AND BOOKMAKING

Two Black Moon Supplments to Bookmaking Projects dated January 8 and 16 follow the January 1, 2025 Report

1 January 2025, High Noon  | Two days after the Black Moon

Black Moon?

That’s what I said. It’s a new term to me, and if it’s new to you, too, here’s your lesson in lunar terminology to kick off the new year: Surely you are familiar with Blue Moons, the name given to the second full moon within one calendar month. A Black Moon is the second new moon within one calendar month; the new moon opening the cycle of the upcoming Wolf Moon happened to fall on December 30, twenty-nine days after the new moon of the 2024’s Cold Moon. Now you know.

Wishing you a belated winter solstice holiday season (our household is the Christmas variety), here is your update on the past lunar cycle’s activities…hoping to keep it brief, though I am fully aware that I have a tendency to provide more detail than some might find necessary, if only to satisfy those who appreciate it.

Regarding the opening photograph, these vehicles were parked at the entrance to one of our county parks on 10 December, when I went for a mid-morning hike with our neighbor, Jack (84), who enjoys getting outside and walking around in the fresh air, and our dog, Izzy, who enjoys the same. It is easy for me to appreciate the Amish pace.

HOLIDAY TIME

Just about everything gets back-burnered during the second half of December, and this year it may have been more severe than ever with two daughters coming home for Christmas through New Year’s Eve. It was wonderful to see them both in good spirits after challenging semesters and to have their energy back in the house.

The documentation here really ought to be about Vicki’s mastery of the fruit cake over the past few years. Yes, fruit cake, the very last treat I would ever eat over the holidays in years past has turned into the thing I cannot wait to get in my mouth with a cup of coffee in the morning, all thanks to Vicki’s research and thoughtful preparation of ingredients and the patience required to create such a masterpiece of holiday baked goods. I never dreamed I would ever get excited about fruit cake, but I have become its number one fan. Maybe next year I will crowd Vicki in our tiny kitchen to do that documentation for you.

What I can show you is my humble attempt at shortbread cookies. I found the recipe to be perfectly simple, the directions easy to follow, and this neat old-fashioned ornament-shaped cookie cutter to be just right for my aesthetic sensibilities. Merry Christmas to all.

CUTTING CONUNDRUM CONQUERED

All of the excitement that led up to the Big Day left the day after Christmas completely open for other activities, and the first on my mind was to make some progress with the Hail, Holy Queen rosary book. The eighteen printed sheets, as shown in the photograph above, which you saw nine months ago in the Pink Moon edition of The Monitor, has been waiting to be cut into individual pages, and adhered to panels which will be linked together with copper chain. It has been quite a while since locking up the form to print this sheet, and if I had some plan in mind for cutting them down when I printed it, it wasn’t recorded anywhere and I couldn’t remember it when it came to cut. This kind of thing causes mild anxiety until I figure out how to do it, but I’m used to that by now, because figuring out how to do something that has no instruction manual and has not been done before is fundamental to the creative process.

My first instinct was to cut the pages into horizontal strips, and then figure out the exact width of each page (by dividing the overall length by the number of pages). This proved to be challenging because the type, leading, and furniture in the bed of the press are measured in picas and points, which do not exactly translate to fractions of inches. Based on measuring from center to center of the crowns that head the Hail Mary pages, each page was calculated to be 1 and 19/32” wide. That is not a mark on the table of the cutter, nor on the ruler at the top of the cutter. As you can see on the cut pages above, especially the colophon page at the far left, the results of my cutting according to the red tape jigs applied to the table were absolutely terrible. It didn’t help that I couldn’t figure out a way to make the first cut precisely. Strike one.

Next idea was to use a centering ruler to mark the mid-point between the two longest lines, use this piece of chip board as a square to mark each cut with a pencil line, and then use that pencil line to determine an exact width (sure enough, 1 and 19/32”). That would allow me to mark and cut the left side of the left page (“Song birds’ eggs…) precisely, which would then allow me to place a singular jig at 1 and 19/32” from the cutting blade to cut every page the exact same width.

You can see in the top two rows above that this was clearly the more precise method. This is one of those moments when the artist mutters, “Duh,” to himself.

