Friday morning, 2 a.m. Nested in my bed. Bundled beneath the counterpane. The orange eye of the woodstove glows warmly ten paces away. The two dampers are mostly closed, causing the fire to burn more slowly. Less air flowing into the stove means more heat stays down here and doesn’t fly up the chimney. The logs aren’t so much aflame as aglow. The wood transforms to coals and then to ash. I had my highest electric bill ever in December, I think. $153. I let the furnace run too much. Lazy. No. Tired. Sore. Aching. Failing. Fading.

Giles, the big white and black hound mutt, sleeps just out of reach to my right. His chest rises and falls.

Silence.

It has been a very productive week at work and at home.

Take Giles, for instance. Please. My longtime contractor friend repaired the gate he had ruined. We came up with a nuclear option. I hope it is the final solution. It is the second gate he has ruined in a year. This one replaced the previous one not many months ago. He has developed a manic need to escape his spacious pen. He pushes his muzzle into the base of the chain-link fence gate. He is so strong that he has been able to eventually break or bend or disconnect the wire ties which hold the chain-link to the galvanized steel tube frame. I brainstormed solutions he couldn’t overcome.

“Steel plates on both sides of the chain-link. Bolt them together and attach them to the steel tube frame. I want it impenetrable so he can’t push through.”

I sketched out a drawing.

The contractor came up with this.

I took Giles to work on Thursday so that the plates could be installed. The plates also cover the damage he did to the chain-link.

It has worked—at least for the first hours he was in the pen. He pawed at it. And stared at it.

Plotting his escape.

Time will tell.

Nuclear… This Catholic medallion came in recently. No idea from where. Was it in a book? I’ve developed an attraction to things relating to the True Church. Maybe it is from my interest in medieval and earlier books and manuscripts, art and architecture. I have numerous images of the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, hanging around my home. Most depict appearances she has made to various saints. One of favorites trips was to Fatima in Portugal in December 2023.

Our Lady of Fusion? Bizarre. I wonder if it is radioactive?

Fascinating business, Wonder Book. Never a day passes that I don’t see things I’ve never seen before, never knew existed.

But let’s go back to my home. The landscapers finished mulching my garden on Thursday afternoon. When I got home, they were wheelbarrowing mulch into the last bed and raking it smooth. I got busy bringing wood from the barn to the cast iron steel rings on the side porch. There’s a big storm coming on Saturday night. The snow might keep me trapped for weeks. The radio and TV people stir the panic to increase ratings. People are rushing to the stores hoarding enough “white stuff” to get through the crisis—milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper. Long ago, this was also a boom time for Wonder Book & Video. People would come and hoard enough video rentals to see them through til spring.

I wonder if there will be panic buying of books on Saturday? Maybe not, but I anticipate we will be busy.

The gardens are stunningly beautiful. I’ve mulched them myself. Even putting down a couple hundred bags of mulch didn’t have this effect. It is like frosting on a cake. The numerous beds outlined in stone are defined with the top dressing. The terrace walls I put in over the years stand out, and their beauty pops with the brown planes above and below them.

If the snow ever melts and spring ever comes, the thousands of emerald fingers of daffodil bulbs will begin pushing their way up through the mulch in late February. I might also see some blooms at the end of that month. Then the first movement of the spring symphony will begin in March—the early blooming daffodil varieties. April will be the crescendo. May the denouement. A few stragglers will bloom in June. The last to bloom that I have are named Pheasant Eye.

At work, the light guys continue the massive project of replacing every fixture in the vast warehouse with new, brighter, more energy-efficient ceiling lights.

It seems there is always some major project going on. Panic. Brainstorming. Solutions. Settlement. Then on to the next thing.

I will try to go back to sleep for a few hours. Merry and Pip are softly coughing now in their pen two rooms over. I will put in earplugs. Might as well get up and put a couple of logs in the stove. And attend to a couple of other needs before curling up under the bedclothes and hope to hear sweet Lethe’s flow to take me away.

(I guess I did. It is two hours of sleep later. Flames are dancing slowly against the glass doors of the stove ten paces away. I dampered it down so the logs would burn slowly.)

Back to yesterday afternoon. The landscapers packed up their tools and rolled down the mountain, waving goodbye. I watched Giles sniff the gate, turn around and go back to his house over and over. Plotting. We will see if Houdini can escape this steel gate.

