📷29 Sept. 2025, 4:55 p.m. (Monday) | First quarter of the Harvest MoonLet’s  first talk a little bit more about the trip to Massachusetts and back  earlier this month. Niagara Falls, for example. You might recall that  back in December’s Cold Moon edition of The New Moon Monitor I reported on a mission to Wisconsin’s Door County in search of dry  stacked stone walls to photograph for David Steingass’s magnificent book  of geologically-themed poems, Stones Watch in Silence.  And if you can recall that much (like if you are one of the eight  people who read that far into the newsletter), you might remember that  is when I learned that Door County is the western terminus of the Niagara Escarpment.  Exciting news: we stopped at Niagara Falls near the eastern terminus on  our way home in early September just to see what all the fuss is about,  and I can report that it is quite well worth all the fuss. The sight of  so much water continuously pouring over the edge of the earth from Lake  Erie into Lake Ontario is Roger Dean’s gatefold painting from Close to Edge in real life…and for this overgrown adolescent, a teenage dream scene come true. Bravo!📷 SPEAKING OF PHOTOGRAPHING STONE WALLS...The serendipity never ends. As mentioned in last month’s edition of this newsletter, earlier in the trip, while still in Northampton,  Massachusetts, we visited the Book Mill in Montague. After returning my  coffee cup to the bus bin, as I was headed for the art gallery and  walking past the table where we sat, a gentleman kindly pointed out that  I left my coat and handbag on my chair. As I was gathering my things I  couldn’t help but hear him talking with his crew about stone wall  construction. So of course it seemed the appropriate thing to do would  be to say, “Excuse me, sir, did I overhear you talking about dry stacked  stone walls?”📷Well,  yes, he was in fact telling his tablemates of his recent fascination  with building dry stacked stone walls, and with that I promised to send  him a copy of Stones Watch in Silence,  which hasn’t happened yet (but I haven’t forgotten, Theo!). Suddenly  seeing this as a cosmic event not to be dismissed, I asked if there were  any nearby stone walls, because I could still use a better photograph  for the next component of the stone poems project. He pointed me to The Stone Trust,  for which it was easy enough to find a phone number, so later that day I  called and explained the reason for my quest to the woman on the other  end. She kindly pointed me to the Dutton Farm House in Dummerston,  Vermont, about an hour north of Northampton. Vicki, ever accommodating  my whims, agreed to drive home through Vermont, adding one more state  and about 45 minutes to our total travel time. There we captured a fine  photograph of a dry stacked stone wall (above), which will now serve as  the cover of Stacking Dry Stone Walls, an artists’ book planned for my favorite poem from Stones Watch in Silence.📷But  instead of talking about what is coming next, let’s turn to what has  been accomplished over the past three weeks. A few days ago the time to  print the dust jackets for the twenty-five hard cover copies of Stones Watch in Silence finally arrived. If you have been paying attention, you might recall  not only last December’s talk about the Niagara Escarpment, but also in  last month’s newsletter, the story about sandblasting the title of this  book into granite tiles which would be used to print the dust jackets.  The first pair (front and back cover) were blasted in Chinese Black  granite, which has a nice, tight, even grain. Recognizing this as not  ideal, another pair of Baltic Brown tiles were sandblasted in the same  manner. I then dropped the cover tile and it broke in two pieces.📷First  things first, let’s prove that we can print from these granite tiles in  the bed of ol’ Spiffy, and see if the Chinese Black tiles do indeed  print evenly. Sure enough they do, and they look really nice, but even  trying to be satisfied with the results for ten minutes or so it just  didn’t feel right, so I swapped out the cover tile for the broken Baltic  Brown. The results are in the image below (Chinese left, Baltic right),  and there is absolutely no question in my mind which is more  appropriate. Taking the time to carve a second set of tiles was time  well spent, and dropping it added charm.📷Here’s the pair of Baltic Browns locked up in the press and inked for printing:📷And if this link works, here’s what it looked and sounded like as I was printing them:📷During  the next session in the Klubhaus two days later, they were scored and  folded, and there are now twenty-five limited edition, signed and  numbered copies of Stones Watch in Silence for sale, which you may purchase via Etsy for a mere $200.📷📷📷 📷TILES VS BOULDERLet’s  change the subject. Here we have a gigantic stone that is much larger  than a granite tile. Sometimes people call me and ask if I can engrave a  boulder to welcome people to their home. In this case, it was the  children of Doug & Patty Wynn near Pardeeville, Wisconsin. I am  never excited to get these calls because carving boulders causes  anxiety. It all comes down to whether or not the stencil is going to  stay adhered to the boulder while it is being hit with 125 psi of  air/media mixture. In this case, I found the stone to be very coarsely  textured, and that was unsettling. This problem was abated with an  hour’s worth of sanding with a brand new cordless palm sander and the  coarsest available paper. (The lighter colored area of the boulder is  the ares that had been sanded. The difference was subtle but helpful.