Myotis lucifugus, placet tenere domum tuam vespertilionem

or, in the local venacular, “little brown bat please occupy your house”

Myotis lucifugus aka “little brown bat” is one of the more likely species to take up residence in this monstrosity on poles.

Of course this means it is up:

I successfully engineered my way through my own pigheadedness and raised this sucker today (not playing hooky, it was a holiday for my company). I constructed a boom (still up behind the house in the picture above) and winched all 175 lbs of pipe and bathouse 20 feet into the air above the garden.

The boom lurking above the fence line:

The boom in action as the house is lifted up:

Braced up with 2x4s so I could remove the tension from the cable long enough to reload the “come along” I used as a winch (the amount of cable on the spool wasn’t enough to pull up the house in one session; it took about twice the cable that the spool held.)

And it is done

It has been suggested that the next energy I spend be dedicated to taking the boom down and cleaning up the yard.

Mrs cohutt always has the bestest ideas.