White

I don't know what this stuff is. It came with the place and lives up under our huge White Oak tree - along with masses of flowering quince, peonies, daffodils, forsythia, daylilies, and vinca minor (periwinkle) - all of which was already long established when we bought the house 36 years ago. It's kind of a shrub with very small leaves - and in the early spring there are long spikes of tiny white flowers. This is obviously a close-up of the tip of one spike. Whatever it is, I like seeing it every year!

Meanwhile, while on our walk this morning we stumbled - almost literally - upon a bat lying in the road. At the edge of the road - and it's a dirt road - but nonetheless not the proper place for a bat. It turned out to be an Eastern Red Bat and I drove it over to The Wildlife Center in case something was wrong with it. The have now contacted me and they say it's healthy, nothing wrong with it (aside from having somehow become dislodged - perhaps - from the tree it was roosting in?) and it's very feisty and has already escaped once from its "bat tent" and flown around the room a few times, and would I please come get it so it can be released soon! Mind you - it's a 40 minute drive from my house, so you might understand that I wasn't too excited about going straight back. There ensued a bit of arm twisting though, so I've agreed to go get it tomorrow. I'll go directly there from town after I've gotten my groceries. It's quicker going there from Charlottesville than from our home. So...

The extra is a photo I snapped of it when I took it over there this morning. The bright orange thing is the "baseball" cap I used to pick it up with and carry it home, and then put it in a shoebox. During the drive over it crawled out of the cap and was sitting on top of it when I peeked in to see what was up with it when I got there. Surprise! So I took the photo and quickly closed the lid. Bats being a "rabies vector species" it was important that we not touch it without special bite proof gloves on - if it had bitten me I'd have had to say so, and then they'd have to kill it in order to test it to see if it in fact had rabies - which would have been rather hard on the bat. So I was as careful as could be even though I am rabies vaccinated now and would likely have been safe enough myself - I didn't want to rescue a bat only to be the cause of its death!