Previous Known Status:  Open hole left in mesh for squirrel’s escape route.

Objective:  Seal mesh back up with squirrel on OUTSIDE, keeping him out.

Mission:  Accomplished

Late yesterday afternoon after having heard no signs of Mr. Squirrel and consulting with Dad again on my next move, we agreed that he probably just hunkered down when I tried to chase him out in the morning after opening up the corner of the mesh for his escape route.  He more than likely waited until there was no sign of me before vacating.  I guess I did make a lot of noise up there creating the hole for him, so he did really want to go that direction when I tried to scare him out.

So, it was time to try it again.  Seal up the wire netting and hope he’s not in there.  So . . .  I dragged out the giant ladder, sealed up the hole.

He had not made any noise all day.  No sign of him at all.  After I closed up shop, still no noise.  All night, nothing.

AT 8:30 this morning . . . there it is.  Heard it all the way up in the bedroom.  I could hear it pulling at the metal.  I finished getting dressed and waited to check things out as I was just about to leave anyways.  I figured if he is stuck inside again, he isn’t going anywhere . . .  and if he is on he outside trying to get in, well, then, mission accomplished.

As I left the house this morning I peeked around the corner to where I was hearing the noise.  On the south side.  Nothing inside or outside of the mesh.  Walked over to the north side, again, nothing.  Hmm . . .    I leave.

I look again as I come home three hours later.  Check out both sides.  Still no sign of anyone.

About a half hour later I hear it again.  Something disturbing the metal on the south side of the house.  I sneak out as quiet as a 90 year house will let you .  I take the corner and sure enough.  There he is.  Sitting on the edge of the roof.  Frozen. Looking at me.

On the OUTSIDE!!!  SCORE!!

I decide I am a gracious winner and I speak to the little guy: “I’m sorry.  I know this sucks.  But you are not invited.”

He takes off running up the roof and jumps in to the big tree where he proceeds to cluck at me angrily.  Sore looser.

It may have not been the last face off with the little red squirrel, for he will be back trying to get in I am sure. But it definitely was a defining moment in the war to keep my house critter free.

Time to recover this mission!

Last known status:  Trapped squirrel in roof above front porch.

Objective:  Create an opening for the squirrel, Get squirrel out , and re-seal the opening.

Mission:  FAIL

So, alarm set for a quarter to 7 am.  One hour before sunrise.  All I am thinking is these squirrels are usually up and attem long before me.  I know because they are loud and angry little creatures.   8 am comes and I inevitably have two outside my bedroom window crabbing at each other.

So I don’t want to miss his wake up time.  Really don’t think he needs to be freaking out any longer than he should.

It is dawn, plenty light out.  I am up dressed, teeth brushed,  shoes on, jacket on and tools gathered before the clock hits 7.  Dreaming about squirrels all night and checking the clock every hour does wonders for helping me get my butt out of bed when needed.  I waddle the heavy extension ladder out of the garage and waddle it to the side of the house.  I had help yesterday.  Did not move the ladder at all . . .  Last time I tried to man-handle this ladder by myself was over a year ago.  I got it up.  But I could not get it down.  I had to walk around it for three days before someone could take it down for me.  Sad, I know.

Needless to say my last personal encounter with this monster did not end in my favor.  So I am nervous as I drag the thing out all by myself.  I got it open and up.  Slick!  Climb up with flash light and tools.  No sign of my fuzzy unhappy friend.  I tried to undo the bottom portion of the hardware cloth but it was stapled down pretty good and just couldn’t get the leverage to peel it up.  So I aimed for the upper corner against the house.  Cinch.  Peeled it down and back and left a perfect squirrel sized hole.  He will have to climb up a foot of wire mesh to get out, but their little feet are designed for that sort of thing.  And when I found him last night, that’s where he was.  Smooshed up toward the top.

OK!  Time to get him gone!  I climb down the ladder . . .  The plan is to scare him out. Bang on the ceiling and have him vamoose!  find his way out.  Nope.  Nothing.  No noise, no scattering, no sign anywhere.  hm.  That sound of a sleeper?  or that freaked out and hiding.  Or worse . . . did you find yourself to access elsewhere?  Believing he is sleeping in or scared is much nicer.  After standing, dumbfounded, contemplating my next step I decide to let the little guy have his late morning.   A little disgruntled because I would have like to sleep in this morning . . . .

I pack up the tools, and even manage to break down the ladder and waddle it back into the garage.  I would hate for someone else to walk away with it.