📷My  strategy worked pretty well. You can see in the picture above that the  stencil only started to pull away from the boulder in a few spots (the  middle arm of the E, for example). I learned other techniques while on  the job, but those I won’t share because I want remain the most  experienced person in the neighborhood when it comes to this sort of  thing for a few more years. Patty was there to watch me work the entire  time, which was acceptable only because she gave me a half dozen home  made chocolate chip cookies.📷For the typography goons among you, yes, that is indeed Brothers Bold, the ubiquitous typeface of the first quarter of the 21st Century,  designed by John Downer of Iowa City. This typeface was selected to  represent Organic Valley around 2004 when they rebranded during my first  year of employment as a graphic designer there. It felt familiar, and  in the years that followed it started showing up everywhere, from  whiskey brands to Culver’s Frozen Custard. Graphic designers seem to  love it. Eventually I had to research it and then realized it was made  famous in the titling for the Coen brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Personally,  it feels as if it has become overused, and for decades I vowed to avoid  it if only in the name of not using it. But in this case it seemed  perfect, and when presented with four options showing alternate  typefaces, the customer chose Brothers, so…if either of you happens to  know John Downer, please let him know that Brothers Bold is now carved in stone.📷THE O.K. CORRALHow  about let’s change the subject one more time? This time more abruptly.  As mentioned above, the boulder job was in Pardeeville, which is far  enough away from home to warrant a hotel room in Portage for the night.  Not my favorite destination, normally. But this time was pleasantly  different. First of all, the Days Inn. This typical  by-the-side-of-the-interstate hotel was unique in a few ways. One, upon  arrival I found it is right next door to the local Shockwave Adult  Superstore. Fun. But sometimes when I am on the road I like to stand  outside by my van and have a beer and a cigarette like my teenage self  would. I wasn’t really interested in having a view of the Shockwave from  the van, so I decided to pull around the backside to see if there was  room for parking there with maybe a little nicer setting. Alas! Some may  not see anything special about this, but Double Rainbow (my 1996 Dodge  B350) found herself in good company in that parking lot. The minivan  might have been a 21st century model, but the others surely were not.📷📷📷📷And  when it is late in the season and the sun goes down with a few hours to  kill in a hotel room, I turn to the traveling collage kit in the trusty  green suitcase. When I opened it I found myself looking again the Jean  Racine illustrations with the backgrounds cut out during our Cunard Lake  camping trip earlier this summer. Next I found a roughly equal number  of prints of old masters’ paintings from Rockwell Kent’s World Famous Paintings book. Seemed like a great time to play the Which of These Things Belongs with Which Other? game, but there wasn’t enough room in the traditional Hotel Room Desk  Collage Lab. A fellow has to be resourceful on the road, so for the very  first time ever: a Hotel Room BED Collage Lab. It is remarkable how  things fall into place sometimes.📷📷📷📷📷📷📷📷 📷THANK YOUIn  parting, I give you a photograph from our fall Team Zissou Moto Unit  tour of southwestern Wisconsin, featuring my old friend and college  roommate, John, in front of some much smaller than Niagara Falls falls,  at Hyde’s Mill (funny…the people who designed the website at that link use the same Wordpress template as The Heavy Duty Press…and the word Adventures even!)  near the Wyoming Valley in Iowa County, Wisconsin. Also pictured, for  the enthusiasts in the group, John’s Moto Guzzi Stelvio, Amos’s Triumph  Tiger, my Moto Guzzi 1000SP, and Steve’s Kawasaki KLR. If you do like to  ride motorcycles, this ought to please you, and if you do not (yet),  hopefully it inspires you try it sometime. Motorcycles are more fun than  adult superstores!Thank  you for your interest in what I have to share, and until next time, be  well and try to stay sane. You know what I mean. Peace.ENJOY THE FULL harvest MOON 7 october 2025This edition of The New Moon Monitor was written, edited, and scheduled for sending in a single session  lasting 5 hours and 45 minutes, with a break for making and eating a  supper of sweet potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, cherry  tomatoes, kale, avocado, garbanzos, quinoa, sliced almonds, and pumpkin  seeds with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic dressing. And a shitless dog  walk. Long may we live. 

