I spent the weekend (in between NEFFA and a Dick Gaughan concert in York, ME) reading the first half of this thread. Looking forward to getting caught up on this half maybe tonight.
I sleep and park my car in Nottingham, NH and ply my day job (typographer, I mean "digital pre-press production technician) in Portsmouth, NH and I'm much more seacoast oriented than my address in Nottingham would indicate. The weather today is overcast and cooler than I'd like, but the daffodils in all their various forms, muscari and greigii tulips are blazing away.
I'm from the Midwaste, I mean, Midwest originally, and moved first to Massachusetts, Maine and finally to NH in search of a warmer climate. (Warmer than Milwaukee, WI, that is!) I was born up in Stambaugh, MI in the Upper Peninsula, but followed my parents back to Wisconsin when I was but a babe. I've been in New England since January of 1970.
The other thing that drew me to New England (oh, yeah, besides my first husband . . .) was the history and the gravestones. I do research on (primarily) New England slate markers between 1650 and 1825-ish (willows and urns make my eyes glaze over), ligatures on gravestones, and the carver John Just Geyer. (Lately I've been tripping over folklorists, song collectors and people mentioned in folk songs -- mostly out of my era, but fascinating as well.)
Oh, yeah, did I mention I sing? Mostly English and Scots, my "idols" are Jeannie Robertson, Belle Stewart, the Coppers, the Watersons, Ewan MacColl, Louis Killen, Anne Briggs, etcet, etcet. Bawdy women's songs, too. (My "theme song" is "Aunt Clara" which I learned from Bess Foulke who learned it from her college roommate's father.)
And the bat goddess appellation. Well, I live on 33 acres of trees and rock in a post and beam house on the side of a hill (heated with wood and we have a composting toilet -- aging hippies, eh?). I have as a winter resident a grey squirrel in the space between windows (who had "kittens" a couple years ago), flying squirrels (which I'd love to get rid of, and my cat Calliope is helping) in the dormer, and a nursery colony of little brown bats between the bedroom ceiling and the roof. Loud little buggers, and we have "bat adventures" every July when the "teenagers" are out and about on their own for the first time. Anyone know how I can get a grant as a wildlife refuge?!

Linn Schulz, the Bat Goddess