But then it comes to mind how nearly impossible it is going to be to square up the long cut of the horizontal strips on the paper cutter (the first strips were cut using pencil marks and an Exacto knife, which takes a long time and yields inconsistent cuts), and how much smarter it would be to square up the shorter vertical cuts. So that’s strike two, and now I’m back to step one, which is to use the knowledge gained to make new jigs on the table and cut all 18 sheets the short way. The goal here is an edition of 11 books, so it’s important to be pretty confident that it will be possible to measure and create jigs for the next cuts before committing. It took a couple deep breaths and mental sorting before I committed to it, but ultimately I did, and  then it took four sheets to dial it in the precision, so now I’m down to fourteen usable sheets to make the 11 books.

By this stage in the game, jig-making is getting kind of fun, and I figured out how to make one jig on top of the other, which allowed me to make all the necessary cuts on the 3-up vertical strips during this final step. There were a total of six cuts at three different points, and explaining that is too much detail for anyone but me .

The photograph I failed to take is the one illustrating that my measurement for length of the printed pages was slightly too long on the printed sheet, resulting in the top and bottom margins of the maroon panels being about 1/32” thinner than the 1/16” margins on the left and right when cut into equal thirds. Those may seem like fractions too small to cause concern, but everything is relative, and they are painfully obvious at this small scale. This meant that in addition to cutting the 3-up strips into thirds and trimming the extra paper off the top edge, I also had to shave 1/16” off  the bottom of each page to create equal margins when they are mounted on the panels (evidence photographed below). That’s actually an explanation of the reason for the six cuts that I said you wouldn’t get in the previous paragraph. I cannot believe you are still reading this.

And in the photo below you can see the result of three sessions in Der Klubhaus between Christmas and New Year’s Eve: all printed pages for 11 copies of Hail, Holy Queen cut and stacked neatly in four piles of imperfectly centered pages (one pile = one book), thirteen piles of what I’m considering near-perfect usable pages, and then one set of all fifteen pages for one book spread out in the two bottom rows.

This is all a huge relief, because there is an upcoming exhibit of artists’ books at Baylor University titled Rituals—Could there be a better title for a exhibit to submit a book about the Rosary?—and the application is due 24 January.

EXPECT TO RECEIVE SUPPLEMENTAL UPDATES REGARDING THE PROGRESS OF HAIL, HOLY QUEEN IN THE WEEKS AHEAD.

I am also hoping to be able to exhibit and sell copies of this book at the Pages Artists’ Book Fair at Leeds Art Gallery in England this coming March. That application has been submitted and I will find out whether or not I have been accepted before the next New Moon Monitor.

Stones Watch in Silence by David Steingass is also at the top of the priority list this month. There are no updates on the progress of the book at this time, but I intend to work on that book simultaneously in the weeks ahead.

Sadly, none of this is typesetting or printing work, but there will be time for those activities in February and early March. Another reason to get down to business and get things done.

PREPARATIONS COMPLETE FOR WINTER IN HOLY HOLLOW

New ladder! The ladder inside Der Klubhaus, which hangs on the ceiling above the desk and below the entrance to the attic storage, is an aluminum extension ladder. It has been utilitarian for the past eight years but I have always longed for something with more character. I imagined a wooden ladder, with round rungs, just the right length to reach safely into the attic without having to be a two-part extension ladder. I often thought I would have to find time to make one. Imagine my excitement when I found the ladder of my dreams in the fall of 2023 with a for sale sign on the front lawn of a house in Elroy, Wisconsin. It was actually an extension ladder, with an asking price of $40. The seller was happy to sell it for full price, but a little less happy when he found out he was only getting rid of half of it.

This ladder has been waiting patiently for a full year under the main building because it is quite old and well-used, and therefore required a thorough sanding and a good soaking with linseed oil in its dried out fibers. That finally happened the afternoon of the 9th of December. This ladder not only looks better than the aluminum extension ladder it replaces, it feels better, smells better, sounds better, and if you were going to eat one or the other, I imagine it would also taste better. Dreams can come true.

Also on 9 December, tens of thousands of native prairie seeds were broadcast on all freshly prepared areas around the perimeter of the main building, and up at the top of the existing prairie below the woods’ edge. This final land maintenance task of 2024 wrapped up just as the sun set on the eve of a four-inch snowfall. For those lacking knowledge or experience with the cultivation of native plants, germination of many native seeds requires freezing and good contact with the soil, which means great timing is always the goal. Nailed it!

