More Little Brown Bats

When Fall came, at first there was one Little Brown Bat clinging to the fruit cellar cement wall. It made me wonder where the other one had gone. I imagined it was the female of the pair, who refused to spend one more winter in such a cold cave. "I'm heading south, thank you very much. That woman who owns the cellar keeps opening the door and letting all the cold air in, and wakes me up when she gets wood out. Remember how I wound up in her bedroom the night of the blizzard?" Neither of us were likely to forget that. (See Bats as House Pets.)

Who could blame her? So it was with a bit of a jolt that the next time I went down there, to fetch my first sauerkraut crock, I found four bats.

One of them decided to hang from the ceiling. I took this pic yesterday when getting the last dry firewood, since I had to disturb them anyway. So that's going to be it for me using my own fruit cellar. I am leaving the door open a few inches for them to fly out on mild days, maybe to get a drink from the river before it freezes. I covered the air pipe with an old crock pot I found. The outer door, up the stairs on the outside, never will close all the way.

Whenever there has been a tornado possibility,  I've taken shelter in the cellar . The inner door is an old one with an oval glass. Glass would not be my choice for a storm cellar door, but there it is. Hopefully, a tornado would suck it out, away from me.

While trying very hard not to bother the bats, I do find them fascinating . I wonder if my little cellar will turn out to be a gathering place for rather a colony.  It appears there are even more than four of them. The guano would be useful for the garden, at any rate.

As long as I don't accidentally carry any in into the house, I'm fine with them. They are so furry and cute.

I must admit, however, that watching critters hibernate isn't terribly exciting.