The bare white crooked branch was too long for the firebox. Its end propped open the iron lid of the woodstove. I had placed it inside in the dark. I can find my way around in the dark. When I crossed back toward my bedroom after putting the teakettle on, I saw the firelight escaping the top of the stove dancing upon the ceiling. It was a wild ghostly sight. I stood and watched, wondering at the magic of unseen worlds that exist everywhere about us.

It is Friday, January 9th. Somehow the first third of the first month of 2026 has fled past. It has been incredibly busy and profitable. It has been incredibly unhappy and disturbing. Life’s balances. You take the good with the bad.

I awoke at 4 to the wheezing and coughing of the two small dogs I allowed to share my bed last night. There was nothing for it but to rise and let them out with their big companion Giles. While they were killing my carefully curated beds with the water they pass—for some reason, they choose to do their business on the perennials instead of going into the forest which is just as close—I walked down the steeply sloping drive to the Ford Excursion I’d driven home last night. I’d parked it on the lower drive in front of the garage so I could carry a few boxes inside. Boxes of books, of course. I’d left my laptop on the dashboard. Back up the hill, the dogs summoned to follow me inside, the two wheezers relegated to their pen, I was able to crawl into bed. A mug of coffee next to me. With the laptop propped on my belly and a pillow across my waist, I can write.

Write what? It is Friday; therefore, I must write.

There was still some light when I returned home last night. A pack of coyotes was screaming and crying far up the mountain in the forest. This one week of decent weather might be the last opportunity to get the thousand or so daffodils in before winter settles its weight upon the mountain and the ground becomes too hard to dig.

I changed into gardening clothes and drove the truck down the slope and turned onto the mulch-covered path one hundred yards or so below the house. I backed up to the low wall—the furthest from the house. I made that wall mostly to use up spare stone from other projects. In the lee of the wall, dead brown leaves have accumulated. I brainstormed I could twist the flower bulbs beneath them to the earth. I could then shovel compost atop the leaves behind the wall. The bulbs would be effectively buried and protected and come spring… I hope. It was a relatively quick and easy solution for a couple hundred daffodils and alliums.

There’s something wrong with me, I know. I can’t leave well enough alone. There must always, always be “more.” More flowers. More books. More to do.

It will catch up with me, I’m sure. I’m always looking over my shoulder to see if it is gaining ground. No. It is just the firelight dancing madly upon the ceiling.

When I was in Amsterdam in October 2024 for the rare book conference, we were shown books and price catalogs of the tulip madness that possessed that city a few hundred years ago.

I have daffodil madness and book madness. I know it is incurable. Only one thing will end it.

I have been bringing home boxes of books. Not a lot. (What is not a lot to me may not match your judgment.) They are mostly the “‘tweeners.” Wondrous, irresistible gems… to me. Problematic and too hard to market at Wonder. Plus, the researchers are hopelessly behind. The catalogers in Data Entry are hopelessly behind. The stores filled, their glass cases full.

Take these two giant sets.

No! You can’t take them!

Four battered volumes of Durer Zeichnungen (drawings.) Three volumes of Rabelais with macabre illustrations. They’ve been on carts in the warehouse for many, many months. They are so large I’ve worried their bindings would get banged by other carts in the jostling that goes on there.

I finally decided the best thing for them was to bring them home. It was also the best thing for me. Now I need to figure out what to do with them.

Someday fate will decide their fate. Until then, I can shepherd them safely for more years than they’ve had already.

It has been a massive week. We have built another truckload for the ongoing “big deal.” Thousands and thousands of items. While we still have millions of books, we are running out of things our client doesn’t already have.

Things are opening up on the warehouse floor. Winter is the time of year we don’t get so many books that we are in constant panic mode about where to put them. The holidays, the weather, the “mood” all conspire to have people keep their books. More space means we can get into things we’ve put aside for another day. (And forgotten completely about.)

“What’s that over there? More law books? I thought we’d sent out all we had. Pull those other pallets out so we can see what’s there.”

It was the Folger stuff. When was that weird call we made in the heart of DC? I’d driven down in a van with Clif. When we got close, police would direct us away from the Capitol and other areas. They don’t want random vans near sites that could be terrorist targets. Even our Wonder Book logos all over the vehicle were not enough to get us through. Eventually, the woman who lives in my phone got us there. I remember it was very cold. The books were already boxed in an old townhouse the Folger owns across from the library, which was just getting ready to reopen after several years of renovations. Ah, here it is: I wrote a blog about it. And there was a return trip I did by myself. I thought the second visit was just a small mop-up job. Ended up with me carrying way too many boxes in the frigid cold in my stockinged feet. (The antique cast iron steps were too precarious for the Danish clogs I was wearing.)

That was a brutal house call.

Unforgettable.

Except I had forgotten about this load completely.

I had written it off as a service call. A good deed for a wonderful organization. The books were mostly obsolete sets and reference materials they wanted removed. The boxes I looked into were dreary.

‘Impossible,’ I thought.

And so they have languished on pallets ever since.

When I peered into some of the boxes, they still appeared impossible.

‘Wait! This is material our omnivorous client almost certainly doesn’t have. A lot of it is in languages other than English…’ I thought.

