Wednesday, September 30, 2009

HG's Helpful Hint #35.

You know when you post a video from YouTube on your blog (using Blogger) and it looks like this?



Here's how to get it like this:



Just go to Edit Html and change the object width (within the quotations) to 425, then change the object height to 344 (also within the quotation marks). Do this in both places.

Et voila.

Perfection.



Compliments of The Little Sparrow.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

It's Shalimar Season.

You know it's fall when I get this out. It's been my favorite scent for 20 years - um, since I was a child. *wink* Just a tidge will do ya.

(This post is to relieve those who were terrified by the bat post :-)

Monday, September 21, 2009

I'm Bat(wo)man.


Okay. So, a couple of weeks ago I came home from the beach (I know, don't cry too much for my Empty Nest Syndrome :-) to check on things and take care of the things that didn't get done while I was away and while I was changing the air conditioner filter in the basement I noticed what looked like an old banana peel on the floor. Of course, it occurred to me that there would not be an old banana peel on the basement floor and I realized it was a bat.

It seemed dead and I was upset because I like bats. They get a bad rap from widespread misinformation and vampire movies when really they're quite valuable for keeping insects under control as well as performing a vital ecological role by pollinating flowers. I carefully scooped it up in a large goldfish net and covered it with a paper plate and when I began to do this I realized it was alive.

I immediately took it outside and put it on the dew-covered ivy because I thought it was probably dehydrated. I came back out with a small eyedropper and tried to feed it some water and you know how a bat must love getting something shoved in its face when it's on its deathbed so that didn't work very well. It seemed to be a little more lively so I thought I'd just drip the water on the ivy and hope for the best. I came back out a little while later to check on it and it had made its way up three stairs!

By that time the bird rescue facility had opened and I called to see if they knew of anyone who would take a bat. They did. I called Hillary (not just BatWoman, but WildlifeWoman) and scooped up the bat (well, sort of) into a box and took it to her. It was not happy during my attempt to get it into the box and looked something like this:


Within minutes, she had the bat out of the box and into her own box with a little bat blankie and fed it an eyedropper of water (you could tell she had done this before) and then gave it a mealworm. Exhausted from all the activity, the bat took a batnap (oh, come on) and then ate the worm. It was so cute.

Alex the Big Brown Bat and Mandy the Mealworm*, Discovery Channel

There's a disorder affecting northeastern bat colonies called white-nose syndrome which has killed something like a million bats so far. So, first it must be tested for that, then introduced into a situation with other bats and then released back into the wild.

She had a couple dozen baby squirrels, a baby bunny, box turtles, skunks, snakes, rabbits, all manner of wildlife. I don't know how she ever does anything else.

Anyway, I'm grateful to her for taking care of this little guy. Oh, and since I wrote this post, the bat has been released back into the wild to terrorize other people in their basements.

*no, of course the mealworm did not have a name

Friday, September 18, 2009

My Empty Nest.

You know, when my daughter left for college, I was going to buy a pool table for her bedroom and I thought there'd be a party every night. My husband and I have been married for only five years so we're practically newlyweds. So, I've actually been excited about this time because I thought we'd get to spend some time together, just us, like you did when you were first married, before children, before four teenagers :-).

But now that I've actually packed my girl off to college and she is settled in and happy (fingers crossed), I'm dealing with a serious case of Empty Nest Syndrome. So if you see me walking my puppy down the street in a stroller with a baby bonnet on, please call the authorities.

Anyway, I'm back but I'll likely be posting much less. I've missed y'all, though. Hope you had a great summer.
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