Pours When it Rains

The Bookseller is always looking for projects.  With a 100 plus year old house they are not too hard to find.  As I mentioned in my prior post, we recently added a small bathroom to our book barn.  We are now in the process of adding a full bath to what we fondly call, The Little House.

The Little House was actually a chicken coop on the hill behind the barn and overlooking the house.  Although why you would want poultry living above the height of your roof line escapes me.  The former owners converted it into an art studio with a covered porch. 

Just past the book barn and up the hill to the Little House

 We added the all the stone that you see.  To the right of the Little House is a hot tub on a stone patio with table and chairs.  This is one of the Bookseller’s favorite spots!

The main of the Little House has some exercise equipment, a TV, and  a small couch.

There is a rather large separate room with windows that we used for storage and that is to be our newest bath room.  This is a project of tremendous proportions.   The Bookseller has the electric and the plumbing done.  We have put insulation in and put wall board up.  This weekend we were going to put the wall board up on the ceiling and then we had a torrential rain storm.

Don’t ask ME why the ceiling leaks.  The Bookseller has been up on the roof numerous times and even had some guys come out and replace all the nails with screws.  Hopefully, the roofing guy who has promised to come out on Sunday morning will know immediately what is wrong.  Or, we shall need to put a new roof on.  This is going to be one expensive bathroom!  Personally, I think we should chuck the exercise equipment and put in a pool table and a bar.

So, I am off the hook this weekend with putting up sheet rock on the ceiling of the Little House bathroom.  It is going to be hot so that means no yard work.  Guess we will just have to go shopping!

Working Weekend

The Bookseller worked very hard this weekend to catch up on orders.  He also added a collection of Civil War books that we are still trying to find space for on the shelves.   When we can we like to have books on display so that people can see their jackets but that gets difficult when we have so many books. 

People ask me all the time if we have a real book store and I have to laugh because yes, by all appearances this is a real book store!   Of course, you cannot just walk in off the street, you have to drive about six miles out of town and then come up the ramp onto the deck that we built that runs the length of the front of the barn.  Once inside most of our customers just stop and stare.  “Oh,” they exclaim as they take in all the book shelves and the long glass antique display case that is to their immediate left.   This is usually followed by a low sigh, especially from the husband, as he notices that sprinkled among the books are military prints, swords, helmets, pistols, medals, and an assortment of other miliaria collectables.

The Bookseller will give the customer a little tour, orienting them to where the different subjects are.  Most customers are a little overwhelmed and unable to take it all in.   A lot of times the wives will soon find themselves browsing through the titles and unable to

Book Barn

resist  buying something too.  I must admit, that makes me smile because you can tell that they never expected to find something for themselves in a military bookstore.  But, we also have a lot of antiquarian books, genealogical titles, first modern fiction, and history.

Our book store may be in the loft of an old tobacco barn but the Bookseller had the high slanted ceiling sheet rocked, put in three ceiling fans, and lots of little halogen track lights that are always burning out.  We have carpet, heating and cooling, a television, stereo, a mini-fridge, and a nice little leather sofa to relax on.  When it rains it is nice and cozy because you can hear the water on the tin roof. 

Downstairs is my domain, the book packing area.  We are very lucky to have a great delivery guys who leave everything on the counter for me.  Paul, the postman, even picks up all the packages every morning once I get them ready to mail.  This spring we added a new feature to the book packing area – a half bath!   This is indeed a luxury and I think we did a pretty nice job even adding a huge framed print of the Eiffel Tower and fancy silver fixtures.  The Bookseller doesn’t just add a bathroom, he also puts in a glass shelf, a framed mirror, scented candle, towels, little rug, and Kiwi scented soap! 

So, yes we do have a REAL BOOK STORE and it even has a REAL BATHROOM!

Display Case

The Bookseller

I have spent a couple of days thinking about this blog and realize that , as the Bookseller’s Wife, I should really be writing about the Bookseller, shouldn’t I?  After all, I have come to realize that he has a very unique relationship with his customers.  This was brought home to me yesterday by the arrival of a beautiful bouquet of flowers sent by a customer who recently bought a genealogy book.  It wasn’t even a very expensive book but it meant something to the recipient.  And, that is what books are all about.

