It rained today until 7 p.m. I watched from inside, the drops pummel the woodshed roof, then abate. Now, as I write this, the rain is picking up again. Everyone has been bitching about drought conditions, me I have been fearing another monsoon season, which is the rain falling ceaselessly for days on end. It’s happened here before, and it will happen here again. Change is a constant.

What I most fear is the hay going bad.

With rainy weather also comes regret. I now wish that I’d gotten more riding in this past summer. I did not because of the book project. I might not get any more in because of the rain. Kick, kick, kick, I am kicking myself harder than a horse at the distance would kick me. Kick, kick, kick.

So today, the rain shaped my day, which was primarily indoors. It was sort of an ideas day. The ideas days that I now have are usually centered on the book project. I now wish that I was more than a two-trick pony, the first being the book project and the second being the horses.

Today, near first thing, I wrote up a three-part plan/explanation about the book project, saying that the next board get together should be more hands on. I explained how yesterday went, gave an overview of my upcoming week’s schedule, and then made a suggestion, which was that we go to the two main incoming book sites, the Meeting House and the U-Haul storage locker, and brainstorm about how I might do things in a more efficient manner. I thought, huh, a brilliant idea.

Then, after doing this, I made a book flow chart, noting where the incoming books come from, and where they go. This idea, I thought, was even more brilliant than the first idea because it was revelatory. I noticed that Bill Schmidtkunz works in a very linear fashion, getting his books at VCRS and distributing them on a pre-established route in Sutton and Palmer.

Me, I get books at the Meeting House and at U-Haul. If I get them at U-Haul (this is where Pete and Bill often deliver them), I sometimes take them back to the meeting house where others clean, and I sort and distribute them. Milena gets her books at the Meeting house and distributes them in Wasilla, as does Pete. Nan gets her books at the Meeting House and distributes them at Lavender Hair Salon. There are incoming books in both our friend Alex’s garage and in our goat shed and my cabin. The books in Alex’s garage are going nowhere. The one’s at my residence will be put in bookcases in the fall.

This flow chart made it even more clear to me that what is most needed is a single place in Palmer that can accommodate a large number of books.

Tomorrow I am going to revise this flow chart because little details keep coming back to mind.

The rain slowed me down physically, but obviously not mentally.

Next: 193. 7/17/22: Pete’s Home