8 January 2025, 14:15  | Waxing Gibbous (9 days old)

Above, a glimpse at another one of our county parks. This is a view of the dam that creates the Sidie Hollow lake this past Sunday afternoon, if it can be called a lake, as Vicki and I wrapped up a hike all across the mountain bike paths built by Pete Taylor & Co. of Vernon Trails. One, we are happy to be able to drive 10 minutes to a quiet hike and always surprised to find no one else using the trails. Two, this would look much better to me with several inches of snow on the ground. Three, I’m thinking that the recent temperatures have created a solid sheet of ice all across that lake and next time we go out there we should bring our skates to take advantage of the absence of snow.

PROGRESS REPORT: HAIL, HOLY QUEEN

As promised (or warned), this is just to give you some insight into the progress of this book as I attempt to get one copy finished so I can photograph it for submitting to an exhibit at Baylor University by January 24.

First order of business was to make an additional 3 panels per book that have the burgundy endpapers adhered to both sides. That’s done, and with all the experience gained cutting down the other panels, it went pretty smoothly. These small edition creative projects are funny. Just about the time you figure out how to do what you need to do efficiently, you’re done with it.

Experimental round corners. I bought a round cornering machine about a month ago for some new sticker designs for driftless.earth, and thought maybe it would be a good idea to round the corners on the panels of this book. As you can see in the photo above, it does make the panel a little “cuter,” and would save the corners from getting abused, but it is going to be difficult to use any tool to round the corners of the tiny paper pages that are getting mounted to the panels, and therefore it might give the finished product a sloppy appearance that could be distracting. Add to that the circular grommets have a radius that is different from the corners of the pages and the panels, and these three different radii are a little too much of a good thing. I have decided, therefore, that the panels and pages with remain with squared corners, and that I need to focus on mounting the pages and punching the tiny grommets precisely or that’s going to be the truly sloppy and distracting element of the design and construction.

The copper covers. This is how I have spent the last few days…on the computer creating the pattern to send to Gwen Youngblood at Rolling Mill Resources, who has generously volunteered to send the patterns through the mill to emboss the panels in addition to laser-cutting the pattern from my designs. This is great because Nan Marshall, who has been advising me thus far in the ways of working with copper to create the covers and link the panels together, really has no rolling mill experience, and was happy to turn that job over to a pro.

I don’t especially enjoy sitting in front of a computer pulling anchor points to create complex shapes, but just the same, I am happy that I know how to do it, and recognize that I am fortunate to have the tools to be able to create the things I want to create. In this case, I was after a very specific M to represent Mary, and googling around for a while finally landed me on the image you see in the lower right-hand corner above. Saving that image to my computer allowed me to open it with Illustrator (graphic design software) and use it to draw the shapes that create the M, the crown, and the stars in the images below. This requires a lot of patient tugging on anchor points to create very specific curves, and outlining shapes, dividing shapes, merging shapes, etc., but if you stick with it, eventually you arrive at the thing you had hoped you would see.

Gwen informed me that the black in my design with be the raised copper, and the white embossed. The image on the left was my first instinct. A day later, I thought of creating more contrast and mimicking the night sky by reversing the dot pattern, which resulted in the image on the right. Gwen is going to send both through the mill and send photos of each so I can make a decision which is best. An important thing to consider is that once these are patinated, the raised (black) elements will ultimately be the bright copper, and the white elements will be darker. I was told I might see those photos as early as today, so I am grateful once again for the technology that I sometimes bemoan for making it possible to work through this so quickly.

And the glue brushes I ordered from Talas in Brooklyn last Friday arrived in the post today, which is great news, because I will be using one or the other of these to adhere the pages to the panels tomorrow and Friday. I’m expecting I will be able to start grommeting all the panels this weekend, and then begin linking the panels next week.

EXPECT TO RECEIVE AT LEAST ONE MORE UPDATE REGARDING THE PROGRESS OF HAIL, HOLY QUEEN IN THE WEEKS AHEAD.

PROGRESS REPORT: STONES WATCH IN SILENCE

As mentioned a week ago, Stones Watch in Silence, by David Steingass, is also at the top of the priority list this month. After finishing the patterns for the Hail, Holy Queen covers yesterday morning, I found myself with the rest of the day to devote to laying out David’s stone-themed book of poems. This kind of work is always a treat. Again, I’m not the biggest fan of computer screen work, but I cannot deny that it is extremely precise and efficient, and it is exciting to create on the computer when you are simultaneously imagining how the finished product will look and feel in your hands after you receive it from someone else who will do the making part for you.

Great news here, too. It is hard for me understand why I just learned about this yesterday after googling “book binders near me,” but now I know there is a highly reputable book binding company, namely Grimm Book Bindery, Inc. (since 1854). I have been in communication with them and am very excited to visit next week or the week after (depending on progress with Hail, Holy Queen) to see samples of what they can do, and thereby what I can do in terms of paper, binding, and cover for Stones Watch in Silence.

