So quiet

The house is so quiet it's almost scary. Christmas is almost here and I've done almost nothing a accent the day. I put up a wreath on the front door. I set up a manikin dressed like a Victorian lady carrying a small basket and knocking at the front door. I placed a four ft. lighted (snow covered) Christmas tree on top of a column beside the front door and stars adorn the tops of the spears of wrought iron railing about the front windows. I did get a rather large poinsettia for a table in the parlor. That's about it. Losing my buddy has really put a damper on the season. But I sincerely hope the rest of you have a grand CHRISTMAS.

House is quiet

The house is quiet as a tomb, After a noisy week there is no longer any sounds except those made by myself my wife and our little black schnauzer. It's so quiet its nerve wrecking. I sat up the spy camera in the library. I got 30 some pictures of a green chair in the library. I guess the only strange thing is; I had reloaded the camera with fresh alkaline batteries and they were almost run out. In the kitchen I got 2000 shots before depletion of the batteries. In the library only 30? At the moment everything seems strange and unnatural. Possibly its due to the loss of our elder dog. We still haven't gotten over that shock. I'm presently debating where to try using the camera again.

Lost my little male schnauzer and now the house is really noisy

We were going to take the schnauzers for a Sunday drive. They love to see and bark at the cows, horses, geese, deer, and other critters along the way. My wife wanted to pick up a few items at Walmart first and as the weather was cool 65 and heavily overcast we thought they would be alright. Rowdy was in the front seat and Shadow was in the rear and the windows were down a couple of inches. We were gone less than 20 minutes. When we returned to the car Shadow was bouncing in the rear seat and Rowdy appeared to be asleep on the front seat, We unlocked the door and my wife said to Rowdy, "We're back sleepy bones". But Rowdy did not react. Touching him gained no response and that sickening feeling overcame both of us. He was dead. No signs of trama, nothing to indicate how it happened. We are both physically ill over this. He was only 12. Several years ago the Vet said he had a hearth murmur and we best keep an eye on it. The Vet checked him at every visit. This is the only thing we can fatham that might have been a cause. Perhaps someone got too close to the car and he started barking and they thought it funny so they egged him on.....to much. We really do not know but a dog you've had 12 years can take a tremendous amount of your heart when they leave you. Even though we still have Shadow this big old house feels empty and incomplete. And As I was saying the house has been even noisier since we buried Rowdy on Monday morning. A lot of it is probably me; but I hear rustling noises in the corner, I have detected tapping like a dog coming (the other dog was asleep) plus other nondiscript noises from all around the downstairs. I'm writing this primarily to get it off my chest. I hurt so bad I'd like to just die myself. But I have others depending on me. Perhaps God and Time will heal me.

Noisy house

There is nothing I can definitely point to and say this or that occurred. But the house has been noisy for the past few days. I suppose it could have to do with the weather. We had a week or so of rather chilly weather, especially at night. But the past few days the temperature has gone up to above average. For example it hit 70 today. It did not drop out of the 50s last night. So perhaps this ancient brick structure is just noisily reacting to the fluctuations in temperature, The noises were not walking sounds or any other sounds that could be pointed out. They are just cracks and bangs and thuds. Loud enough to get the dogs going at times. My schnauzers are my doorbell. Anyone rings the front doorbell and the dogs go nuts. Because of the solid structure of this place (walls three and more bricks thick) we often don't hear the door bell; but our dogs do. Our house was noisy enough that the dogs reacted like they heard the doorbell and there is no shutting them up until you go to the door and prove no one is there. I had three occasions this past week when this occurred. Why do old houses react so strangely? Expansion and contraction, I suppose. Other noises that I report here are not the same as I am hearing at present. The walking like boots on hardwood floors (we have mostly carpet) the opening and slamming of doors, the mumbling and the harpsichord music are not the same as this weeks sounds. So far the more familiar noises haven't occurred recently. But racket coming from someplace in your house can be quite disconcerting when you have no idea of the origin.