Then I wandered around the gardens in their repose with their brown blankets drawn over them. It is now sixteen years of planting and planning. The slope of the land dictated where the terrace walls were to be placed. Will there be any more walls? I don’t know. Things seem in balance now. Where would I put anything new that wouldn’t take things out of balance?

The arborist came by on Wednesday afternoon. There’s one tree which, drawn by the light, has started growing over the house. It is not very big, but I don’t trust myself to take it down. It is a “leaner”, and about halfway up its trunk, it has a bend which makes it look like it leans two ways. I want to take down a few trees along the driveway. They’ve grown too big and close to the pavement. The canopy rises to the sun but shades the row of redbuds on the other side of the drive. He called them back gum, but I prefer their other name tupelo. The forest reaches for the sky everywhere. Trees compete for light. Those that don’t keep up often can’t grow in that much shade. They become stunted and die. I cut down three of those standing dead this week. After dropping them, I cut them into five-foot lengths and carried them out of the forest to the driveway. Then I drove the truck down and loaded them up. Since they were long dead and standing, they will be dry enough to burn as soon as I cut them into stove lengths.

Monday, January 19th. The month is flying by. Thousands and thousands of books have taken up my time. I’ve done little else in the days. The nights I now go home. Not too many years ago, I would go meet friends 2, 3 sometimes 4 nights a week. Happy Hours. Shows. Restaurants. Then the Plague came. I think it was just about now 6 years ago that rumors started. I flew to a book show in LA. It was a great trip. Then my Irish friends came and bought thousands of books from the stores, like they did every year.

Then the deluge. What was true? What was false? Government “Stay at Home” orders. People retreated to their abodes, and many never came out the same.

My Irish friends never returned.

It is brutally cold this morning. Tomorrow will be worse. I threw a couple extra scoops of birdseed onto the porch roof outside the bay window. Dozens of birds flit in and away. It is a joy to look out on the dormant gardens. A reader commented that mulch is like frosting on a cake. So true. My beds are “dressed.” Far better than I could ever do, though I’ve brought tons of mulch up here over the years. The ferns and hostas and flower bulbs sleep beneath the blankets. The landscaper wanted to blow the leaves off the gardens before laying down mulch.

“No, just cover the leaves. They’ll be mud by spring.”

The rocky soil up is alive with earthworms. They live off the dead organic material that the forest drops.

In a month, the emerald fingers of the daffodils will be pushing up through the leaves and mulch. I am anxious to see the show.

I was exhausted when I got home last night. It was a massive weekend. The warehouse is in upheaval. Times like that are when great progress can be made.

The light guys were coming on Saturday. They needed to get manlifts through the data entry and sorting station areas to switch out the hanging fixtures. The new fixtures are brighter and more energy-efficient. Best of all, it is “free” (i.e. someone else is paying for it.)

Data entry is always crowded with pallets and carts.

Here’s the count this morning:

R1/rCT: 46
MMP/special ISBN: 2
Media carts: 31
Priced carts: 46

(Translation: 48 pallets—about 1000 books each. 77 book and DVD/CD carts—about 300 items each.)

We keep track so we don’t get too low on things to keep people employed.

Things had to be moved so that the contractors could get their equipment in.

Friday afternoon, many of the staff began rolling carts to other parts of the warehouse.

It was amazing to see the data entry area naked of over 100 carts. (The extras are my “Chuck” carts, which I need to get around to.

Come Saturday morning, I was able to set up my work area with plenty of space since all the carts had migrated elsewhere.

The light guys appeared. Two big motorized manlifts and 6 or 7 men.

I was busily working away when things went abruptly dark with a loud electronic “clunk.”

Of course, they’d need to turn off the lights to disconnect and remove the old ones and put in new ones.

I moved myself to Ernest’s work area, which is on a different circuit. I was busily working away when things went abruptly dark again with another loud electronic “clunk.” They were now moving in to take down Ernest’s lights.

That pushed me out onto the loading docks. Ridgley was out, so I decided I’d mess about with records. It wasn’t that long ago that I did all the LPs myself. I used to be a serious audiophile with expensive stereo equipment and a couple thousand records. My tastes run from classical to rock and jazz and blues. I’ve never been able to do any more than dabble in country western.