We have customers all over the world and many of them have been buying books for years.  We have customers who call and if I answer they are polite but it is obvious that they don’t just want to order a book, they want to talk to the Bookseller. 

Without our customers we wouldn’t have a business but when you buy a book from the Bookseller you are buying a book from a real person.  No matter how many books you buy or how much money you spend we treat every customer the same and wrap every book with the same care.  I know the Bookseller is fortunate to have found something that he loves doing.  A lot of folks think it is because he is a big reader but I will tell you a secret, he rarely has time to read.  

Nope, it is the authors, the publishers, and the customers that he talks to or emails every day (even when we are on vacation) that makes Clayton the Bookseller that he is.

Admiring his flowers, the Bookseller takes a break

Summer Storms

I am sitting in the book barn with two very wet cats.  Thunder storms have been rolling thorugh one after another.  Sherman is high on a book shelf with his ears back hissing at the Bad Kitty.  I have had to jump up and stop the Bad Kitty from trying to unseat Sherman a couple of times.

Right now I am trying to figure out the direction of this blog.  I think it is rather like a journal but I would like to make it more of a collection of essays.  The question would be, of course, how much of it should be my impressions and how much of it should be my opinion.  Opinion is a very strong thing and I personally think there is way too much of that out there.   For the record, I am of the opinion that far too many people rely on television news “contributors” to tell them how to think. 

The only thing I want to hear about the upcoming presidential election is when someone makes a huge gaffe and there is something to laugh about.  Otherwise, as long as congress keeps dragging their feet nothing is going to get done.  I won’t go as far as to say I am disappointed with Obama, because I am convinced that still waters run deep, but I will say that the Democrats sure haven’t been the best partners.  I think that loosing Ted Kennedy was a real blow to the administration.

More thunder but we are still a couple of hours away from the fireworks display so I have hope that everything will be cool and dry this evening.  Boone fireworks are not the most extravagant but the traffic is nothing like the traffic on the National Mall either.   Folks have been shooting off their own fireworks since Friday night and it doesn’t seem to bother either one of the cats.  Guess that it because we have yahoos shooting off guns around here all the time anyway.

Well, happy Independence Day to you.  As Jon Stewart leaves his audience with a “moment of zen,” I shall leave you with this small piece of mountain beauty.

Mountain Laurel

Herding Cats

Herding cats such a great expression and oh, so true because it is impossible.  Our cat, the one we went and picked out at the shelter when he was a baby, is Sherman.  If you have bought a book from us you will see him with the Book Seller at the top of our flyer.  He is named for the Union General and the tank.  As he has gotten older he has taken on more tank-like characteristics than leadership.  The other cat will never really belong to anyone.  He has become our responsibility but we kid ourselves by calling him our kitty.  He has always been and always will be The Bad Kitty.

Sometimes we would see the Bad Kitty out in the yard late at night or passing through in the early morning after a night of kitty adventure.  He is a huge cat who would, for his own amusement, appear out of nowhere and attack Sherman or one of our other cats who have since passed to the great kitty beyond.  I am ashamed to say that after a summer of numerous trips to the veterinarian, the Book Seller, went to Walmart and bought a gun to shoot that bad cat. 

Obviously, the Bad Kitty prevailed.  I think it was a combination of me clapping my hands at the right moment and the Bad Kitty running really fast.  Also, and don’t mention this to the Book Seller, but he is a real softie and the whole gun thing was just a lot of male bluster.  I suspect he knew exactly where he was aiming because he won pistol shooting championships in the Navy. 

We never really knew for sure where the Bad Kitty came from but he looked as if he was well fed and healthy.  I thought I had seen him once up the street outside the house of an older lady who also had a dog.  Last Spring the lady passed away and the family cleaned out the house, took the dog, and the house was vacant.  In late summer I saw the Bad Kitty a lot more often and one morning I noticed that he looked thin and not so robust.  I decided to put some food out. 

