We all hear “things that go bump in the night” and usually I blame the unexplained on the dogs. They are both quite large, and when they are wandering their footfalls can sound like person walking down the hall.

Recently my husband has been traveling a lot for work. A few nights ago when he was out of town, Maisie, Winn and I were are abruptly awoken at 2:00 am with a terrible crash and a high pitched shriek. Maisie immediately started barking but stayed planted in the middle of the bed. Winn stood up and perked her ears. I jumped up and scrambled around looking for the phone.As I was pre-dialing 911, Winn started ambling down the hallway to investigate.  I stood just outside my bedroom with my finger on the dial button and watched Winn go in and out of the laundry room, sniff the closed door of the empty guest room and look out the window facing the back yard. I called out to my son and got no response while Winn stood at the top of the stairs, sniffing for anything unusual. Eventually she turned back around and headed toward my bedroom. I figured it was safe to follow her since she was obviously giving me an “all clear”. I admit, I was not brave enough to venture downstairs to face whatever/whoever had made such a crash.For the next 45 minutes, I stared at the ceiling clutching the phone to my chest and tried to come up with a reasonable explanation for what we heard. Maybe a raccoon fell out of a tree and yelped when he landed on the deck. The only problem with that theory is that the noise really seemed to come from the front of the house and not the back. Maybe my son came home, tripped, fell and then screeched like a girl. He didn’t answer when I called out his name, could he possibly be laying unconscious on the floor? Nah, Winn would have run to his rescue.

I finally fell asleep to the sound of the two snoring dogs snuggled up next to me. I figured I was safe enough with Brave Winn and Barky Maisie by my side.

The next morning when I woke up I had forgotten about the commotion from the night before. When I got to the bottom of stairs, I was momentarily confused by what I saw but then I couldn’t help but laugh.

Are you ready to see what I found?

There it is, the terrorizing culprit. A cordless leaf blower.

I had been working in the front yard the day before and when I came inside I set the blower on top of the box by the door. My son must have bumped it when he came in for the night leaving it precariously perched on the box for a couple of hours until it teetered off. At that point, it crashed to the floor, landing briefly on the trigger, expelling a quick, noisy blast of air directed at the front door.

Winn was correct with her assessment, no danger here. Just a large object going bump in the night.