I didn't have any work lined up for today ( scary!). The Hub went down to Friend Will's to fix some wood on the front of their house and also to repair a shutter. He had to rent a longer ladder than the one he normally uses, and he is pretty nervous of heights, so he asked me to go down with him to be his helper.

He dropped off Vio-kitty at the vet and went to the rental place to get the ladder. I started making dinner in the crock pot and went to the bank. We met there and did the ladder work, then moved on to the shutter. The shutter seemed to have have pulled away from the wall for some reason, and The Hub was going to nail it back up....

We decided to approach it from inside the house, rather than on the ladder, since that would give The Hub better leverage. He took the screen out of the window and leaned out to access the situation.

"Oh God." he said in a voice almost reverant with dread. "There's bats under there."

"Where? Under the shutter?" I asked incredulously.

"Uh-huh. That's why it's pulled away from the wall. There's a whole colony of them in there."

"Are you sure it's a bat? Maybe it's just a bird." I said, craning my neck out the window.

I did not expect to see a "colony"of bats under a shutter in a townhouse. I was hoping to see a nest of barn swallows...possibly two or three little bats hanging around in the shade.

When I first looked, I couldn't see anything. It was just dark. Then I could make out the stretching of a leathery wing.....some feet. Yep. They were bats. More than two or three.

"What are we gonna do?" The Hub asked. Then, as if I couldn't see that all of the color had drained out of his face and he was as grey as a ghost, he added. "I don't like bats."

"Well, they probably don't like you either." I said, much more matter of factly than I felt. Personally, I'm neutral on bats. But I don't know much about them. Still, I grew up in the County, and I'm the "animal expert" in our marriage, so I was searching my memory banks frantically for any information I could remember about bats while maintaining the Cool Cat Act. "They're probably not sick. They're doing normal bat behaviour: that is trying to get out of the sun. Probably if you just pull the shutter away from the side of the house, they'll fly off. They're not interested in you."

"Well, I'm not interested in them. How do you know they'll fly off? Why won't they attack me? Why won't they fly in here?"

"Bats don't usually attack people. They'll see you as a threat and want to leave you alone if you even register with them at all. They're asleep. They don't know what's going on."

"But couldn't they fly in here?"

I closed my eyes and got a stunningly clear visual on the leather winged creatures flying frantically around my friend Jenne's sewing room. Next! I yelled mentally. "Well, theoretically, anything is possible." I said calmly, "But it isn't likely. They're not going to fly toward the thing that's bothering their environment. I'll move the shutter. I don't mind."

And I didn't. But The Hub is a true Knight-in-Shining-Armor-Guy. He's not going to stand around while I face his fears. "I'll do it." he said. He took a deep breath.
He moved the shutter out further from the face of the house. About 2 pounds of bat guano fell out and landed on our friend's front steps. Fabulous.

"Why aren't they doing anything?"

"They're slow to wake up. It's like you -"

"Ah-ugh-arh-ah-ug!!!!" The Hub said, pulling inside the window and shutting it hard. For a big man, he can move with great agility when he wants to. A bat took off from the side of the house. Then another one. Then another and another, in quick succession. 15 bats. I counted them.

They were so cool looking. They took off sideways and flew exactly the way you always see them doing in horror movies. They were probably fruit bats, but, up close and personal they looked rather large. They flew off into some nearby trees. The Hub waited a few minutes, looking after them, muttering "beady little eyes" then re opened the window.

Creating bat guano was apparently the life's goal of these creatures. We cleaned all of it up from the steps, the sill, and the shutter, with the shop vac. We took down the inactive ( thank god) bee's nests while we were at it, then got the shutter back up, with The Hub muttering "...damn things are almost as ugly as my old boss."

Then it was time for me to break away to go get Vio-kitty. Spawning upstream with the rest of the rush hour traffic, I made it right before the vet's office closed. They had tied a little Violet ribbon around her cat carrier. She was in there, all right, with her little tabby back turned to me, radiating Catitude. Thank God. I brought her home and set her up in the basement where Winston won't sniff her to death. She ate some food, which I was glad to see. Still, she's awefully thin and frail looking. We'll just have to keep her on her medicine and see how she does.