It took until the end of January for him to come up to me and brush against my legs.  By March he was letting me pet him and in April I was able to pick him up and shove him into a carrier for a trip to the vet.  To tell you the truth, I wasn’t even sure he was a he because there was an awful lot of long thick fur in his nether regions.  Dr. McAdams confirmed that he was indeed a male cat and that he had been neutered.  He was a good boy, got his vaccinations, and examination.  He weighed 14 pounds!  Did I mention he was a big cat?  Oh, yeah he is huge and the vet confirmed what I thought, he is a Maine Coon.

At the moment, he is rubbing on my legs and drooling on my feet.  He loves wearing his new red collar with the bell.  He comes into the book barn and plays with toys that Sherman has never played with.  He rushes into the house when you open the door and he flops down on the floor like he owns the place.  People say, oh, you should not call him the Bad Kitty because that is so mean but I have a couple of scars that say otherwise.  Years of living outside and sleeping in the barn next door have made him ever so watchful and vigilant.  He is easily startled and the claws are like little razors.  The Book Seller clips Sherman’s claws but he still a bit wary of taking a hold of the Bad Kitty’s paws.  He may come in the house but he doesn’t stay.  After a while he starts pacing and looking out the windows, afraid that something is going on in his yard that he can’t control.

He has gotten better about scratching and since he is missing his top teeth biting isn’t an issue.  We have gotten better about pulling back when he looks like he has had enough petting or if he wants to wrestle.  Sherman, has never stopped being distrustful of his old archenemy and my newest scratches are from a recent tussle that occurred while Sherman was peacefully sitting on the sofa next to me and the Bad Kitty came in and decided to join him.  We’ve gotten used to calling him the Bad Kitty and now he recognizes his name.  I admit that it is tempting to name Panzerfaust, which was an anti-tank weapon used by the German armies against tanks, like the Sherman.

One Bad Coon Cat

Country Living

Day three of my Blog.  According to the website blogpulse as of this moment, the total of identified blogs on the internet is 164,582,502 with 66,884 new blogs in the last 24 hours.  That is a mind boggling blog fact! 

We took a walk this morning before it got too warm.  We do not live “in town” and are surrounded by fields and woodlands.  This sounds boring but there is always something going on.  When we got up this morning there was a mother deer with her fawn in the backyard eating apples from one of our three apple trees.  On our walk the donkey who lives down the street came trotting up to the fence to get his ears scratched.  We stopped to talk with George who was standing in his vegetable garden checking his potato plants for bugs.  George is in his 80s and he and his wife have been living on that little plot of land since they were married and she was born in that house. 

The big news amongst our far flung neighbors is about the young man who inherited a large farming business from his father a couple of years ago.  He got a couple truck loads of “free compost” from the local water treatment plant.  He dumped it by the barn next door and after recent rain storms the “compost” has been drawing flies and you cannot imagine how bad it smells because it is, after all, human waste.  It is also full of all kinds of heavy metals, asbestos, and stuff I don’t even want to think about.  He has been slowly drawing down the pile by taking it and spreading it on various fields throughout the county but in the meantime we have avoided sitting out on the patio when the wind is blowing from that direction.

The Farmer Boy, as the Book Seller calls him, ended up with a large farming operation the summer before his high school senior year when his father shot his mother and then himself.  We found out that his dad was manic depressive and his mom had just told him that she was leaving to live with her sister.  It was all very tragic and one of those things where you realize that you had just spoken with him the week before and who knew?  I guess people who were close to them knew but ten years on and we are still new comers here.  So, being an orphan and all, we tend to want to give him some slack but since he is over there working next to that stuff every day and now trying to disperse it, I suspect he won’t get that crap again.

The lesson, of course, is that free is not always better nor is doing it easy.

Before he died the Farmer Boy’s dad used to put cows in the field on the other side of our house in the winter months and in the summer he would grow tobacco.  I took a picture of him plowing the field one year.  Even though he has a tractor he did it the old fashioned way because he said it was better. 

RIP

Yellow Tang 2004 - 2011