Mountain Tales

I went over to admire the deck my neighbor has been repairing.  A tree had crushed part of his this winter.  I then proceeded to tell him I didn't see how I was going to stain my deck when the squirrels were dropping all their mess on my deck.  Actually it is on my deck and in the yard for about 25 feet around the tree.  It is a continual ping every second it seems.  Evidently they split the green seeds in two and take out the center and lick it and put it in their cheek to hide later.  Evidently their saliva makes a scent that will make it easy for them to find this winter.  These droppings have been going on for about a week now and as fast as I clean them up they are replaced by more.

I look up into the cedar and I can't see the squirrels.  An old nest was pushed out.  I learned that they bare their babies in the summer and they make clean nests to avoid having bad fungi to harm them.  Evidently they are very clean squirrels.  That is nice to know.  I don't remember ever having this much mess before though.  I can only think from the amount of food they are gathering and the number of holes around the yard that we are in for one long winter.

My neighbor then told me a tale of his own.  He said he and his wife were in bed one night when he felt something flying around their heads.  (He sleeps in the nude)  though what that had to do with the story I am not sure.  But he told his wife to lay very still and he got up and the bat began flying around his head and he walked down the stairs (can't you just picture that) and opened the door  and walked outside and the bat went outside with him and flew away.  I can only hope that never happens to me. 

I did have bats in my umbrella the second summer I was up here.  One flew out when I started to open it up.  I immediately called my friend's husband to come and get rid of them for me.  Although we had bats flying around the light posts at home in Montana and swooping down at our heads I never got used to them.  That is one reason I do not like walking in the evenings here.  The bats are swooping around.  My neighbor says I should have my grandson built a bat house to go along with my bird houses.  He said they eat the mosquitoes.  I have never seen enough mosquitoes to bother with that, thank you.