I will wait for a second pair of eyes.  Someone needs to see the thing Leave, and monitor to make sure it does not come back.  And I will wait for its daily scattering noises when it warms up a bit later this morning or early afternoon.

In the meantime, I think it is nap time.  4 1/2 hours of sleep really isn’t my thing . . .   That is if I can sleep.  I am hearing and seeing squirrels everywhere still.  Even in my dreams.  Ugh!

Even if I was unable to finish my mission, I still am calling this one a draw as well.  Last night we both lost.  This morning we both kinda win.  He gets access to freedom, I no longer have a squirrel trapped inside.  For now, this is good.

Well, the wonders of home ownership never cease.  The adventures of Amanda and Luna never get old around here either.

Sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at the tree, watching some hulu . . . drinking some egg nog, there is a very familiar sound of Luna running down the stairs, followed by a highly unusual sight of something dark flying through the air coming out the doorway from the stair well.  And of corse the thing looks HUGE.  It circles once around the dinning room and swooshes right into the dinning room curtains.  That I JUST hung.

I am getting desensitized.  I didn’t jump.  I didn’t make a sound.  I watched these brief seconds unfold. . .   and thought to myself:  “great.  just great.  This is not how I wanted to spend my night off.”

Luna is at the base of the curtains, reaching as high up as she can on her two chubby fuzzy back legs.  She gets the curtain in her claws and starts to shake, trying to knock the creature down.  I think: pretty smart.  Still just watching.  Now, the bat does not dislodge like Luna hopes . . .  so she now tries to climb the curtains.

Yep, this game is over.

I am up, off the couch and into the other room before both back feet are off the floor. “Luna, No!”   She knows “no”.   like I said, smart.  She also knows that tone . . .    No yelling.  A very low, “don’t you even think about it” kind of tone.  She lets go, gives a mew . . .   and sits and stares at me and the then the curtains.

I look at the curtains.  See nothing.

Great.  Now where did it crawl off to?  Cuz I know it didn’t fly off.

I lean over to the wall and look through the curtains.  oh, yeah, there he is.  Positioned snugly between the sheers and the drapes.

Now how in the world am I going to peel back the drapes without sending this thing flying?

I take one look at Luna, who is waiting anxiously for more live action play, and realize first things first.  The cat has GOT to go.  I see rabies and falling over Christmas Trees in my instant future and will have none of that.

I head up the stairs and call the fuzzy one . . .  she follows.  This is easier than expected because the bat came from upstairs, and what I learned with the mice is if she “looses” it or it just doesn’t come out from hiding in two seconds, she gets bored really easily and back tracks to where she saw it before.  She follows me right upstairs, and in to my bedroom and she is sniffing all around like  a blood hound.

Great.  Came from the bedroom.  Probably the shoe closet.  Which I actually go into and grab a shoe box, dump the shoes, and proceed to shut the cat in the room.  I tell her I am sorry.  But that she is not invited.  I would come back for her soon.  She is such a good girl.

My bat-in-the-house instincts kick in and I go open the front door, and go prop open the porch door.  I know how this works.  Bats don’t want to be in your house.  He starts flying around again, he will leave.

Oh, please, Amanda . . .    such an idiot!!   ITS THE MIDDLE OF DECEMBER!!!   HE’S IN HIBERNATION!!  He wants to be in your house a lot more than he wants to be out THERE!!!

Doors get shut.

I unhook the drapes from around the tie back, let them fall and start pulling the drapes along the rod from the opposite side thinking to draw back the first set and expose the little guy.  Something’s not right.  Something is not working here . . .    the sheer (on a totally different rod) starts to come with the outer set of drapes.

OH! MAN!  I take the two steps to the other side of the window and peak.  Sure enough, the little bugger is latched on to both sets.  he’s got three of his four little bat claws into the sheers and the last hanging onto the drapes.

But amazingly, this little guy did not move.  I tug a little bit more on the drapes til he is more exposed and spread eagle on top of my curtains.  and still . .   he does not move.  He is SOUND asleep.  huh.

AW  . . .   you’re super pretty!  Such a handsome coat!  (who am I, really?)  but yes, these words came out of my mouth.  He was beautiful.  Chestnut colored fur, bright sheen to it.  He was good sized, four inches in body length.  And had a bright white belly.  I didn’t know bats could have white bellies.  Makes him cuter.  Like Bambi.

Well, this I have to document.  I grab my camera, not that he is out in the open and snap a couple of shots.

And then looking at this guys hanging position, there is no way I am going to nudge him into the box while he’s hanging between my curtains.  huh again.

The only thing I can think of to get this guy down is to . . . swallow . . .  remove him with my hands.

