So I’ve been complaining about these mosquitos and rightly so! They are EVERYWHERE this year. I itch in places I’ve never itched and my kid looks like he suffers from premature acne. Not only has it rained almost daily for three weeks, yum yum, but I have not seen ONE bat this season to come eat these suckers (nor any frogs, who eat their eggs). Whats up? Where are the bats? Bats might freak some people out, but they can eat up to 1000 mosquitos in an hour! I’m probably swatting that many off of myself and Will in an hour. That’s an hour of swat-free living pontentiality (not a word?)! They make up a quarter of the earth’s mammal population but they are on the endangered list. In large part because of this new fungus disease we’ve been hearing about called white-nose syndrome, but we are also eating up their habitat faster than myself with a plate of sushi (why does sushi have to be so small and delicious? The whole experience is over in five minutes).
If you live in an area with bats (which almost all of you do) and you have a mosquito-palooza hosted on your property, then maybe you and the kids can work together to build your own bat house! We already live in a bat house ourselves, but I think the bats are put off by the volume of our tv so we have to build their own separate apartment. So here’s the thing; I have no patience for craftiness that takes longer than 30 minutes. It takes me a year to crotchet a dish towel because I’m not very fast and I get agitated then walk away from it for six months. So a bat house is out for me, but my father in law is a carpenter and loooves doing things extremely slow, so I might pass the torch to him. But YOU might care about the bats (aka mosquitos) and are patient enough to try out building a bat house for your family. At Batworld.org they have some great tips to help you build a bat nest , plus a kids page so you can make this an educational experience (throw in some math skills for measurements). And if you would rather just learn about bats while comfortably buying a cheap, pre-cut bat house that takes minutes to build you can do that too. Cause bats are cool and they eat annoying bugs. But if one ever got close enough to me I’m sure to scream like a child and run into the house.
Atlas Mama 