29 Sept. 2025, 4:55 p.m. (Monday) | First quarter of the Harvest Moon

Let’s  first talk a little bit more about the trip to Massachusetts and back  earlier this month. Niagara Falls, for example. You might recall that  back in December’s Cold Moon edition of The New Moon Monitor I reported on a mission to Wisconsin’s Door County in search of dry  stacked stone walls to photograph for David Steingass’s magnificent book  of geologically-themed poems, Stones Watch in Silence.  And if you can recall that much (like if you are one of the eight  people who read that far into the newsletter), you might remember that  is when I learned that Door County is the western terminus of the Niagara Escarpment.  Exciting news: we stopped at Niagara Falls near the eastern terminus on  our way home in early September just to see what all the fuss is about,  and I can report that it is quite well worth all the fuss. The sight of  so much water continuously pouring over the edge of the earth from Lake  Erie into Lake Ontario is Roger Dean’s gatefold painting from Close to Edge in real life…and for this overgrown adolescent, a teenage dream scene come true. Bravo!

SPEAKING OF PHOTOGRAPHING STONE WALLS...

The serendipity never ends. As mentioned in last month’s edition of this newsletter, earlier in the trip, while still in Northampton,  Massachusetts, we visited the Book Mill in Montague. After returning my  coffee cup to the bus bin, as I was headed for the art gallery and  walking past the table where we sat, a gentleman kindly pointed out that  I left my coat and handbag on my chair. As I was gathering my things I  couldn’t help but hear him talking with his crew about stone wall  construction. So of course it seemed the appropriate thing to do would  be to say, “Excuse me, sir, did I overhear you talking about dry stacked  stone walls?”

Well,  yes, he was in fact telling his tablemates of his recent fascination  with building dry stacked stone walls, and with that I promised to send  him a copy of Stones Watch in Silence,  which hasn’t happened yet (but I haven’t forgotten, Theo!). Suddenly  seeing this as a cosmic event not to be dismissed, I asked if there were  any nearby stone walls, because I could still use a better photograph  for the next component of the stone poems project. He pointed me to The Stone Trust,  for which it was easy enough to find a phone number, so later that day I  called and explained the reason for my quest to the woman on the other  end. She kindly pointed me to the Dutton Farm House in Dummerston,  Vermont, about an hour north of Northampton. Vicki, ever accommodating  my whims, agreed to drive home through Vermont, adding one more state  and about 45 minutes to our total travel time. There we captured a fine  photograph of a dry stacked stone wall (above), which will now serve as  the cover of Stacking Dry Stone Walls, an artists’ book planned for my favorite poem from Stones Watch in Silence.

But  instead of talking about what is coming next, let’s turn to what has  been accomplished over the past three weeks. A few days ago the time to  print the dust jackets for the twenty-five hard cover copies of Stones Watch in Silence finally arrived. If you have been paying attention, you might recall  not only last December’s talk about the Niagara Escarpment, but also in  last month’s newsletter, the story about sandblasting the title of this  book into granite tiles which would be used to print the dust jackets.  The first pair (front and back cover) were blasted in Chinese Black  granite, which has a nice, tight, even grain. Recognizing this as not  ideal, another pair of Baltic Brown tiles were sandblasted in the same  manner. I then dropped the cover tile and it broke in two pieces.

First  things first, let’s prove that we can print from these granite tiles in  the bed of ol’ Spiffy, and see if the Chinese Black tiles do indeed  print evenly. Sure enough they do, and they look really nice, but even  trying to be satisfied with the results for ten minutes or so it just  didn’t feel right, so I swapped out the cover tile for the broken Baltic  Brown. The results are in the image below (Chinese left, Baltic right),  and there is absolutely no question in my mind which is more  appropriate. Taking the time to carve a second set of tiles was time  well spent, and dropping it added charm.

Here’s the pair of Baltic Browns locked up in the press and inked for printing:

And if this link works, here’s what it looked and sounded like as I was printing them:

During  the next session in the Klubhaus two days later, they were scored and  folded, and there are now twenty-five limited edition, signed and  numbered copies of Stones Watch in Silence for sale, which you may purchase via Etsy for a mere $200.

TILES VS BOULDER

Let’s  change the subject. Here we have a gigantic stone that is much larger  than a granite tile. Sometimes people call me and ask if I can engrave a  boulder to welcome people to their home. In this case, it was the  children of Doug & Patty Wynn near Pardeeville, Wisconsin. I am  never excited to get these calls because carving boulders causes  anxiety. It all comes down to whether or not the stencil is going to  stay adhered to the boulder while it is being hit with 125 psi of  air/media mixture. In this case, I found the stone to be very coarsely  textured, and that was unsettling. This problem was abated with an  hour’s worth of sanding with a brand new cordless palm sander and the  coarsest available paper. (The lighter colored area of the boulder is  the ares that had been sanded. The difference was subtle but helpful.