Once the text of the book was laid out, it was time to move on to selection and placement of the photographs to illustrate the book. Options are shown in the image above. Sadly, what is still missing, I think, after both Brent Nicastro and yours truly went on special trips to obtain photographs of dry stone walls, is the proper photograph of the dry stone wall that I see when I read one of David’s poems. So…still working on that.

I will only add that another treat that comes with this kind of work is the discovery of how much I enjoy reading poetry at a typesetter’s pace, even on the computer. Or at least how much I enjoy reading David’s poetry. The way his very thoughtfully chosen words are put together to create phrases and lines that somehow create a song in my mind with no melody, and conjure images that only live elsewhere in dreams is truly magical. I am very happy to be the guy who gets to prepare these poems for all who will enjoy reading them.

16 January 2025, 09:04  | Waning Gibbous Wolf

When Izzy joins me at the Klubhaus we usually take a walk around the property while the room warms up, and so she can make herself comfortable for her morning rest. I have been forewarned that many, most, or all of the oaks on the hill are destined to fall within the next ten years due to the rocky soil and the weight of massive trees that lean towards the sun on a steep hillside with southern exposure. It seems there are more down than usual this year, but this one, which we have been monitoring since the trails were established seven years ago, is hanging in there like the molar you spun around with your tongue while learning how to add and subtract fractions in elementary school. I will let you know when I lose it.

PROGRESS REPORT: HAIL, HOLY QUEEN

With all the prayer pages cut down to uniform size, it became time to sort them by ink coverage and impression. Having only printed eighteen sheets, I did not expect to notice any difference in the printing from one to the next, but it’s quite remarkable how things are relative, and when they are small you begin to notice things even smaller. My aim is to make each of the eleven copies as uniform as possible to avoid any visual distraction, no matter how subtle.

Not so subtle is the mote of dust that settled into the w of now on the third-to-last line of one of the Hail Marys (there were printed three at a time). The good news here is that there were enough Hail Mary pages printed so that none of the gunked-up w’s (I’m not going to search rules of grammar here, but I question the use of the apostrophe there as the w is not possessive) will be included in any of the eleven copies of Hail, Holy Queen.

Gluing time. Things like this give me high anxiety simply because it is embarkment on a new task, and because I am either overly confident, brave, budget conscious, or dumb (or a combination of them all) , there is not much room for error. I have fourteen good copies of the prayer pages, and only twelve sets of panels with the intention to create eleven finished copies of this book.  

And all my anxiety was for naught, as the process of gluing the pages to the panels became quite meditative (a video of the process has been uploaded to my Bloghorhood on Tumblr), and I was able to complete nine (eight shown and one in the book press) on the first day.

Meanwhile, digital photographic proofs of the copper covers came from Gwen Youngblood of Rolling Mill Resources via email. The patina on those shown here was done with a black Sharpie just to approximate how they will look, and it was enough to decide the bottom version (with dimples rather than pimples) turned out much better. Gwen informed me of trouble with her equipment as she was trying to complete them over the weekend to help me meet the deadline, but that has since been resolved (enough) and I have been told they will arrive at Nan Marshall’s address today to be drilled and patinated this weekend.

Jigs. I talked about how much I enjoyed the process of making those red tape stops on the tabletop shears to cut the pages down in the previous newsletter. And as I was preparing to punch the holes in the panels I noticed that my chipboard jig for hole punching was getting worn after just a handful of test punches. The solution, I thought, would be to make really beefy jigs with holes the diameter of the shaft of the punch, not the tapered tip of the punch. After an hour with local home builder Adrian Ugo in his wood shop, I had a fine assortment of jigs for the next step.

As shown above, it took much less than an hour to notice these jigs were no good. All things are relative, and if the jig isn’t going to hold the shaft of the punch perfectly vertical, it simply cannot be trusted. Any minor force pushing the punch one way or another results in intolerable inaccuracies (which cannot be seen because they are under the jig) at the tip of the punch.

This is when I was very pleased to be reminded that our eyes work very well, as do our hands, and with a little faith and a touch of patience, this job could be completed freehand. In Star Wars they call it using The Force. The photo above shows the jig-punched hole much too close to the edge (A) which forced the ditching of the jigs, and two well-placed freehand holes (B, the left one grommeted and ringed), which gave the confidence to move ahead freestyle.