Strange happenings with Halloween pictures

What I'm about to write is true, To me its extremely weird. I'll try to explain it as forth right as I can. I use a digital camera which I'm certain most of you realize utilizes a chip. At Halloween I shot a dozen or so photos of my Halloween decorations and a few of the hundreds of trick or treaters. I also have a small printer made especially to make prints off this chip. Today, I finally got around to printing some of the shots I took for Halloween. All of the shots came out good except one. This single photo looks sharp on the monitor. It is a picture, up fairly close to the front door and the creatures around it. When the photo was first printed it looked fine and I laid it aside with others I had already made. I made a couple more prints of some of my more elaborate goblins and when I laid the photos up to cure I noticed the one I had taken of the creatures around my front door was no longer right. Some of the creatures, my talking skeleton butler, my hobgoblin with a tray and my Elvira standee had gone blurred even though others in the same print were respectfully sharp. So, wanting a good print of that particular scene I tried again to print the picture. This time when the print came out of the machine it was sharp. But as I sat there holding it in my hand I watched the same three figures go blurred again. This makes no sense to me. The three figures are standing across the doorway with the Elvira and Butler on one side and the goblin on the other and yet the two statues of schnauzers (about life size) that are permanently kept on the front entryway were perfectly clear. Anyway I went ahead and finished printing the rest of my Halloween pictures. Then I got the (not so) bright idea of printing one more attempt of the offending door. But this time I used the back side of the printing paper. The back side is nonglossy and I figured more absorbant. Again the print came out perfectly sharp and again I sat and watched those same three creatures blur. Like the first two, some of the figures were blurred and some were sharp. Luckily I had another shot of the same view from a different standpoint that did come through in good order. Whatever, you have to admit, it is all a bit strange.

Another Halloween over

Another year and another Halloween is over. I had over 500 trick or treaters this year which is heavier than usual due to two things. First of all, it was chilly but not cold. It was cloudy but that only added to the spooky atmosphere. Probaby the main reason I had more goblins this year is because this village's leaders decided to hold trick or treat on the 31st whereas the main city in this county held their trick or treat on the 29th. So we had a heavy influx of monsters from the big burg as well as our normal group from the surrounding countryside. I shot a series of photos with my digital camera. I did not shoot any film this year. I haven't checked the results as yet; but as I haven't gotten anything unusual for the past two years, I have my doubts that I will this year either.

Something Strange

Something strange happened at the store on Friday. I hesitated reporting it; but after mulling it over in my mind for a couple of days, I know I'm right. Last Friday I arrived at the store late. My wife had already arrived and opened it for business. I wanted to stop at the downtown farmers market first, so it made me a bit late. I had several items for Halloween sale I had found at our house and I had them in a large plastic shopping bag. When I arrived at the store I retrieved the bag of Halloween items and took them into the store. In the bag, among other items, were two identical items. These two items were of a witches arm that moved out from a larger black frame. The arm and hand holds a glowing ball and the witch voice cackles "Happy Halloween" and some other cryptic vocalizations whenever someone walks in front of it. As I said, I had two of the Halloween gadgets. One was in near perfect condition and the others box showed considerable wear. Checking out BOTH figures I discovered they both worked just fine So I removed the one from the worn box, priced it, and took it out to display on the wall of the rear showroom. I then returned to the office to price the second one and, leaving it in the box, place it near the first one on a shelf. But when I returned for the second one it was NOT there. I looked under my chair, I checked my desk, the floor, I looked everywhere. The bag I had the Halloween items in was still there but not the Witch item. No one had been in the store at that time and my wife was still in the front of the store and assured me she had not even been in the office area. I put in the rest of the morning looking for the item with no luck. About three o'clock in the afternoon I told my wife I was going to run down to the local gas station as my van was really low on gas. I walked out to the van and opened door. There sitting in the middle of the dashboard, on a cooler I keep between the front seats, was the missing Halloween item. OK, you say, You just forgot you took it out of the bag and left it there. But like I said and I've gone over and over this, when I took the bag of Halloween items into the store I definitely remember testing BOTH to see if they worked and I remember choosing one to display and one to leave in its box. I also remember placing the better one on the floor beside my chair while I prepared the other one for display. So, unless I'm totally losing my mind, how did this item get back into my van?