My  strategy worked pretty well. You can see in the picture above that the  stencil only started to pull away from the boulder in a few spots (the  middle arm of the E, for example). I learned other techniques while on  the job, but those I won’t share because I want remain the most  experienced person in the neighborhood when it comes to this sort of  thing for a few more years. Patty was there to watch me work the entire  time, which was acceptable only because she gave me a half dozen home  made chocolate chip cookies.

For the typography goons among you, yes, that is indeed Brothers Bold, the ubiquitous typeface of the first quarter of the 21st Century,  designed by John Downer of Iowa City. This typeface was selected to  represent Organic Valley around 2004 when they rebranded during my first  year of employment as a graphic designer there. It felt familiar, and  in the years that followed it started showing up everywhere, from  whiskey brands to Culver’s Frozen Custard. Graphic designers seem to  love it. Eventually I had to research it and then realized it was made  famous in the titling for the Coen brothers’ film, O Brother, Where Art Thou? Personally,  it feels as if it has become overused, and for decades I vowed to avoid  it if only in the name of not using it. But in this case it seemed  perfect, and when presented with four options showing alternate  typefaces, the customer chose Brothers, so…if either of you happens to  know John Downer, please let him know that Brothers Bold is now carved in stone.

THE O.K. CORRAL

How  about let’s change the subject one more time? This time more abruptly.  As mentioned above, the boulder job was in Pardeeville, which is far  enough away from home to warrant a hotel room in Portage for the night.  Not my favorite destination, normally. But this time was pleasantly  different. First of all, the Days Inn. This typical  by-the-side-of-the-interstate hotel was unique in a few ways. One, upon  arrival I found it is right next door to the local Shockwave Adult  Superstore. Fun. But sometimes when I am on the road I like to stand  outside by my van and have a beer and a cigarette like my teenage self  would. I wasn’t really interested in having a view of the Shockwave from  the van, so I decided to pull around the backside to see if there was  room for parking there with maybe a little nicer setting. Alas! Some may  not see anything special about this, but Double Rainbow (my 1996 Dodge  B350) found herself in good company in that parking lot. The minivan  might have been a 21st century model, but the others surely were not.

And  when it is late in the season and the sun goes down with a few hours to  kill in a hotel room, I turn to the traveling collage kit in the trusty  green suitcase. When I opened it I found myself looking again the Jean  Racine illustrations with the backgrounds cut out during our Cunard Lake  camping trip earlier this summer. Next I found a roughly equal number  of prints of old masters’ paintings from Rockwell Kent’s World Famous Paintings book. Seemed like a great time to play the Which of These Things Belongs with Which Other? game, but there wasn’t enough room in the traditional Hotel Room Desk  Collage Lab. A fellow has to be resourceful on the road, so for the very  first time ever: a Hotel Room BED Collage Lab. It is remarkable how  things fall into place sometimes.

THANK YOU

In  parting, I give you a photograph from our fall Team Zissou Moto Unit  tour of southwestern Wisconsin, featuring my old friend and college  roommate, John, in front of some much smaller than Niagara Falls falls,  at Hyde’s Mill (funny…the people who designed the website at that link use the same Wordpress template as The Heavy Duty Press…and the word Adventures even!)  near the Wyoming Valley in Iowa County, Wisconsin. Also pictured, for  the enthusiasts in the group, John’s Moto Guzzi Stelvio, Amos’s Triumph  Tiger, my Moto Guzzi 1000SP, and Steve’s Kawasaki KLR. If you do like to  ride motorcycles, this ought to please you, and if you do not (yet),  hopefully it inspires you try it sometime. Motorcycles are more fun than  adult superstores!

Thank  you for your interest in what I have to share, and until next time, be  well and try to stay sane. You know what I mean. Peace.

ENJOY THE FULL harvest MOON 7 october 2025

This edition of The New Moon Monitor was written, edited, and scheduled for sending in a single session  lasting 5 hours and 45 minutes, with a break for making and eating a  supper of sweet potatoes, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cucumbers, cherry  tomatoes, kale, avocado, garbanzos, quinoa, sliced almonds, and pumpkin  seeds with tahini, lemon juice, and garlic dressing. And a shitless dog  walk. Long may we live.

*****

1 September 2025, 6:20 a.m. (Labor Day), and the 2nd around the same time;
Not the new moon at all, but several days past the first quarter.

How about just one of these:

[sigh]

Very little to report, but in the name of staying the course, I shall put together what I can. This edition of the Monitor comes from Massachusetts, specifically the continental breakfast room within a brand new and quite fancy feeling Comfort Inn and Suites in Hadley, between Amherst and Northampton. It’s pretty here (above, the Montague Book Mill [where I found some books I don’t need] beyond the waterfall on the Saw Mill River). There have been many hotel stays all summer, as I have been working the long distance cemetery routes, leaving the closer-to-home work to my very competent crew, which I am extremely grateful to have, but also leaving virtually no time (as usual) for creative pursuits. Many of those multi-day trips have been spent with my daughter, Beatrix, whom we are delivering to her Hogwarts, Smith College, for her sophomore year.