Punching was done in the bed of the press because it happens to be a very solid and satisfying surface to receive the micro blows of a teeny hammer, on a cutting mat conveniently marked with 1/8” ticks and mat board stop. There are four staggered stations between the twelve panels and I only screwed up the sequence twice. A cuss word each time, but not to worry, as the pattern can be adjusted and therefore I am still on pace to complete 12 copies of the book.

I won’t pretend that my freehand punches are absolutely perfect, but all 576 holes have been punched and they are all pretty close. It is interesting how something like this can seem so important when Los Angeles is burning and we are less than a week from inaugurating a felon and morally bankrupt, vindictive, and grossly immature example of a man to the Presidency of The United States. But is important. It is important to continue to satisfy the urge to create and kick ass as much as possible while doing it, in the name of being true the Holy Spirit within each of us. You can take the religious context out of that sentence if it doesn’t compute. The sentiment remains. We must fight the good fight.

The next phase of setting grommets created a third round of anxiety, but once again, as soon as the process begins and the rhythm is found, it becomes quite meditative (video uploaded to Tumblr) and all one needs to do is breathe and stay on task. Progress truly is just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other. In 576 grommets set, there was only one misshapen due to hasty hammering (reminding the grommeter to slow the pace), and that one was patiently extracted without harm to the panel.

I am thinking this was the most tenuous phase of the creation of these books and it all went as well as it could have. It feels safe to say there will be at least one copy finished for photographing next week so this book can be submitted to the Rituals Artists’ Books Exhibition before the 24 January deadline.

AND THAT IS THE FINAL UPDATE REGARDING THE PROGRESS OF HAIL, HOLY QUEEN. THIS IS YOUR LAST REMINDER THAT YOU CAN RESERVE A COPY AT A DISCOUNTED PRICE  BEFORE THE OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF ITS PUBLICATION IN THE NEXT NEW MOON MONITOR.

PROGRESS REPORT: STONES WATCH IN SILENCE

A final proof of the layout of Stones Watch in Silence has been sent to Grimm Bindery for creating a printed proof. David and I will visit the bindery tomorrow to pick up the proof for editing, and to look at available materials for the cover and end sheets and samples of bindings. Very exciting to be this far along.

LEEDS: IN

News from the the PAGES Artists’ Book Fair in Leeds, England, arrived early, and it was good. I have been accepted as one of 39 exhibitors, which led to thinking that maybe there were only 39 applicants, but nevertheless…now there is a real opportunity to exhibit and talk about my books and that injects new energy into the month ahead. With work on Hail, Holy Queen and Stones Watch in Silence wrapping up, there is a real chance I can design, typeset, print, and bind a few copies of Stacking Dry Stone Walls (one of the poems within Stones Watch in Silence), which will likely feature photography by Al Harris, discovered while searching for the proper photo to illustrate the poem in the larger book. As of right now, in my mind it is a like a triptych with full color photographs.

THE COLD MOON 

7-8 December 2024, 8:55 pm-11:00 pm  | The evening before and of the first quarter of the Cold Moon
Surely you have been watching this Cold Moon wax wondering if you missed an edition of The New Moon Monitor. You haven’t. As usual, kind of busy paying attention to other priorities, and honestly not feeling like I have anything to report. But a commitment is a commitment and here I am, with more photos in the folder for this newsletter than any previous, so I guess there actually is plenty to type about.

DRIFTLESS.EARTH

For starters, let’s talk about holiday giving. No, first let’s talk about one of the other irons I’ve had in the fire since around 2010…driftless.earth. When we moved to Viroqua in 2004, we knew we were moving to the driftless region, but it wasn’t really a word heard kicked around town. The term has been around for decades, maybe a century…I don’t really know…but it’s a geological term referencing the lack of glacial drift in the area.

When the last round of glaciers covered what we call Wisconsin (roughly 250 million years ago), they stopped and retreated rather than flattening the topography like they did everywhere else. When glaciers retreat, they leave behind all the earthen matter they have scraped up during their slow slide across the land. That’s called drift and it fills in the valleys. We don’t have any drift here.

It was around 2009 when I met Eddy Nix, owner of Driftless Books & Music here in Viroqua. He wasn’t the first guy to use the word in his business name—the noteworthy Driftless Cafe, just blocks from our home, had been established for years—but we can say he was one of the first. And it was during entertaining conversations with Eddy when I thought maybe I could design some stickers that simply said “driftless” and sell them. The idea for the design was simple and very intentional . . . Century Schoolbook with a lowercase d, because it wasn’t a proper noun at the time (and I’m not sure who decides when a word becomes a proper noun, but my phone seems to want to auto-correct it every time I thumb it in) , and I wanted to convey the idea of a dictionary entry. It was designed to be all about the word, and nothing more.

