We love the bats in our yard and at night watch them flap through the yard catching mosquitos.

We found this one on the back lawn all curled into itself. It’s hard to say what may have killed it.

I have always been a goth scientist at heart fascinated by the odd and grotesque and by all those things little girls are squeamish about.

When I was thirteen I attended a music camp that was on the site of an old TB sanitorium in southern Saskatchewan. On the first night of camp as we were having our dorm meeting a bat flew through the hall above our heads. All the other girls and the counsellor screamed and ducked down covering their hair with their hands while I stood and watched how the bat flitted its way down the hall and found purchase in a corner. I walked to the corner and observed its fast breath and pulsing wings for a few moments before it flew out a nearby window.

I was not one of the popular girls at camp.