Disappearing dog medicine.

Today, as we finished breakfast, I was preparing a pill for our older dog who seems to have digestive problems. In order to get him to take the pill prescribed by the vet; we have to hide it in a cracker generously piled with peanut butter. Of course our younger dog has to be included to avoid problems but hers is minus the pill. I had just prepared his "treat" and laid it on the table until I could make the younger dog's treat. When I had the second treat ready, I reached for the first "treat" and it was not there. I looked all over the table, I checked the floor. No treat was visible. My wife said," look under your plate. I picked up my plate, that treat with the pill was no place on the table. My wife also looked it all over, gave me a sly look and suggested I ate it. Then she said,"You'll just have to fix him another." As I reached for the cracker bag for a new cracker to slather with peanut butter; I saw, in plain view, right beside my plate that both my wife and I had looked under, and around with no luck, laid the cracker with the pill. It was not hidden, it was in plain view, yet both of us couldn't see it? How plausible is that? Usually its tools that disappear from a work area and are found days later in some obscure place. This time it was a cracker with peanut butter and a pill, but it reappeared minutes later. A spooky practicle joker, I suppose. Seems kinda mundane.....until it happens to you.

Mumbling

Recently my wife and I purchased a business in a small town just south of our residence. My wifes curtain and candle business had outgrown the rental stalls she had been using in the craft mall. In fact her back stock was about to drive us out of our residence. Anyway, she has been busy learning the ins and outs of her new business. Several days ago, she opened the store and was busy getting it ready for business when she said she was annoyed by what seemed to be voices mumbling. She said it appeared to be several voices but they were never loud enough to make out what was being said. My wife walked the store trying to locate the source of the mumbling. She reported the "mumbling" was the same, no matter what part of the store she was in. The store has a radio sound system but it was definitely off. She walked outside to see if maybe there were a group of people talking outside. There is an office building on the east side of her store but it appeared to be closed. The day was downright hot and she said no one was in sight anywhere around. While she was outside she could not hear the mumbling. As soon as she walked back inside the mumbling was there. It was time to open and the mumbling was getting on her nerves so she tuned on the sound system to drown out the mumbling. She said that worked. At closing, when she turned off the sound system, the mumbling was gone. The store is located in an old brick building that was built in the late 1800s The building had served the community for decades as a hardware store. It was empty for periods of time before a motorcycle shop rented it. They were there only a short time and the motorcycle shop was turned into a antique, used, and new furniture store. Again, a short period passed and the owner, in poor health, decided it was too much for her to run and she sold the name and contents to my wife who has added Candles and Curtains and other decor items to the merchandise. It will be interesting to see what other, if any, strange events occur here.

Strange Gray Dog

Perhaps I'm Hal lucinating; however, yesterday while watering plants in the eastern window of our upstairs bathroom I turned around to water the plants in the western window I spied a gray, shorthaired, terrier type dog pawing the rails on my exercise machine. The machine sits in front of the western window where there are plants growing. Using his right paw the dog pawed the closest rail to him, about three times before he vanished. Slightly larger than the playful brown and white, Jack Russell we have seen upon occassion, this dog was solid gray, had short hair and a relatively long slender tail, and short pointed ears, he seemed friendly. Looking nothing like the two shaggy schnauzers I presently own, this dog is a new one to me. My wife says she never saw a dog fitting that discription either. What ever he was, I saw him long enough to get a fairly good look. Ghost or hallucination? Who knows? But this old house seems to still be harbouring some surprises.

On April 23, I reported the alarm on our front stairs going off. I found nothing at the time that could have set it off. I rearmed the alarm at that time (April 23rd) It has been on since and nothing has set it off. Its May 29th so over a month has passed and the alarm remains quiet. So it makes me wonder, more than ever, just what set it off. We rarely use the front stairs except during holidays when I'm carring decorations of one form or another. Normally we use the rear stairs. Otherwise the house has been quiet. Outside, this past week, my wife and I heard loud explosions on two different days; both in the early afternoon. As usual we were the only people in town to hear them. I'm not surprised; it has been so ever since we moved here over 30 years ago. No, I have no idea where the explosions originated; but they were quite loud. These explosions were well outside of the house. One sounded like it waas only a block or so away; the other sounded further off. No they were not firecrackers. I have a pretty well grounded knowledge of firecrackers.

Burglar Alarm a Bust

A week or so ago, I placed a burglar alarm in the alcove at the turn in our front stairs. I did it as an experiment. The front stairs is one of the main points where the weird in this house occurs. This is also the area where we most often pick up those photographic, transparent, disks that occur on photos shot during certain times of the year (Halloween, shortest day, Christmas, and on one occassion in mid-december). One day this week (Wednesday) I was working in the upstairs bedroom. We have a lot of extra furniture there that needed to go to the attic. I was in the process of transporting it the attic. The bedroom door to the hall stairs was closed but the door to the mainhall was open to the attic stairs. As I was working I heard a squeeking or grinding like noise, like something electrical that wasn't running quite right. I couldn't figure what it could be because we have very few things in the upstairs that run on an axis. I checked the bedroom and found nothing, I then opened the door from the bedroom to the hall to the top of the stairs and was blasted by that alarm. Ears ringing I made my way over to the alarm and hit the shut-off code. I then went downstairs through the open parlour door, through the parlour and opened the door into the diningroom where both my dogs greeted me. I went through the diningroom and into the kitchen where my wife was working on a project. I ask her if she heard the alarm; she said "No, and obviously neither had the dogs." She felt the alarm was no good because it was not heard all over the house. Thats a good point, but I'm not certain where I can find an Air Raid Siren to replace it with. And that still doesn't answer the question as to what set the alarm off in the first place. I suppose it could have malfunctioned or ..............?

A third dog wants to play

As I have mentioned before, this house is almost soundproof to noises outside unless they are very loud. The interior walls are also brick and the walls are thick 3 to 4 bricks thick and then they are plastered over by a near cement plaster used by builders in the mid-eighteen hundreds. So sounds do not carry well between rooms. Last night, before turning in the the evening, my wife and I spent half an hour or so playing with our two dogs. Its a nightly ritual they have come to expect. We had just finished playing with them and were preparing to turn off the lights when we heard a loud, very distinctive play growl come from somewhere in the house. It got all of our attention. The Dogs sat bolt upright and peered down the upstairs hall that runs from the master bedroom to the bathroom on the opposite side of the house. My wife exclaimed "What was that?" and our older dog jumped off the bed and ran down the hall to investigate. He came back fairly fast looking puzzled. The younger dog continued to look down the hall. Nothing more occurred and the elder dog went to his bed next to the heat register and laid down. The younger dog continued to peer down the darkened hallway and was doing so when I finally turned off the light. The sound was loud. We ALL heard it. It was a playful growl like both dogs do when we wrestle. We do not have a third dog. I have no logical explaination for it.

All is quiet

Nothing to report. The house is unusually quiet; even though we have had several strong wind storms, some with rain. This seems a bit early in the season for the house to go quiet. But no strange noises, explosions, footsteps or murmerings. Whatever causes our occassional bouts of strange seem to be hibernating. Its so quiet of an evening that its hard to read without going to sleep. Thats one habit I do not care to get into unless I'm in bed.