It was a little bit surprising how well it worked. Between the original driftless sticker and the driftless trout sticker (which came a year or two later by the suggestion of our neighbor) I’m pretty sure I’ve sold more than 25,000 stickers over the past 15 years. Can’t make a living on it, but it’s good supplemental income, and since 2017, 7% of sales (not profits, sales) is donated to organizations that work to enhance or protect the driftless region.

Once the cemetery season wraps up in mid-November (which it has), the focus becomes merchandising retail spaces here in Viroqua (the Viroqua Public Market, the Viroqua Food Coop, and Noble Rind Cheese Co.) for the gift giving season with t-shirts, prints, greeting cards, stickers, glassware, mugs, and of course, stickers. Sell, sell, sell!

Now . . . back to gift giving . . . either for yourself or someone you love . . . how about the 2025 lunar calendar from driftless.earth? This year it includes the new glow-in-the-dark lunatic sticker shown at the top of this newsletter. I have been designing these calendars annually since 2012 and sell between 50 and 80 a year. Apparently not doing it for the money; I might make a couple hundred dollars off the effort. I guess I just like the idea of making them available for the people who like them. You could order one today from driftless.earth or Etsy and you would get it time for Christmas. Sorry, no promo codes. I’m trying to make a living over here!

Or maybe one of these beautiful large format, 18 x 24 limited edition giclee prints now available through the Etsy store or at Noble Rind Cheese Company in Viroqua?

Or maybe someone on your list is the typography type and would like a beautifully printed copy of the Desiderata. Maybe a copy of For Dust I Am? Or really anything else at all from driftless.earth or Etsy. Every little bit helps support the enterprise. Thank you.

Sales pitch over.

IN SEARCH OF DRY STACKED STONE WALLS:
DOOR COUNTY

If you’ve been following these newsletters, you know there is a book project high on the priority list titled Stones Watch in Silence. This is a book of stone-themed poems by Madison-based poet David Steingass, who also wrote Native Son at Home, the first book published with The Heavy Duty Press imprint in 2000. A friend of David’s, Brent Nicastro, has provided the bulk of the photographs to illustrate the book, but we have been in need of a good photograph of a dry stacked stone fence, or wall, to complete the layout. Brent recently took a special trip to the Sheboygan area (eastern Wisconsin, north of Milwaukee) to take photographs of stone walls he knew of there. The effort was greatly appreciated, but in my mind, the walls photographed felt too new, too clean, to illustrate the poem. And therefore, a special trip to Door County with Vicki (celebrating our 27th anniversary at the same time!) on a quest to photograph the stone walls I recently learned exist on the peninsula.

Before we get to the dry stacked stone walls, let’s talk about the Door County peninsula. For those not from Wisconsin, Door County is the thin peninsula on the eastern side of the state, on the western shore of Lake Michigan, which separates Lake Michigan from Green Bay—the actual bay, not the Packers. Maybe it is the current awareness of a changing climate and rising sea levels, but when I think of peninsulas I think of Florida, and how it is like a giant sand bar that will eventually be entirely underwater. It has been nearly 30 years since Vicki and I last visited Peninsula State Park, and it seems I had forgotten about the majesty of this beautiful peninsula, or perhaps thirty years ago I wasn’t as interested in the geology of Wisconsin as I am today. The peninsula is not just a Silurian Dolomite escarpment...it happens to be the western termination of the Niagra Escparment.

Our first stop, of course, was the observation tower, from which you get the photograph above of Horseshoe Island in Green Bay. Beautiful partially clouded blue skies, but it was a pretty chilly day in the middle of deer hunting season, and hence the orange vest on Vicki in the photograph of the escarpment behind her. This peninsula is not going underwater any time soon. You can see in some of the other photographs along our hike how the dolomite, in nature, almost appears to be stacked by hand, and how beautiful the dolomite becomes after being tumbled and washed by the waves for thousands of years.