During her second semester at Smith, Beatrix had the good fortune of an independent study with one of the heavyweights of wood engraving and letterpress printing in the United States, Mr. Barry Moser, during his final semester of teaching. The print above was done at Smith, where she methodically organized a case of 16 pt Centaur to be more like the type drawers in Der Klubhaus: tidy. In the print you can observe, as she did first hand, the misaligned type, which is the result of at least two different foundries, or at least two different castings, of the same typeface. I think we can all agree that as long as the type is clean and the printing even, that irregular baseline of the misaligned type does not really detract from the beauty of this print, but maybe even adds to it as a measure of authenticity.

As a student of English literature, Beatrix happened to be taking a class focused on George Eliot’s Middlemarch and the Mill on the Floss, and selected passages from each for her prints at the Apriary Press. This summer she put together another in Der Klubhaus, this time featuring a passage from Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. I have listed all her prints, along with her poetry book from nearly two years ago, For Dust I Am, on Etsy. As far as selling prints goes, it will be interesting to see if she is onto something here with printing passages from famous, well-loved books. Ironically, it seems like a no-brainer but something I could never do, simply because I don’t have the brains to read enough to find the passages!

DAVID STEINGASS

This beautiful book, by this giant poet.

[sigh]

Above, the first two granite tiles engraved to print the jackets for the 20 hardcover copies (below), locked up in the press, ready to print. That is as far I have been able to get.

Well, no. Actually I engraved a second pair of tiles (below). The tiles will print in reverse, that is, the negative space around the letters, which is the surface of the granite, will print black. The first tiles engraved are Chinese “Abolute Black” granite, the same that is used for nearly all veterans’ memorials across the country. It was easy to source. But as I was thinking about how it will print, I noticed the grain of that black granite is very tight and even, and I would rather see a more uneven texture on these prints. The tiles below are something called Baltic Brown granite, which has a much more inconsistent grain pattern. Aside from the preferred texture, David is surely more Baltic than he is Chinese. Sadly, I dropped one of them after engraving it. There’s no reason the cracked tile won’t print, and therefore I intentionally dropped the other one (twice) so they would both be cracked, but of course the second one wouldn’t crack. I suppose I could have dropped it from a greater height, but I wasn’t really looking for it to break into a bunch of little pieces, so I quit trying. Maybe I’ll try again once I see how the cracked one prints.

David and I met for coffee last week to talk about how we’re going to sell these books. As we talked about the different avenues, which include wholesale to book stores, scheduled readings, library talks, websites, and online sales, I recognized that I am working with a man who has not only written an excellent book of poems, but has spent a lifetime writing a LOT of excellent poetry, with his first book, Body Compass, published in 1969 by The University of Pittsburgh Press. Fittingly, I have been reading his second collection of poems, American Handbook (1973), on this road trip. While he has covered many subjects within his poems over the past 56 years (essentially during my entire lifetime), his style remains consistent. David paints fantastic images with his words, with a cadence comforting like an easy chair, occasionally punctuated with perfectly timed pauses or rushes of excitement. So now here I am thinking that I am the publisher of this gentleman’s poetry, and over the course of life his poems have never received all the attention they deserve, but it’s not too late and now is the time, and somehow it is up to me to figure out how to do my job, which is to turn lovers of words and poems onto this very refined master of the craft.

STONES WATCH IN SILENCE

And so, as all the stones are watching in silence while this year’s cemetery work season comes to a close, my priority shall become promoting Mr. Steingass and his fine poems, and finding ways to sell these two versions of his most recent work, both softcover trade copies and limited edition hardcovers.

THANK YOU

Speaking of poems, stones, and cemeteries, we stopped by the grave of Emily Dickinson in the West Cemetery in Amherst and it is covered with little stones. A classic mid-19th century marble slab. The raised lettering is sort of unique, and the wording CALLED BACK in place of simply DIED is notable. In nearly 15 years of working in 500+ cemeteries I have never seen that before.

Thank you, as always, for your interest in what I have to share, and your support of The Heavy Duty Press. Replies, comments, and purchases always welcome.

ENJOY THE FULL HARVEST MOON 7 SEPT 2025

This edition The New Moon Monitor was written, edited, and sent over the course of two mornings during a 2nd annual trip to western Massachusetts. Please excuse typos and misspellings. Thank you.