“Cart them all up, please.”

And so I had about 30 carts of stuff to review. Most of them looked like this.

Impossible.

Well, we’ve been doing the impossible with books for many, many years. I’ve found that if you wait long enough, the impossible can sometimes be solvable.

A bonus was several carts loaded with nice books that were “out of scope” for the study of Shakespeare and his times.

These two gems caught my eye.

Sadly, the Bunyan is missing the title page and the first six pages of introduction. Why was it bound so beautifully?

Did some owner think it was signed?

And the Merlin is an odd volume. But it has this delicious Arthurian map bound in.

I thought this thing must be important to have had such a wonderful Morocco slip made for it.

Nope. It is just an unbound James Russell Lowell. A stack of loose signatures that a bibliophile would have had bound in something fancy to dress his or her shelves. Only this one was never bound. Collectors must have been hot for such things in the old days. (Kind of like Tulip mania.) In 2026, it is “gilding the…”

And there are several carts of “Bard” stuff. Pamphlets and journals and academic speculation on the mystery that is Shakespeare. It would be a blast to root through these.

If I ever have the time…

Last night, I watched more of An Age of Kings. The actors and producers did a heartrending job of Falstaff’s death.

Sigh…

And to think I was in Stratford just a few months ago.

I was going to try to plant more bulbs this morning before going in. The new garden patch I’ve created in the elbow of the newest stone wall built last winter has been filled with a lot of mulch and compost. When I get to it—tonight? I hope it doesn’t rain—it will just be a matter of a couple of hours on my hands and knees pushing flowers into the loose organic material.

What other madness have I done this week?

14 more birdhouses. Why not?

A gentle madness, I hope.

Back to the week’s beginning:

This first week of 2026 will see a break from a month of days in the 20s. The forecast is for high 40s and 50s. This will force me outside to finish mulching the new garden beds and finally get the flower bulbs in. I know there will be some casualties for waiting too long, but the underground garage they are stored in is very cold—refrigerator cold. Maybe that will have helped.

I’ve got my eye on some dead trees that are within easy reach of paths I can get the truck on. It would be good exercise to replenish the supply of firewood and not dip into the reserves.

And there are plenty of other projects I can put my back to if it is not too cold.

It is Tuesday morning. I slept warm in my nest, my cocoon. I didn’t wake until 6. Well, there was an intermission in the wee hours when the dog’s coughing concert was performed. I read a spooky tale by Hazel Heald til the performance was over. (I’d never heard of her either.) The story was quite good. The prose was excellent.

Monday, the first post-holiday workday. (I worked every day over the holidays.) It was like a sigh of relief.

My weekend had been ruined by a letter from the taxman. I didn’t open it til Sunday evening as there was nothing I could do until the accountant’s office opened on Monday. I had left it out on the table outside the office. I walked past it many times. It repelled and attracted me. Like the “One Ring to Rule Them All.”

It was a brutally difficult day.

My last act was to open the envelope. It didn’t feel like a check. Those usually have windows. What was my doom? It was a huge bill. Like a two-new-cars-sized bill. (I still haven’t replaced the Jeep I totaled last June.) Actually, that was my penultimate act. Actually, the actual act was to fax the horror to the accountant’s office.

So Monday had the accountant’s verdict hanging over me as I went about the usual duties. When would the judgment arrive?

It was pretty early when the email came in.

“This is completely wrong, Chuck. The state didn’t credit your…”

I had to go to their office to sign a form giving them permission to fight the charge.

They had mailed the horrible thing on December 29th. I had been warned in the document that there would be a high four-figure penalty if I didn’t pay it by Wednesday.

Impossible.

After I went to the accountant, I celebrated my reprieve by continuing on to the nearby HomeGoods to see what juicy things they were marking down to clear the remaining Christmas sweets and savories. I went a little crazy. (See the above.) But the bill at checkout was very small. I’ll have gourmet treats from all over the world for the foreseeable future.

The new garden…

It looks as though I am burying something. The thaw has meant I could unload the half load of mulch that had been frozen in the bed of the pickup for the last month. I was shoveling away in the dark—only faint light from the house extended down the mountain this far. I had to climb up into the bed to get to the remaining mulch piled high at the front, rising up the rear class of the cab higher than the roof. An iron rake and steel manure shovel were my gladiator tools. The truck was angled to a low stone wall border along the south part of the drive. Beyond the wall, the woods slanted downward from the road. I tossed big shovelfuls of the black stuff out into the blackness. I could not see where it landed. I could rake it smooth in daylight if necessary. The project has grown, and I believe it will be an impressive site coming up or going down the steep slope. The truck’s bed angled steeply made standing somewhat precarious. I set my boots and established balance in absolute darkness, standing atop black mulch on a black truck bed floor.

No neighbors could see me, but I mused that an activity like this could appear sinister.

“What is he trying to hide?”

It was about 40 degrees, so with the exercise I kept pretty warm.

“One, two, three… 18, 19, 20.”

Take a breath.

Counting the scoops I take makes the work go faster and holds away fatigue and tedium.