The soft white stones along the shore inspired thoughts of making carved bookends with them rather than granite, as originally imagined. I couldn’t help myself from picking up a couple to take home to see how they would carve. After a few calls to local quarries to find out where I could buy some of this gorgeous dolomite, I learned that I can forget about it. The stones on the shore are protected, and I might have been caught on camera, and if I get a letter in the mail telling me I’m in trouble, I promise I will take them back. As for buying dolomite from a quarry, it won’t work for making uniform bricks because of the very nature of it. Nature has already broken it down into irregular shaped bricks, and until you tumble and wash them for thousands of years, they are going to be rough and grey. I suppose I could get a giant rock tumbler and a very expensive saw.

Onward with the quest to find the stone walls. They are all around the county. They can be found on the edges of agricultural land, where they have been placed as the land was cleared by hand for planting crops. They can be found along the highway, dividing it from private residences. And they show up in the landscaping of businesses and their parking lots. There are quite a few styles, made with differently shaped stones, with some resembling the handiwork of Mother Nature (as above, and I imagine these are built with quarried stones) and others more human (as below, made with stones picked up off the land).

After three days of taking photographs, I realized I had forgotten a simple technique to capture a shorter depth of field and thus give more depth to my photographs, but I remain hopeful that I can transfer these into Brent’s hands and he will be able to edit them as black and white images to match the tonal quality of the rest of his photographs for the book.

Stones Watch in Silence will not be finished by the end of the year. But it will be finished by spring. And the same is true for the Hail, Holy Queen project. The reality has set in, as always, and I simply will not have time to focus on these projects until after Christmas.

SOMEONE GROTTO FINISH THIS THING

On our drive home we tried to locate a cemetery north of Brussels, towards the bottom of the peninsula. It was one last top on the stone wall quest. Vicki had taken out a book about Door County cemeteries from our local library system, and one of the photographs showed a stone wall in a cemetery in the area. We never did find it, but we did come across this grotto, erected in 1935 and made with stones contributed by all the local farmers of the parish, in the cemetery of St. Francis & Mary Catholic Church. A red granite slab inside the grotto serves as a memorial for the pastor at the time of its construction…

…which remains unfinished. And now I am giving some thought to calling the church and asking if they would like Viroqua Stone Lettering to come over there with the van to finish Reverend Jerome’s year of death.

AN OXFORD BOOK FAIR BUMMER, BUT. . .

News of the announcement of the Oxford Fine Press Book Fair came in sideways, via an email from a librarian asking if I would see her at the fair in Oxford in May. I then learned the dates of the fair, 3-4 May 2025, were announced via Instagram, and without an Instagram account I knew nothing of it. So I quickly made contact giving my intention to participate and lined up my lodging, but again, reality set in. Our older daughter, Katrina, will graduate from the UW-Madison in May (an art major, just like her proud father) and the ceremonies will be held the following weekend. Trying to squeeze in a leisurely trip to Oxford the weekend before would simply add too much stress to the household, and therefore I shall have to take a pass this year. Sorry to disappoint all my fans.

This is a personal bummer because I  mentally committed myself to participating in five consecutive fairs after my first trip to Oxford in March 2022 . It was a good experience and it seemed pretty obvious that you have to do these things multiple times to get acquainted and meet and engage with collectors. Beyond that, I just love being in England.

Not one to be easily defeated, I began looking for other book fairs in England in 2025, and found one in March featuring artists’ books at the Leeds Art Gallery. Now it seems like getting forced out of Oxford 2025 may have been a Godsend. Why not show my work to a slightly different audience? And maybe my books fit better into the artists’ books genre than the fine press genre. So I shall apply and wait to see how the curators respond to my work.

WOOD, DIRT, AND SEEDING AT HOLY HOLLOW

This is the part of the newsletter where you find out why I haven’t had any time to start working on any book projects yet this winter. I know it’s hard to keep track of everything, but take a minute to think back on the Flower Moon Monitor. That was when I told you all about hiring the guy to come and take down the three silver maples on the east end of the property. They were just too big and too old and too threatening to every vehicle and person in the driveway and parking area.

Those trees were like octopi, each having multiple trunks, most of which were bucked up for firewood before the growing season went gangbusters and hid them from sight. And now that we’re back in the cold and quiet season (thank goodness) the mess has revealed itself again.

upon recommendation of my friend Paul, who is a neighboring woodsman and manages the township dump, I purchased a new lighter weight Fiskars M27 Super Splitting Axe with fiberglass handle last week to replace the 8 lb. monster that was gifted to me by my city neighbor, who told me he got it from his recently passed friend Homer, but he himself thought it was ridiculous. And it is. It is like swinging an anvil. The M27 splits like a dream…

…which is good because there is quite a bit of wood to split before the snow falls. Vicki and I are planning to do it all by hand, you know, for the exercise. I will be the splitter and she will move it, an hour or so at a time. And thanks to the M27, I will be dreaming while I split.