27 July 2025, 11:14 a.m. (Sunday) | Threes day after the New Sturgeon Moon

Here in Wisconsin there is a tradition of going “up north” to the lake country for a summer vacation, or at least that is how it seemed growing up in Milwaukee in the southeast corner of the state. I’m not sure how many people here in southwest Wisconsin do it…we have only been living here twenty years and in that time haven’t found many occasions to ask anyone what they do for summer vacations. My impression is that they are content with their proximity to the Mississippi River. But that river is not a lake. What I can tell you is that our favorite campground was at 15% occupancy last week, which served us well, but is a also a real head scratcher for me…how can it be that with millions people living in Wisconsin, only my wife and I and our two daughters have any interest in swimming in this lake?

Our younger daughter, Beatrix, happened to be looking over my shoulder when I was editing the photos for this newsletter and promptly told me I shouldn’t reveal the secret location of our campsite in this newsletter, so I won’t. My wife and I found this campground in 2003, and brought our older daughter, Katrina, here to camp (in same tent pictured below, but not the same site) when she was a baby. We returned annually to this campground for several years, with our last visit being in 2012 (at the same site pictured below).

The big difference this year, other than the world feeling completely different state than it did in 2012, is the addition of a second tent. Katrina requested and received her very own tent as a gift upon graduating from the University of Wisconsin (BFA) this past May. The other obvious difference is that we are all 13 years further along in life, which didn’t alter our activities much, but you can bet there were many moments of reflection for this sentimental old dog.

Same canoe. From this particular camp site, you can walk down a fairly steep bank through the woods to a miniature private beach. I consider it a beach because there is no vegetation in an area about 10 feet wide and 15 feet into the water. Once you are that far in, you might as well be swimming, so who cares if there’s vegetation down there? I know I don’t. This is a lake, for Pete’s sake!

Paddling to the north end of the lake leads you to narrow passage loaded with lily pads (cue Kermit the Frog’s banjo) which could take you to the neighboring lake, but we have never gone that far. This particular little lake, with absolutely no visible human construction around the entire perimeter other than a boat launch and the small public beach, and no motors allowed, leaves nothing to be desired. Swimming in the middle of this lake without anyone there to witness it is a heavenly moment indeed. I hope these photos give you a good sense of the peace that can be found in nature, and possibly even encourage you to find a quiet place to go swim in a lake this summer.

If you really want to know the location, please ask.

CREATIVELY SPEAKING…

Also the same as thirteen years ago, the primitive camp set-up, including a simple tarp over the picnic table, where once upon a time I acknowledged to myself that I would rather work on collages during precious time off work than go fishing. The same collage suitcase came along on this trip, and while nothing was finished, I finished a lot of cutting for a few projects in the works.

The first is a series of Scottish landscapes from a book purchased in Berwick-Upon-Tweed in 2018, with prints (from books) of fish paintings by Hashime Murayama, a variety of zeppelins, and images of real life human beings from the 1929 edition of the Grolier Society’s Lands & Peoples books.

This is all a work in progress that began earlier this spring when I began cutting out the fish during hotel desk collage labs while on the road engraving final dates on grave stones. Around that same time, I re-watched an old instructional video about collage animations by Terry Gilliam, and found it very easy to be entertained by the idea of creating my first animated short film. Earlier this morning I purchased the armature to hold my phone for photographing frames for the film.

Oeurves by Jean Racine is another collage project that started earlier this year, also built upon a travel experience. This book was purchased from an outdoor used book dealer along the banks of the Siene in 2023.

Frankly, I don’t know the first thing about Jean Racine or French literature, but the dealer assured me that these stories are important and every student of French literature would have studied them. What I do know is I love the steel engraving illustrations, and I found it interesting to hold them up to the natural background of the campsite to document my cutting. There are about ten of them. They are pretty small, and I have been thinking about constructing them in sardine tins.

STONES WATCH IN SILENCE

A big project still not quite finished: A new book of poems by David Steingass (resident of Madison, Wisconsin and author of Native Son at Home ).This new book features eighteen stone-themed poems by David, complemented with photographs primarily by Brent Nicastro (also a Madison resident). The soft cover copies are done and currently for sale at Pearl Street Books in La Crosse and the Viroqua Public Market. The limited edition hard cover copies are also done, waiting for me to print the dust jackets for them. My sincere apologies to David for not having all of this finished by now, but he knows full well how hard it is to find time for everything during these busy summer months. It will be worth the wait.

THANK YOU

Last but not least, the band formerly known as Nimoy has been renamed Secret Weapon, and we enjoyed our debut live performance at the first annual Kickapalooza International Footbag Festival in Viroqua last weekend (complete with bubble machine). Thank you, as always, for your interest in what I have to share, and your support of The Heavy Duty Press. Replies, comments, and purchases always welcome.