It was great fun to see so many familiar old record sleeves. Cover art was definitely an art while LPs ruled the music world. Like book jackets, the goal was to attract buyers. Books by the Foot had an order for five Gaylords of LPs. Likely, they are for resellers. So the records that I felt weren’t worthy of going to the stores were tossed into plastic tubs so they could be transported a few docks up to be stacked in Gaylords.

I would occasionally check on the light guys.

“We’ll be finished soon, boss.”

Boss? What’s that all about? A new title, I guess.

Late in the afternoon, the lights came on.

“WOW!!”

The light is so much brighter and “whiter.” It is like daylight now. The shadows have been chased away. It is much easier to read old faded titles on worn vintage books.

Ernest and I are going down I-270 to Gaithersburg. (I swear he is going too fast. But I sneaked a peek, and he’s going 65. The limit is 70.)

It is brilliantly sunny. The phone now says the temperature will get up to 38 today.

I haven’t inspected down there for 2 weeks—I think.

The final layout has been determined—I think.

I just want to check.

The landscaper canceled this morning. “Too cold,” I agreed.

When I got to the warehouse, there were differing opinions about the lights.

“Too bright. I need sunglasses.”

(A couple of people actually had sunglasses on.)

“Too focused. It casts too many shadows.”

It’s a holiday. MLK Day. The insurance company is closed, so I can’t get the Jeep I ordered delivered. There was a pretty good settlement on the Jeep that I totaled last June. It was ten years old. My other vehicles are pre-COVID as well. It will be nice to have a car without dog hair.

The store was filled with customers of all sorts. I wandered through the aisles. Almost all of them new or newly reconfigured since last March. I was searching for problems, but there really weren’t any. I mentioned a few tweaks to the manager. There are still a lot of empty bookcases. That bothers me. Empty bookcases are like a smile with missing teeth.

I dreamed I was in a show. A couple dozen lines in a Gilbert-and-Sullivan-like production. But I hadn’t memorized my lines, and the show was hours away. There was still time, but the script was in my car. My old green Triumph TR7 was in about four feet of brown water in the flooded parking lot. I wandered through the college building. Winding halls. The auditorium empty. Up to the balcony. There was no one else there yet. Panic in a “failure” dream.

It is Wednesday morning. 5 a.m. Pip started whining in his pen two rooms over. He’s doing that pretty often now. Pathetic sound. He’s not in pain. Sometimes it seems he wants to go out. Other times it is unexplained. Perhaps in his blindness he is calling for company—attention. I decided to rise and let them out, though they’d been out some hours earlier. The dogs have become a bigger chore. They are on 5 meds doled out in different numbers twice a day. They anxiously await the morning and evening doses. Perhaps they’ve developed a habit for the cough medicine. Maybe they equate the dosing with some relief from coughing and wheezing. Maybe they just like the little dollop of liverwurst I embed the pills in.

Giles, at least, is still fit. I think he is about 12 now. The family adopted him in 2017 as a rescue dog. I inherited him in 2023. He has calmed down a great deal. It has been a challenge, but now he is a fine, if needy, companion. Whenever I leave him, he howls in distress. It sounds as if he is being tortured. He makes the same sounds when he decides he wants to come in. When I was hauling logs down to the drive on my shoulders on Monday, he frolicked and pranced and danced in the forest. Sometimes approaching me smiling and snuffling. Sometimes dashing away a bit.

It is cold in the house this morning. I often turn the heat off so it won’t run when I’m away. The woodstove “runs” all day. Last night, it had died down some though the house was in the high 60s from its efforts all day. I was tired from staying up to watch Richard III, so I just set a big log in the firebox, thinking—hoping—the coals would ignite it. Nope. When I opened the dampers and lifted the lid, the big log was barely smoldering. Still, that was enough to ignite some paper and kindling that I set in when I went back to let the dogs in. Now the flames are dancing merrily against the glass doors. I opened my electric bill yesterday. It was $153, maybe the highest ever. It is an avocation I have—keeping the electric bills low. Part of living off the land in as many ways as I can manage. The water is from a 500-foot deep well. There’s a septic field—invisible—below the house on the northeast side.

So, I’m pretty much utility-free except for lights to read by and a stove and microwave to cook with. The water pump also runs on electricity.

Outside, it is 12 degrees. Brutal. The next week will have several frigid days. At least one in single digits. Perhaps it will force me inside to do more household chores and catch up on indoor things put aside til another day.

