In the Spring of 2009, Matt Kavanaugh, a Fair Oaks friend and alumnus, suggested a bat house for the Farm. Matt performed exhaustive research on the best location, height, construction materials, and the most suitable bat house on the market. He consulted with our friend, Robert King, who has an engineering degree, who suggested an I-beam for the post. Matt, Robert, and our Fair Oaks staff erected the I-beam pole in what must be considered a most exciting effort, securing the post in 1,800 pounds of concrete. Matt and Robert rode the bucket 20 feet into the air and installed the four bat houses on the I-beam. It was a dramatic effort and one intended to meet the 100-year plan for all construction. It was late 2011 before Ken Thompson observed that bats had made their homes there. We welcome you to pull up a chair just before twilight and watch the mass exodus of the ever-growing colony of our new friends, the Bats. A single bat can eat up to 1,200 insects per hour – multiply that by a few hundred bats, and that’s a lot of mosquitoes not bugging you at night!