ENJOY THE FULL STURGEON MOON 9 AUGUST 2025

This edition The New Moon Monitor was written, edited, and sent from an air conditioned room on another hot and humid summer of 2025 morning in one hour and twenty-eight minutes, which might be a new record. Time to get out to Holy Hollow to do some printing in Der Klubhaus with Beatrix Wren while she is still home from school! Please excuse typos and misspellings. Thank you.

 Baskerville for Brummies

Michael Koppa​Olde Goats​

Please accept my apologies for this duplicate in your inbox!

This morning I noticed a glaring error in the opening sentence of the Baskerville for Brummies announcement and felt it just made the entire thing too confusing right from the start. The links embedded in the photos have also been corrected. Please don’t let this move you to unsubscribe. Thank you for your patience and understanding. :)

Hello, friends, and welcome to summertime 2025. The open studio event during the Winding Roads Art tour a few weeks ago provided a great opportunity to meet people and talk smart about what happens in Der Klubhaus: the joy of creating, the patient process of typesetting by hand, and the triumphs and struggles of a 21st century minor league private press in rural Wisconsin. At the moment it is not easy to recount anything spectacular happening over the eighteen days since, so rather than trying to write a worthy report, this edition of The New Moon Monitor will focus once and for all on presenting a prospectus for Baskerville for Brummies (which technically is not a prospectus at all because this book was completed earlier this year and published on the occasion of my participation in the PAGES Artists’ Books Fair in Leeds, England, this past March. So honestly I don’t know what this is called, but it is whatever the word is for an official announcement that I have published a new book and I am trying to sell copies of it).

A miniature book commemorating the life of John Baskerville, marking 250 years since his passing on 8 January 2025 1775.

48 pages, 6.7 x 5.1 x 1 cm; 8, 10 and 30 pt Baskerville Roman and Italic, letterpress printed with the Vandercook in gold, black and red ink on Zerkall Frankfurt Cream; title page background, 26 text block backgrounds (sections from an 18th century map of Birmingham), and full color reproduction of John Baskerville portrait (painted by John Millar)  inkjet printed with a Canon Pixma iP4500; hand bound and cased in covers made of copper plates wrapped with Hahnemuhle Bugra paper with letterpress printed spine in gold ink on Zerkall Frankfurt Cream. Limited edition of 22 copies. $240

THE STORY BEHIND THE BOOK

After learning in mid-January that I had  been accepted to exhibit at the PAGES Artists’ Book Fair in Leeds (to be held the 3rd week in March), I began to research book-related things to do in England to fill out my trip. Research quickly led me to Small Performances, a project being undertaken by the University of Birmingham and Cambridge University focused on John Baskerville’s contributions to typography and printing. This sparked the desire to create a book featuring Baskerville’s famous typeface to exhibit at the fair. So here we have yet another very spontaneous book project to complete within a little less than one month. Seems to be a pattern. Not sure I like it, but I do like the results, and I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the remarkable John Baskerville—a thoughtful, interesting, and amusing man…and friend of America’s Benjamin Franklin. If you don’t know much about him and his role in the evolution of the printed book, I recommend this 12-minute YouTube video.

First hurdle: I had no Baskerville type. I quickly found a used font of 30 pt Baskerville Roman readily available from Michael Moore, and Ed Rayher of the Swamp Press agreed to cast fonts of 8 and 10 pt Roman and Italic, which arrived by US post from Massachusetts in mid-February. Next I had to decide what to make with the type. Given I had less than one month to pull it off, the book needed to be small. And what better type of book to celebrate a typeface than an abecedarium? And what else to put in an abecedarium set in Baskerville type but Birmingham-related things?

Yes, I have made small books, but never really something I would classify as a miniature book. Nor have do I have an abecedarium in my bibliography. The time had finally come for me to be a person with a miniature abecedarium in his bibliography. What a great feeling.

After a fair amount of bedtime research about Birmingham (and learning a lot of interesting things), it seemed the best chance for something complete and slightly poetic would be a list of neighborhoods, all of which have excellent names (as far as a man from Wisconsin with a life long fascination with England is concerned), along with names of famous (or semi-famous, at least) artists and (mostly) musicians from Birmingham.

This turned out to be a very entertaining little book.

THE CREATIVE PROCESS (IN SEVEN SIMPLE STEPS)

Step 1: Set up the 30 and 10 pt to print as specimens in gold ink, covering the surface of the paper that will become the pages of the book.

Step 2: Distribute type in tidy drawers, using the invention of system for splitting a case in order to include both the Roman and Italics, which is quite handy and efficient.