Now is the winter of our discontent
Made glorious summer by this sun of York;
And all the clouds that lour’d upon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung up for monuments;
Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.
Grim-visaged war hath smooth’d his wrinkled front;
And now, instead of mounting barbed steeds
To fright the souls of fearful adversaries,
He capers nimbly in a lady’s chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
Nor made to court an amorous looking-glass;
I, that am rudely stamp’d, and want love’s majesty
To strut before a wanton ambling nymph;
I, that am curtail’d of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish’d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them;
Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,
Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
And descant on mine own deformity:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.
Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
[…]

Richard the Third. The last Plantagenet. Slain on Bosworth Field. His grave lost to time and false myths. His body was found in 2012 beneath a playground in Leicester. The DNA matched descendants of relatives of Gloucester. The bones showed severe scoliosis, which would explain his “deformity” and why one shoulder was much lower than the other. Is the rest of his mythology correct? Was he as despicable as Shakespeare portrayed him? Did he cause the slaughter of the two child princes in the Tower of London to help clear the path for his succession as king? Or was he somewhat slandered by enemies and successors? Vilified former leaders help mask the faults of current ones.

It is a fascinating period. My friend Barbara Mertz (writing under one of her pseudonyms, Elizabeth Peters) wrote an excellent “solution” to the mystery. I think it is my favorite book of hers.

Josephine Tey’s mystery The Daughter of Time is a wonderful treatment. In 1990, it was voted number one in The Top 100 Crime Novels of All Time list compiled by the British Crime Writers’ Association (CWA.)

So if you haven’t read these as well as Shakespeare, you should. Perhaps your winter will have less discontent.

While we are here, let’s look at Richard’s final plea, “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”

The line is usually interpreted that he needs a horse to escape a lost battle and save his life. But perhaps he needed a horse in order to continue fighting. A man on foot was no match for a knight on a warhorse. Perhaps he meant, “Without a horse, I’m going to lose my kingdom!”

Anyway, read the two books above and see if they don’t change your opinion of Richard—or at least add to his mystery.

So, I have ended my winter immersion in Shakespeare. It is amazing that all 15 episodes of An Age of Kings were shot live.

There’s plenty of winter remaining.

Why next?

Thursday.

The country is all abuzz about the big snowstorm we are supposed to get on Sunday. I’m not in the mood for it. I’ve done enough outdoor work recently.

I’ve been in two worlds the last week or so. A life-changing event happened the night before a lot of my high school friends and I were to go away to college. I’ve been emailing a friend from then who saw those events from a different—until now unknown—perspective. The mystery hasn’t been cleared up, but some doors have been opened. A lot of old names and faces have been resurrected. So long ago. So many people important then. Forgotten. And now remembered.

Sigh. I was lucky I had that small group of friends. The neighborhood and the high school were dystopian.

Sigh…

The landscaper was here when I got home last evening. He didn’t come on Monday and Tuesday because of the cold. He finished the beds in front.

Stunning.

The walls, terraces and beds I put in are so… defined. They have started on the back gardens and paths. When I got home, there was only one of his trucks in view and none of his crew of two. He had found a way to back his other truck behind the house on the Delaware-River-Rubble-paved “patio” between the back of the house and the three foot high stone wall, behind which there’s a long bed. Beyond that bed, the forest begins—wilderness.

The week involved a lot of books as well as records.

But I was also distracted. So many moving parts.

I was tired and sore and achy from the tree work, yard work, LP work (those boxes are HEAVY) and book work. That’s a lot of lifting.

Our huge customer has started buying different things. Not truckloads like before, but still large swath-clearing orders.

So strange…

I was looking through my Wilkinson Atlas (1800.)

Amazing how America has changed. California was named New Albion. Sir Francis Drake’s Harbor—is that San Francisco Bay? Time travel…

The young man who is creating most of the reels loves posting about things we have found in books here. He posted this only hours ago, and it already has almost 14,000 views.

Over the years, we have found some crazy things in books. An early story here features this phenomenon.

But imagine what a billionaire might use as a casual bookmark.

My money sure doesn’t stretch as far as it used to. Imagine writing a check for a billion. Can you squeeze all the zeros in?

Friday the 23rd. The temperature will drop to 5 degrees tomorrow. If the blizzard comes Sunday evening as predicted, my gardens will have a white blanket atop the brown one.

Here are a couple views of the rear gardens with their new brown frosting.

You can see where civilization ends and wilderness begins.