October 30

We just slipped past Hurricane Sandy. There was considerable distruction north of us but we had strong winds but not distructive winds and a lot of rain. This is the 30th of October so I plan to shoot some pictures around the house about midnight to see if we can get any disks or other anomalies.I really do not know what else to try. I do plan to set the sound activated recorders out tomorrow night and shoot more shots after the trick or treaters have had their run. I didn't get much done in the form of decorations this year as it has been raining for a week, I got a few lights and strings of pumpkin lights up on the railing out front, but thats about it. I may be able to do a few other things tomorrow before the festivities start.

Voices calling my name

My wife had the disconcerting experience of hearing her name called clearly while she rearraged a small room in back of our backroom. She said she was rearranging the room and pulling stored Christmas stock when she clearly heard her name called three times. There was one other person in the store who helps out occassionly so my wife figured she must have needed something. This rear of the rear room is quite small and really loaded with merchandise so it was no easy matter to crawl over everything to answer the "call". When she left the rear room and walked through the backroom to the main storeroom she saw her helper tagging new merchandise. She asked what she wanted and the girl gave her a "what do you mean look". Saying she heard her name called, my wife explained she thought the helper had called her. "No", the girl replied, if I had needed anything I would have walked back into the backroom and said something. So my wife went again into the rear room and continued to sort and arrange only to have the same thing happen again. Listening, this time, my wife said the voice though feminine, did not sound, at all, like her helper. She again went to the showroom and could clearly see her helper still tagging merchandise. This girl is not the practicle joke playing type anyway. So my wife is perplexed as to what did occur. I said if it happens again, answer it. See what happens. She agreed that is a good idea. As I have said before her store is in a very old building built in the 1800s. We have both experienced the weird in there from time to time and I suppose this is just another occurance to be filed with the rest. I probanly should shoot some pictures in the store around Halloween, just to see what developes.

Dog barks at wall

My younger, very black, schnauzer has been barking at a prescribed place on the wall that seperates the Diningroom from the Library.  She has done this several times a day for the past three or four months. It makes no sense to me and my wife is getting very irritated with her. The area of the wall she is so interested in is an area about two foot square from the baseboard up just beside the doorway that leads from the Dinningroom into the Library. The barking is intense, sometimes almost hysterical, for several minutes at a time. I have inspected the area myself, even going to the basement and checking out the wall that supports the Library/dinningroom wall. I have found absolutely no sign of anything out of the ordinary. I even tried leaving food scraps out in that area of the basement and it was not touched. I set up two of those rodent high pitched screamers and aimed both at that area of the wall, but so far, they have had no effect if it really is some sort of critter that has her attention. Strangely my elder grey and white schnauzer has no interest in barking at this wall. It has gotten so, when the younger dog starts her bark attack the older dog  leaves the room and goes into the kitchen as far as he can away from the racket. If anyone out there has ever had a similar situation let me know what it was and how you took care of it, please.

Dog in a hurry

Here we go again. I was writing at the computer, today around 11:15 edt, when I heard a thump behind me that sounded like a dog jumping off a piece of furniture and the dog ran rapidly out the Library door. I was busy with the computer so I only saw the dog in my periphral vision. I thought to myself just what on earth excited the pooch so much. Normally they only react by jumping and running when they hear the doorbell, or the mail truck or my wife coming in. There had been no doorbell, it was way too early for my wife and both dogs spring into action with the sound of the mail truck, not just one. So I turned around to see which dog left in such a hurry. They were both sound asleep, one on the chair by the phone and the other on the rug in front of the chair. But somewhere I had seen an extra dog. Or thought I had; or something and what made the "thump" that alertyed me to begin with. I seem to recollect that the dog that ran out the library door was brownish. At least I think it was brownish. Neither of my present dogs is brownish, not even close, one is lightgrey and white and the other is so black a piece of charcoal would leave a light mark on her. These episodes occur so fast and you never expect it; it leaves you scratching your head and wondering what on earth happened?

Phantom dog

This has occurred so often lately that I hesitate to post it. Perhaps my mind is simply playing tricks on me. It seems I'm frequently tripping over phantom dogs. This house is not especially light even in the middle of a sunny afternoon. The nature of this old pre-civil war structure is simply dark. I was upstairs, it was growing late and the sun was low in the sky so the upstairs main hall was receiving light only from its southernmost end. The rest of the hall was gloomy but not yet dark. I had just left the master bedroom, having changed my clothes, and headed down the hall toward the rear stairs. I almost rear ended a dog, schnauzer by appearance, who ran ahead of me down the hall and literally disappeared when it reached the lit end of the hall. Caught totally off guard I thought it was my little male schnauzer before realizing my dogs were both blocked from coming upstairs except at night. This schnauzer disappeared in the lit portion of the hall which would not have happened to a real dog. When I went down the rear stairs the gate was still up and both of my dogs were in the kitchen. It seems that dogs have replaced footsteps as the most common phenomena that we encounter here. I wonder what will be next. I really wish I could get a photograph of one of these "dogs", but it happens so fast and I never have a camera handy; but I'd probably still not react fast enough as the episodes are over in a matter of seconds.By the time I realize something strange has occurred it is over.

Strange voice

Today, I got home ahead of my wife and went upstairs to change. As I was prepaing to come back downstairs I heard the rear door open, the dogs were barking their welcome bark and I clearly heard a voice say "What are you doing?" I thought it was my wife talking to the dogs. Within seconds I rounded into the kitchen and there was no one there. I went to the door, it was closed. I looked outside, the car my wife drives was not there. In fact she did not arrive until half an hour later. Surely if a neighbor had stepped in (which would have been unusual) and asked What I had been doing they would have stayed for an answer. Also, I was into the kitchen quickly as I was well down the stairs when the question was asked. I think I would have seen anyone leaving. The dogs obviously saw something too as their barks were the welcoming type and certainly not menacing; so what they saw must have appeared friendly to them. But where did the speaker go? Strange.

Disappearing dog

Last night, after taking the dogs out, we all went upstairs to bed. It is still 80 degrees at bedtime and humid to boot. Ordinarily we open a couple doors downstairs so that when we turn on the exhaust fan it can pull from downstairs as well as upstairs. But it was so uncomfortably hot last night that I closed the heavy hall door so the fan would exert all its energy in pulling air through the upstairs. In order to maximize the fans pulling power (Its located in a window in the upstairs bath which is at the opposite end of the hallway from the master bedroom),I also closed all doors to the side bedrooms and western end of the hall. Everything is closed tight; the fan is pulling air only across the master bedroom and down the hall to the upstairs bath window and out. The dogs have both come up with us and even though it was stuffy I still played with them a few minutes before we turned in. I had to get up once during the night for a bathroom run and at that time the older schnauzer followed me down the hall and back to the bedroom. Then this morning when we got up my wife says "Wheres Rowdy?" I look over at his bed and its empty, he's not in the bedroom so I figure he has gone down the hall to the bath for some reason. But he isn't there. He is nowhere upstairs. So I figure he must have forced one of the bedroom doors...nope. The doors are all tightly shut. By this point the younger dog is insistant on going downstairs so I throw on some clothes and open the hall door and standing at the foot of the stairs is the missing Rowdy. How did he get downstairs? I have absolutely no explaination; yet this is the second time he has mysteriously gone downstairs when there is no obvious way he could have accomplished it. I wish dogs could talk.