We Sat on the Upstairs Balcony for the First Time & Guess What We Have?!

Lightening bugs, yes! Hundreds of them, especially close to the river. But there is something else that made me squeal with delight!

I can't wait any longer to tell you, so I'm just gonna spit it out.

WE HAVE BATS! 

And they are just all happily flying around the back yard, eating up the mosquitos. 

Immediately upon realizing this magical magicalness, I turned to Mickey and asked at the top of my voice, "Can we get a bat house?!"

I always wanted one in Florida but our property just wasn't conducive to it. 

Bats, in my mind, were a Florida thing, so I didn't even think we'd be graced with their upside-down glory up here. 

BUT WE ARE. 

And, in case you couldn't tell, I am so happy. 

I wasn't even tryna get off the stoop yesterday, but at one point in my lightning bug stoop sit, Mickey grabbed our chairs and motioned for me to grab my stuff and open the door. 

So, I did. 

And then he motioned for me to walk through the door. 

So, I did. 

And then he motioned for me to walk up the stairs. 

Look, I think you understand where this is going. 

The door the balcony is finicky in the Professor Haus, so I have been kind of afraid to open it. 

Mickey knows this. 

But he also sees how happy I am on the stoop (I am never anywhere else) when he comes home from work in the evenings and just brings a chair out with me until we decide what we want to eat. 

(Tonight, it's Mugly's. If you ever come to stay at The Prof Haus one time, this is the first place I will take you for dinner. I went for the first time when Orlando Stevie came up with me for the inspection and it was the first place Mickey took me when we bought the place. I will write a whole blog about it soon. It deserves it.)

Then we drag the chairs in, close up the windows and go to dinner.

But last night we just brought the chairs in and up. 

Mickey turned the skeleton key and we were on our balcony. (If you stay here and are a grown up, this will be your room, just FYI.) 

The view was - a tree mostly. A very tall, very tree with lovely leaves. But to the left and to the right you can see our yard. And a little to back and left you can see to the river and the property behind, which is an empty field belonging to a Montessori school. 

That was a lot of information you did not need, but I am trying to set the scene and that is what the card catalogue in my brain has typed on it for this event (also very many exclamation points).

In the field there are the most lightening bugs I've ever seen. And then as we sit there, just taking it all in... they start getting SO CLOSE TO US. Like, I would keep squealing, "by your head!" to Mickey, because they got SO CLOSE to him. 

And then I saw it. 

A bat flying out of the 9:30pm twilight. 

I think the noise I made frightened it away.

But it came back and so did a couple others. 

I dunno why, but my brain told me there were NO BATS in Michigan. Even though when we went to the cave museum, I learned about Michigan bats and even left with a bat stuffie! His name is Floyd Collins and he is being a stoop kid with me today. 

So, yeah, there are bats in Michigan. AND SOME LIVE IN MY BACKYARD. 

I immediately asked Mickey if we could get a bat house.

He said, "Are you sure they are bats?"

To which I replied, "Yes, they are my favorite air animal and my second favorite animal overall. I know those wings anywhere."

Then he said, "Okay."

And apparently has also been researching bat houses all day. 

Bats are also good for controlling mosquitos, which is awesome, because I would be a stoop kid later at night but there is a certain time every night where the illumination insects are out - but so are the mosquitos.

So if getting a bat house is my solution? All the better. 

My friend Paulie G did raise concerns that the bats might also eat the glitter bugs and that would make me sad.

But then I had a thought:

If the bats do end up eating the lightening bugs as well as the mosquitos?

Welp, we'll just have fireflies in the front and bats in the back. 

Call that a "Professor mullet".