Cat Herders: Shenandoah Valley Inmates

My bike is still in pieces. Behind schedule...

Since when do you only have one bike?!?

Uum, what I meant was...the bike I had planned on taking. It's almost ready now. Almost.

I thought you were dead. Welcome back.

So... we just landed this project...



And with notes like this... it should be interesting...



I mean... who doesn't like bats?

Responsible Land Disturber

is that for a rail trail?

BTW: I love bats (and snakes)

cool BKK, really neat history on that tunnel as you know
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ridge_Tunnel

Bat's lives matter !
We have so few these days...

I love Bats too !
And I don't mind spiders or snakes... They are all good..


Solstice !!!

^^^^^

I do, too.

OK, well sort of ... when I get some notice of their presence instead of SURPRISE!

Last year sometime, I swapped out a new U.S. flag for an older one as nasty weather was coming. The older flag had been stored down in the Moto Grappa for a few months.

When Kathi and I unfolded it to do the swap, a (very unhappy) bat fell to the ground with a thud. It gathered all of wits pretty quickly and flew right at Kathi. If I had what followed on video, it would have gone viral on y/t.

Snakes ditto.

In the last instance, Kathi was, thankfully, visiting one set of our grandkids somewhere. I was happily sitting on the front porch sipping a G&T and enjoying the sun. Without looking first, I reached down to move a coaster on the little table ... and found a juvenile rat snake objecting to my plan.

Startled near witless, I did an unmanly scream, dropped -- actually threw -- the drink, and went into the house (for a new and stiffer) G&T. The snake made a way more dignified exit.

Snakes -- of the non-venomous sort -- are welcome around the house, but I do prefer to see them first.

Back to motorcycles. We are in Seattle visiting (yet another set of or 13) grands. Today, I'm going to escape and visit the new Guzzi dealer, https://opmotorsports.com now that, sigh, Moto-International is gone. Probably not a fly-&-ride trip, but I'll kick tires and -- as I only have 110 moto-tees -- I'll buy another.

Yeah, I know: TLDR. But it's saved me a few minutes away from what Kathi calls the little darlings and I view as little vectors.

Bill

If you're a carpenter bee though...

Bet if the bats do roost nest or whatever it’s call in the tunnel you’d have to stop work.

Back at my folks place in PA. HB had opened up the storage barn door and a bat landed on his chest..
He flung it to the ground.. lol
He then had to pick it up so it would fly.. we both still laugh about that...

I'd be interested in seeing/hearing how they got(are getting) away with shutting off access for the bats habitat...who've most likely lived in there since not long after the last train rolled thru.

I like bats just fine but don't see what the deal is in this instance. If you owned a house and bats moved into a spare bedroom you had closed off for awhile would you be ok with someone else telling you that you couldn't replace the broken window they used for access if you wanted to use the room again?

Point being, it is a manmade structure that the bats are living in, not a natural cave.

^ this is true...
I have a bat house ,and they will not use it...
With the huge decline in bats ... I would think they would want to try and relocate them some how...

If you had a broken window for 74 years, there most likely wouldn't be much of that house left worth fixing.
Your closed off bedroom in a house isn't a good comparison to a tunnel that's been abandoned and wide open for animals to make a home in for 74 years.

My point is, I'd like to know whether the contractor is/has/had followed proper protocol with regards to screwing with/(re)moving a bat colony. Time after time, I've seen countless contracting companies blatantly ignore site plans, procedures and laws to save a buck...
There must be bats living in there or there wouldn't be any wording on the plans. As it looks at this moment, they're disrupting the bats habitat by allowing them access from Dec. 16th to August 31st, then cutting off access for 3.5 months. This makes no sense to me.

I posted this in the Solstice thread in Jo Momma, about a solstice party I went to a couple times. The first time was an incredible experience!


I play bluegrass music with some long time friends. We've played out a few times but it's mostly for fun. A new member of the band knew someone who lived on a farm where the owners had a solstice party each year. They asked if we'd play for the party. No pay but they'd feed us and keep us liquored up. Sure!
When we arrived that afternoon the first thing to catch our eye was the huge pile of 12"-15"x30' logs standing vertical like a teepee, held together by a very think steel cable. The entire inside was packed so tightly with cut wood you couldn't even stick your hand in past the poles. Hmm...
This mansion was the former home of Arthur Arundel, news corespondent and founder of Arundel Communications (now ArCom) based near Dulles Airport.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Arundel

On the outside of the mansion was a huge table(you could fill the top with ice and drinks) full of about twenty different types of beer. Underneath were cases and cases of beer. Next to it was a wine bar with 10-12 different wines with cases below that table. Inside, in one of the rooms there was another huge table with two people working behind it. They were shucking oysters as fast as people were sucking them down! The dinner was a buffet style, that took up another entire large room in the house. I think there were seven or eight large tables full of different dishes!
At the height of the party there were close to two hundred people there!
After dark everybody went outside to watch the lighting of the fire. There was a lone bag pipe player walking around the now smouldering fire, playing. It was like a scene from some dark ages pagan ritual... It was surreal! But it got better!
When the fire got burning good the flames were 60' tall...er...horizontal! Did I mention there was a stiff breeze(25+mph), lots of dried leaves on the ground and a forest downwind? The flames were just about licking a cluster of trees off to the side of the mansion. Huge amounts of embers were heading past those trees, down thru a small leaf covered field and into the forest! The fire got so hot it melted the heavy cable holding the logs together!
At this point I was figuring out how long it would take me to gather my shit, load the GS and get the hell off that mountain! If the woods caught on fire I was out of there!
Fortunately, nothing but the fire burned and it turned out to be a kick ass party! From what I heard later, they had a bunch of people down in the field stomping out fires started by the embers.

The next year we were invited back to play, good people, good food, good drink, no wind, good times! Unfortunately, those folks moved away. I miss going to that party...

^^^not sure Blooch would go for that, last bonfire at the compound was a dozy too

Blooch ~ Always has awesome bonfires

Everybody just simmer down now about the bats. There's another larger tunnel that parallels the rail trail tunnel. The bats will simply relocate while BKS and his contractor buddies are revitalizing the original tunnel. Do y'all ever stop to consider the human element in such things? If you're working inside a tunnel all day, do you really want to deal with a bunch of bats up in your grille the whole time? Ever heard of rabies? Or maybe bat shit crazy?

The bats will do just fine. Let's make sure the workers do just fine too.

I'm only mostly dead, no worries.

FWIW, I've been in the Crozet Tunnel many times and there aren't a great many bats. I mean, there are bats, but not cave numbers like in the thousands. They'll figure it out. And that tunnel is going to be awesome when you can go through it safely.