house. Let me repeat, in case you missed that the first time, 21 BATS FLEW FROM MY HOUSE!!! I then found Scott outside looking through the pine needles for all of the dead bats that he was sure he had hit. Uh, No Dude, they flew away and will be back at dawn. As he stood there looking bewildered, I asked him, quite bewildered myself, if this was his "plan"? To shoot at bats ever night? He had the nerve to ask me if I had a "better plan?" HELLO, pay the man his $900!!!! So a week later (we had waited too long to get on his schedule), Jeff a/k/a The Bat Guy a/k/a My Hero show up to rid my house of bats. Now, even though Scott had assured me that there was ABSOLUTELY NO WAY that a bat could get in the house the first thing The Bat Guy asked was if they had been getting in the house!!! Instantly made a mental note to self that Scott must pay dearly for that one. Anyway to conclude, after 3 days of having an "exclusion" net draped halfway down the side of my house we are now bat free! YAY! Although I am not going back into the attic for a long time, we are peacefully coexisting with the bats, which The Bat Guy informed me most likely have moved next door. Sorry neighbors, if you need a referral, I know a guy.
PS - Just FYI, we had no babies, so we didn't violate any rules regarding bat exclusions in summertime. And I know it's illegal to kill a bat, but we didn't know that at the time Scott was shooting at them, and he didn't hit any, anyway.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Thursday, July 1, 2010
We're Still Here
We're still alive and well, just been busy these last couple of months. I had to look back through our photos to see what we've been up to, but here it is. Here is a synopsis of our summer so far:
Baseball: Ryan finished up his last season in coach pitch. We've been lucky enough to have had the same wonderful coach for a few seasons now and Ryan has really grown as a player. His favorite position is catcher. I get such a kick out of seeing him jump up and throw that helmet off.
Football: Sam finished up his first season of football. I know football in the spring is weird, but they have it. Even though it was a winless season for his team, Sam did great. He was the starting center, and by the end of the season he was playing nose guard as well, so he played the entire game. Poor child lost ten pounds with all the practicing (2 hours 4x/week). And Sam did not have 10 ounces to lose, so that was a lot. I still have to pick up his football pictures so I don't have one to post. Although he enjoyed football, he is thinking that he wants to go back to basketball this fall. I think that his heart is really in basketball, but he had kind of a crappy winter season that turned him off for awhile. We'll see, he is still kind of on the fence.
Ryan's nose: As many of you know, Ryan has had a lifelong battle with nosebleeds. They can be quite heavy and last a long time. After a particularly bad run this spring he told me that he wanted to see a doctor to find out if anything could be done. We had seen an ENT when he was three, and I knew that they could cauterize it, but we hadn't wanted to go that route. But now the school freaked out if he got blood on anything, we have closed down the pool and rides at Carowinds with blood. and he was waking up every morning with his hair caked in blood, so I guess he was so over it. So off we went to have the nose cauterized, or as Ryan described it "tortured". I felt so bad when I saw his little hands gripping the seat and his body stiffening. He's been dealing with nosebleeds basically 3 to 4 days a week, and he hasn't had one in over a month so he says it was so worth it. I have picture of Ryan with the anesthetic stuffed up his nose, but he has absolutely forbidden me from posting it.
Sam and Ryan both had their awards day at the end of the school year. They both got awards. Ryan got a Citizenship award (despite what his father says, not everyone gets this) and Sam got several, including Honor Roll (they don't have this in Ry's grade), math and reading awards, and get this, Writing Superstar. Not sure how he pulled that one out of his butt, but my assumption is that this should be my award since I "proofread/edit" all of his papers. We'll just keep that to ourselves, though. Look how thrilled they both look:
A couple of weeks ago Ryan and I had the perfect Mother Son bonding outing - We went to WWE Monday Night Raw. That's right, folks, Wrestling. We had great seats and all of Ryan's favorite guys were there, so he had a great time. I'll just say, WWE is what it is, and you just need to go with it. I did find it kind of cool to see a live prime time TV show being made.
So now we are just hanging out, swimming, going to Carowinds and hanging with friends. We are also looking forward to our upcoming family beach trip in July and our trip to NYC to see the Yankees in August. We'll update on those events as they happen. See ya soon!
Baseball: Ryan finished up his last season in coach pitch. We've been lucky enough to have had the same wonderful coach for a few seasons now and Ryan has really grown as a player. His favorite position is catcher. I get such a kick out of seeing him jump up and throw that helmet off.
Football: Sam finished up his first season of football. I know football in the spring is weird, but they have it. Even though it was a winless season for his team, Sam did great. He was the starting center, and by the end of the season he was playing nose guard as well, so he played the entire game. Poor child lost ten pounds with all the practicing (2 hours 4x/week). And Sam did not have 10 ounces to lose, so that was a lot. I still have to pick up his football pictures so I don't have one to post. Although he enjoyed football, he is thinking that he wants to go back to basketball this fall. I think that his heart is really in basketball, but he had kind of a crappy winter season that turned him off for awhile. We'll see, he is still kind of on the fence.
Ryan's nose: As many of you know, Ryan has had a lifelong battle with nosebleeds. They can be quite heavy and last a long time. After a particularly bad run this spring he told me that he wanted to see a doctor to find out if anything could be done. We had seen an ENT when he was three, and I knew that they could cauterize it, but we hadn't wanted to go that route. But now the school freaked out if he got blood on anything, we have closed down the pool and rides at Carowinds with blood. and he was waking up every morning with his hair caked in blood, so I guess he was so over it. So off we went to have the nose cauterized, or as Ryan described it "tortured". I felt so bad when I saw his little hands gripping the seat and his body stiffening. He's been dealing with nosebleeds basically 3 to 4 days a week, and he hasn't had one in over a month so he says it was so worth it. I have picture of Ryan with the anesthetic stuffed up his nose, but he has absolutely forbidden me from posting it.
Sam and Ryan both had their awards day at the end of the school year. They both got awards. Ryan got a Citizenship award (despite what his father says, not everyone gets this) and Sam got several, including Honor Roll (they don't have this in Ry's grade), math and reading awards, and get this, Writing Superstar. Not sure how he pulled that one out of his butt, but my assumption is that this should be my award since I "proofread/edit" all of his papers. We'll just keep that to ourselves, though. Look how thrilled they both look:
A couple of weeks ago Ryan and I had the perfect Mother Son bonding outing - We went to WWE Monday Night Raw. That's right, folks, Wrestling. We had great seats and all of Ryan's favorite guys were there, so he had a great time. I'll just say, WWE is what it is, and you just need to go with it. I did find it kind of cool to see a live prime time TV show being made.
So now we are just hanging out, swimming, going to Carowinds and hanging with friends. We are also looking forward to our upcoming family beach trip in July and our trip to NYC to see the Yankees in August. We'll update on those events as they happen. See ya soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)