March 15th, 2006
The Gift that Keeps On Giving
Mom probably wouldn’t want me telling you this, but she had a birthday recently. Anyway, turning the focus back to me, I think I got her a really unique gift this year. The gift of bats. Well, hopefully.
I built her four bathouses…. And before you pass judgment on my present, know this: the woman requested bathouses. You would too if your backyard were a marsh. If every time it rained the creek flooded, creating pools of water that sat and stagnated for days and weeks at a time, attracting unholy amounts of mosquitoes. According to this, bats eat mosquitoes. “Bring on the bats!” Ever since we learned this information, that’s been the consensus around here.
I found those plans online a few weeks before Mom’s birthday. I did not, however, consult them very carefully before I went out to get the materials. I went ahead and bought a full 4×8 sheet of plywood. I figured I’d quarter it and build four small birdhouse-type things. Then we’d have four little bat families take up residence in our yard. Each night, the four Papa Bats would put on their hats, pick up their bat-brief cases, get pecks on the cheek from the misses, and leave their houses for the office. Then on their way home from doing whatever it is bats do to make ends meet, they’d all pick up a few mosquitoes and bring them home for dinner. Eventually, this would put a nice little dent in the population.
Well, I was right about one part of this: you can get four houses out of a 4×8 sheet of plywood. Only there is nothing small or bird-housey about them. You see, bats like to be tightly confined, so the houses only have a depth of about one inch. All your wood can go into the width and height dimensions. “There’s enough room for four bat families, right here,” I thought, after cutting and laying out the back, sides, and front for the first one. It seemed like most of the wood should have been used up, but three-quarters of the sheet was still left. I kept going. I figuring I’d just use it all. The more bats the better, right?
I cut out another. “Ok, that used up a good chunk of the sheet…. Wait, do I still have three-quarters left?” (I swear it grew when I turned my back.) I cut out everything for what seemed like five more houses. At this point I was getting tired. I was sure I was done. I looked over my shoulder. A quarter of a sheet remained, beaming at me from the sawhorses.
I tell you, it was like that loaves and fishes thing. Only with construction materials. I just kept cutting and cutting yet there was always enough left to make one more house. Not that I’m saying I performed a miracle or anything. I don’t have any supernatural powers, you know that. All I have is gadgets…years of training…a tool belt…. Actually, I’m sort of like…. (Are you really going to do it, Witchger? Are your really going to go say “Batman?” Then make some joke tying it into the fact that you’re building bathouses? I can’t let you do that. It’s too much. Pick someone else, quick…) um…Tim Allen. (Hmm…)
Anyway, now we have four gigantic bathouses to put up on the back side of our house. Each bathouse can hold 200 bats, by the way, so, potentially, we could have 800 bats hanging around (ha!) the yard. That’s a lot more than the 12 I initially estimated. If our mosquito problem isn’t fixed by 800 bats swarming around so thick they block out the sky, creeping us out, and covering everything with guano…. Hold on. That’s a lot of bats. I better be prepared for this. What eats bats? Just a minute, I’ll consult Google….
Ok, I’m seeing owls. Looks like owls eat bats. Anyone got any good owl house plans? Then of course we may need some…hold on…. Says “Owls have few natural predators…” Wait, here we go: wolf and fox houses. And having just seen Grizzly Man, I know that bears will eat wolves and foxes. So if the wolves and foxes get out of control, we’ll build some bear houses.
What’s that? “That sounds insane?” Please. Do me a favor and brush up on your ecology. Looks like someone’s never heard of “The Food Chain.”
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