Possessed...

People often ask me if I am scared to live out here in the back of a valley tucked a mile away from the nearest road. I guess I don't really think about it too much since it's like living in a salad bowl with 'woodsy' sides with the house situated in the bottom of that bowl.

Besides a person would have to really want to get to get here because we are so 'off the beaten path'... Anybody who has been here can attest to that, right?

Wednesday late afternoon we returned home after being away a couple of days visiting friends up North and the animals greeted us as we drove in. I could tell that they were really happy to see us. Everything looked normal. Everything seemed normal that is until the phone calls started.

The phone would ring, we would answer it but there was no one there. In fact, the phone kept ringing all night long with the same thing reoccurring with static on the other end. After we hung up, the phone would continue ringing. OK, now that was getting a bit weird and the truth is if I had been alone, I would have been getting a bit spooked. Were we possessed?

Natureman eventually said," Just ignore the next calls, don't answer." We rationalized the excessive calls with some automatic telemarketer system gone awry. The political machines will be working overtime with the conventions and the upcoming election...

Anyhow eventually the ringing stopped but it wasn’t until the morning after Natureman left for work that I checked the phone line to realize that there was no dial tone. MAYBE one of the phones hadn't been hung up. I went around trying out all the phones. Nope all dead. What was that about? How could they ring if they were all dead? I am starting to hear Rod Sterling's Twilight Zone's music in my head at this point.

Wait! The internet worked so a SOS email was sent to our closest neighbor to ask a favor to call the telephone company for us.

Then after thinking about it I decided I definitely needed to leave the valley to also place that service call in case my neighbors weren’t at home/wouldn’t be home until later. I would have to drive about 7 miles to get cell reception but wouldn't you know that I had forgotten to recharge my cell. There was still enough power left to make the call...

The local phone company reassured me that we weren’t the only ones without service.Apparently Tuesday evening an unexpected storm zipped over the valley while we were out of town. We were totally clueless that we were without a land line upon our return as we had messages awaiting us.

Mid afternoon the dog became extra alert pointing down the drive as the white utility van with Phone Guy made its way to our homestead. BUT there was 'no line problem outside,' says Phone Guy,' so the culprit remains indoors.'

Since all the phones were without a dial tone, the demon had to be with the main base informed Phone Guy. BUT the main base worked when he used his special phone. Mystery still not solved...

WELL let this be a lesson to us all. 'Surgers' it turns out have fuses for the phone/fax connections and that fuse had blown. Uh oh. Not so bad says Phone Guy. He said he would make the connection directly in the wall jack.The surger was still functioning but just not for the phones. Who knew? Only the surger was possessed not the house. What a relief!

After installing a splitter directly into the wall, the problem was fixed and the End of the Rainbow Valley was once again connected to the outside world by phone... Now I can receive all those telemarketing calls. Dang why did I get it fixed?