“Careful! Don’t misstep in the dark off the tailgate.” It would be about four feet down to the pavement. Once I hit that, I’d be on a steep slope, and my injured body might roll over rocks and pavement and perhaps crash into the rocks that line the drive. Rocks and rolls. Not a pleasant mental image. So, I paid attention to where my feet were the whole time I was atop the truck bed.

I lost count, but maybe I dug out 140 scoops before the remaining mulch was thinned out enough that it was too hard to see. I plan to go out this morning and finish. The final act will be to sweep the remaining bits off onto the asphalt. From there, I can blow it into the future garden bed.

The project’s scope has increased dramatically. I think I might go get another load today. The landfill is close to the warehouse. A truckload takes only minutes to get loaded, and the cost is just over $10.

Yep. I couldn’t resist.

The bill was $10.40.

Then I need to get the bulbs in the ground.

I drove up to the house. Stoked the fire. Pulled out the two 10-pound turkeys that had been roasting.

This will make the dogs happy for a week.

I reheated the leftover lunch Chris took me out to downtown. It was a Mexican-Salvadoran place he wanted to try. I was doubtful. I was wrong. It was wonderful. I don’t usually eat lunch, so making a choice was that much more difficult. I settled on a beef burrito platter with rice and beans and garnishes. I also got two tamales. Beef and corn. Everything was delicious. Wondrously so. The lunch portion was too much to eat, so I carried out about a pound of food.

It was just as good reheated for dinner that night.

We looked at the stores’ sales figures for December and for all of 2025. Though the analysis isn’t complete.

But the growth is exciting at all 3 stores for December and for all of 2025.

The hard work and stress of the Gaithersburg expansion is a success. It is only just now getting its final configuration. I hope 2026 with get it competing with the Frederick store.

The stores broke all the records going back to the millennium.

A renaissance for used bookstores.

Amazing.

Gray clouds are sweeping past high above the bare trees of my forest.

My arms, legs, back and mind are worn and heavy from the mammoth weekend’s work.

Unusual? Only in that it was the first weekend of 2026.

It is Monday, January 5th.

When I left the warehouse at 5:30 Sunday evening, the lights were switched off on millions of books—many of them in motion. The brief lull in sales after Christmas will soon end, and the January “textbook season” will begin. We don’t get many actual textbooks. That market is specialized with buyback specialists having access to students at the big schools. But we do offer a lot of classics and other perennial needs for the spring semester classes.

Also, people will start showing up for work again now that the holidays are over. We can focus on reloading our depleted shelves. Depleted? If you could take 20% of the water out of Chesapeake Bay, I don’t think you’d notice. It would just appear to be the ebbing of the tide. Soon the flowing in would fill things up again.

It is Thursday, January 8th. It is a gorgeous day. Yet another in the 50s. After December’s brutal month of 20-degree days, it is nice to be able to wear only a few layers.

Ernest is driving us down I-270 to Gaithersburg. I need to give input on the final layout at that store.

This whole process began about a year ago. Demolition started last March.

It is amazing and gratifying the renaissance this store has experienced.

The staff and the customers are embracing it.

It is fun to be there and see a new customer come in. Invariably, they take about twenty steps in from the front door and stop. That is the point where you can see the vistas of bookcases to your left and right and straight ahead. I can read their minds as they try to take it all in.

“What is this place?”

I’d like to tell them “Wonderland”, but instead I invariably say, “May I help you find anything?”

The answer is always, “No.”

About 50% of the time they come back to one of us and ask, “Where is…”

So many books are finding new lives and new homes here. What started out as a little “empty nest” nook shop in 1975 is now a world-class bookstore (in my opinion.)

We need to figure out how to communicate to the people around DC how close it is to major highways and mass transit.

The Shady Grove Redline Metro stop is less than a mile away. An Uber trip at 11 a.m. this morning is only $7.61.

This state is booming so much.

I left a little early yesterday. The “Bard” stuff had worn me out. Plus, it was such a beautiful day…

I skipped, played hooky.

I couldn’t stop myself from buying another load of mulch.

This overflowing truckload was just over $10 and took a minute to load. Of course, unloading will be expensive. My time is precious. When I got home, I changed into yard clothes. The truck got backed down the drive a hundred yards or so. If the back of the truck is aimed downslope, it makes unloading much easier. Gravity can be a great assistant. I tossed shovel load after shovel load off the truck and into the woods. I worked until it was dark.

This new patch will come alive next spring, I hope.

I did the same this morning before showering and heading in to work. When I decide I can skip out today, I’ll do some, but I really need to start planting the bulbs. It will go much faster now that there is not so much digging involved on the rocky forest floor. The window to this brief planting period will close fast. Then the ground will freeze, and there will be nothing to do outdoors until spring. Except firewood. I can always bring in free heat—except in storms.

And there are all these boxes of books to unpack.

And I can try to figure out how to add an addition onto this house. I’ve been stymied for years. The topography and current layout…

Impossible.

Plus, there have been building projects and trips.

“Finish strong.” Has been my mantra.

I will have eternity to rest when the time comes.

And I have a lot of debts to repay. I think one needs to do ten good deeds to make up for every time one has performed some misdeed.