Well, I know better than to touch a bat with my bare hands.  i need gloves, preferrably leather.  Their teeth are small and won’t bite through leather.  I get the gloves.  When I get back.  The thing is gone.

WHAT?!!   HELL NO!!!

Hello?

Where did you go?

Please don’t be somewhere I can’t find you . . .

I lift the curtains . . .  looking at the rod, the floor . . .   I panic and look in the garland and the Christmas tree.  I think:  he didn’t go far.  The dude is sleepy.  I go back to the curtains, looking and looking.  Dude found good camo.

As I am calling to this little creature and lifting the curtains my roommate walks into the room.  “What are you doing?”  John asked, just as I found the little guy.  Peeling back the curtain I said, “John, meet our new house guest.”

“What?”  he steps closer . . . .    ” your kidding me.  Is that bat?”

“I know right?”

“What are you going to do?”

I don’t know John.  Get a second one so I can have a pair and start a trend decorating with bats?  I told him I had grabbed gloves, and had an empty shoe box.  I asked if he would do me a favor and help.  “Sure”, he says.

AWESOME!!   I hand him the box.  I get on my step stool, put on  the gloves, point at the little guy who still looks sounds asleep and said “Now don’t you dare come flying at my face!”

And I hesitate.  “Oooohhh!”

And John, God bless him . . .  and forgive me for all the bad thought and judgments and frustration . . .  John asks if I want him to do it.  “Are you sure?”   “Yeah,” he says.

I ask him if he thinks his hands will fit in my little girl gloves (not that I am a little girl, my gloves just happen to be slender and made for women) and he is not a big dude at all and says yeah.  So he puts on my pink leather gloves (don’t ask me why I have pink leather gloves, I don’t know.  I don’t even know if they are really mine) and hops on that stool.  Without hesitation he takes both hands, cupping gently takes the bat between his hands and tugs just enough to free his grasp from the curtain.  I had the shoe box held up and ready, lid positioned just so.   John places his hands inside the box and I closed the lid around his hands, and John slides them out of the box.

It was slick.  easy.  sweet.  expert.

The dude is a manager at PetCo.  LOVE IT!!  For once this is a good thing.  He has a magic touch with little critters.

Well, the bat doesn’t think so.  He is SCREAMING.  Man bats are loud.  John even comments on how loud he is.  We take the box outside; all through the house I am saying “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I am sooooo sorry!”

I set it on a bush, and flip the lid.

I have psyched myself up so much for this thing to come flying out I pre-emptively squeal like  a girl and jump back like three feet.  Yeah . . . that was embarrassing.  The thing doesn’t even get out of the box right away.  It just SCREAMS.  And we watch it.  And my heart sinks.  This little guy isn’t going anywhere.  He tries to fly a bit and lands in the bush wings spread, all the time still screaming.   I know that bats don’t take off from a seated position really well, that they tend to drop from a hanging position and take flight while falling.  But  . . .   he looked so sad . . .  and John I questioned if he was gonna try to go anywhere.

My heart sinks even more. . .  knowing I have essentially just killed this bat.  It is 16 degrees outside, and will drop to 3 tonight.  This little mammal will not make it.  Why did it leave its little nest for the winter?  It should be hibernating!!  Yes, it was probably hibernating in my attic . . . possibly with a few of its good friends.  Like I said: fun never stops here!

Perhaps he is sick.  John thought he could be, he was not moving well . . .  but the thing is in hibernation mode, too.  Acting drunk and slumberish seems appropriate for the season.  But again, flying around the house is not.  If is it sick, forbid has rabies, I won’t feel so bad having just sentenced it to freeze to death.  Well . . .  yes, I still feel terrible.  But it couldn’t just spend the winter in my dinning room curtains.  I just really hope I don’t find a bat carcass come spring.  I will bawl my eyes out.

Meantime, I released Luna.  She sits at the base of the curtains crying for a while.  Reaching up on her hind legs every once in a while and running away as fast as she can with a single look from me or snap of the fingers.  Only to return to the base of the curtain when she think I’m not looking.  She doesn’t quite get the fact that its gone.  Once again Mommy has taken away her toy.  I’m a mean mommy.

And apparently  a rodent hostel.  Mice, Squirrels, Bats . . .   any other rodent out there that needs a home?  Apparently my house is your house!

Yeah . . bats are going to be a problem. They give birth in the spring . . .   have to wait for the babies to be air born before I can bat proof.    But then I am planning on having my roof done, which will probably only drive them into the walls or worse . . .  into the house.    First things first:  time to seal that hole in the shoe closet!