This one is for the other wood burners out there. Maybe you’ve already seen something like this, but it’s new to me. Granted, I am a city-boy-turned-country only twenty years ago, and I have a lot of catching up to do.  Two fence posts and a cattle panel (it feels really great when you get to tell the cashier at the hardware store that you need to buy a couple cattle panels) make a brilliant bank for split wood. No stacking necessary yet keeps things tidy!

And another note for all my fellow countrymen (and countrywomen, of course), before you start chuckling about how I am still so country green that I don’t realize my three trees worth of silver maple is a quantity of inferior quality: I feel very fortunate to have been connected to a local fellow named Larry who cuts and splits firewood for therapy and delivers pallets of clean white and red oak at an extremely reasonable price thereby getting paid for his therapy. Smart guy—country smart. This $40 worth of firewood will add plenty of BTUs when blended with the silver maple this winter. Incidentally, Larry is also happy to help unload and restack the pallet (for the exercise and the conversation), and we talked a lot about a book he is writing about his family history. . . going back eight generations.

Speaking of deliveries, here’s three yards of dirt that were delivered the other day. Why on earth would a guy who is sitting on four acres of land need more dirt delivered? Well, for one, that would be a lot of shoveling of hard packed ground, and two, I don’t have a tractor or an excavator but I do have a wheelbarrow. Speaking of wheelbarrows, here’s another country tip if you don’t already know it: you can buy a great tire for your wheelbarrow at the Viroqua Tire Shop (this tip also came from Paul at the dump) to replace the worthless one that comes on your wheelbarrow when you buy it.

Absolutely no regrets. Moving dirt with this new tire is almost as great as splitting firewood with my new Fiskars M27. And to answer where or why I am moving three yards of dirt, it is in the name of providing a good bed for prairie seeds that will be sown just before the first snow falls.

If you look at the roof of the building behind the dirt pile three photos up, you will see the gentle slope of the roof drops all the rain (and melted snow) along the southern bank below it (above). The intention has always been to seed it with prairie grasses and flora, which grow incredibly deep and thick roots, thereby stabilizing the earth below while adding natural beauty above. It takes time for things to rise to priority, but this project finally has.

The bank fills in every year with an absolute mess of invasive plants, and most of it is a low-growing creeping vine. 2024 was finally the year to kill off all the vegetation along this bank, around the perimeter of the building, and on the east side of the the well (behind the new wall discussed in the Pink Moon Monitor) to create a clean bed for prairie seed germination, so they need not compete for sun with non-native, early season invasive species.

However, once everything was dead and raked off, it revealed another impediment to the germination of any prairie seeds sown: lack of dirt!

In the photograph above, you are seeing five wheelbarrowsful of fifteen shovelsful of dirt. That was the first day, just to get warmed up. Yesterday I finished the bank with fifteen more trips with the wonderfully tired wheelbarrow, and today and tomorrow I will perform another thirty trips to finish spreading the pile—before the temperatures dip back into the 20s (F)—over all areas to be seeded.

THANK YOU

Thank you again to Vicky Stewart of Vamp & Tramp Booksellers for placement of more books over the past lunar cycle: Alchemy and 8t Bags About the Natural World in the Special Collections of the McKeldin Library at the University of Maryland, Understanding This Book in the Special Collections of the Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Columbia University in New York, and another sale to the Fleet Library at the Rhode Island School of Design: For Dust I Am. And then thank you, as always, for your interest in what I have to share, and your support of The Heavy Duty Press.

I hope you will have a lovely winter holiday season under the Cold Moon, and if you are so moved, please send me an update of your own, or just an email to say hello. I think I have finally replied to all emails received, and it’s wintertime, so correspondence should come a little easier for a few months. It’s the most wonderful time of the year.

MARK YOUR CALENDARS

WHAT: “The Heavy Duty Press: Adventures in Slow Media from Driftless Wisconsin”
WHEN: Thursday, 12 December 2024, 5:30 pm
WHERE: The McIntosh Memorial Library of Viroqua

Enjoy the Full COLD Moon December 15TH

This edition The New Moon Monitor wrapped up at 10:54 pm, Sunday, 8 December 2024, spanning two days of typing and editing with breaks for eating, sleeping, and labor at Holy Hollow. Please excuse typos and misspellings. Thank you.