Step 3: Write and set the content of the book.

Step 4: Determine a need to add some kind of tint over the text block areas of each page to set the body text apart from the gold specimens below it; decide to test how well a Canon Pixma inkject printer will print on the Zerkall Frankfurt Cream; be delighted with the results, and move ahead with adding full color, inkjet printed images throughout the book.

Step 5: Print the body text and title page, et cetera, in black and red ink with the Vandercook.

Step 6: Collate and bind the pages and insert into a cover based on the same structure designed for previous books.

Step 7: Find out the tiny pages are not heavy enough to keep themselves shut, and the cover is not heavy enough to help with that; decide to insert leftover copper from the previous book project (Hail, Holy Queen) into the covers and cut out the B shape from the flag of Birmingham to reveal the copper inside; find out the weight of the copper works perfectly with the added bonus of giving this miniature book some very welcome and unexected heft, as well as a handsome cover.

Finish project in time to pack up eight copies to take to England and sell one copy to the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.

STONES WATCH IN SILENCE

Stones Watch in Silence is a book of poems by David Steingass (Madison resident), author of Native Son at Home, the first title published by The Heavy Duty Press twenty-five years ago in 2000. This new book features eighteen stone-themed poems by David, complemented with photographs primarily by Brent Nicastro (also a Madison resident). The soft cover copies are done and currently for sale at Pearl Street Books in La Crosse. The limited edition hard cover copies are also done and ready to pick up from Grimm Book Bindery in Madison tomorrow. The goal for this month is to print the dust jackets for the hard covers and be ready to promote and sell these beautiful books properly in the next edition of The New Moon Monitor.

THANK YOU

Thank you, as always, for your interest in what I have to share, and your support of The Heavy Duty Press. Replies, comments, and purchases always welcome.

ENJOY THE FULL BUCK MOON 10 JULY 2025

This edition The New Moon Monitor was written, edited, and sent from an air conditioned room on a muggy Thursday morning in about two hours and twenty-five minutes. Please excuse typos and misspellings. Thank you.

2 May 2025, 2:42 p.m. (Friday) | 5 days past the New Flower Moon

Back in step with the stone engraving business for the next eight months. For those who are new subscribers, this is what I do to float the boat. The map above shows most of cemeteries we service (we = me + my two excellent employees, Ryan and Bren). What you’re seeing up there is primarily the driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin, with the Mississippi River on the left, and the interstate running from Madison in the lower right, northwest along the edge of the driftless region (the terrain map illustrates that pretty well) to Tomah, and then west to La Crosse. The Wisconsin River comes down from the north at the top (right of center), and then cuts straight across the state (essentially bisecting the  driftless region) towards the bottom of the map. I spent six days in a row this past week in the territory south of Madison (off the map), around Janesville and Beloit (on the Illinois border) engraving an average of fifteen final dates per day. It’s somewhat monotonous, and it can be exhausting; but it pays pretty well, and the solitary nature of the work is very meditative, especially when you have given up on the faulty radio in the van and spend all your driving time in silence. I have found I’m wired pretty well for this work.

I bought the business on the 22nd of July, 2011, so it’s been almost fourteen years. I happen to be one of those artists who has always had to earn a living doing something other than creating, and I feel pretty fortunate to have found and capitalized on this opportunity. I’ll admit it is getting old, insofar as how many times can a person get on his knees to engrave a date in a stone? And the territory which was once all fresh and new to me, providing a steady dose of dopamine every day, has become as familiar as the back of my hand. But things move pretty slowly when you’re doing this kind of work, and every once in a while you see something new, or the vibe within a cemetery strikes you in new way.

Two weeks ago, Friday 18 April, was one of those days.

Millards Prairie Cemetery. This has always been one of my favorites. I have it pinned on the map at the top of the newsletter. It’s about an hour’s drive from Viroqua (near the 3 blue flags to the southwest). I would categorize it as a mid-size rural cemetery. There is a gravel road around the perimeter, so when you drive around it all the graves are on one side of the van (driver’s side), which makes them easy to read. That’s important when you’re looking for the monument that needs engraving. As I approached the cemetery from the east two weeks ago, I noticed something was different. Along the perimeter road there has always been a perfectly spaced row of trees. A lot of them are gone. You can see in the photo above that something is missing from the left side of the cemetery gate. Something big.

That’s a little unnerving to me because the trees are part of what I like, or love about this cemetery. In the back of the cemetery there is one especially magnificent oak, and I actually found myself suddenly in a hurry to photograph it before they cut it down. Who knows how far they intend to go? I’ve come to this cemetery in the past and seen huge limbs from this tree on the ground, so yes, it’s a widow maker. But still. It has to stay. It better stay.

In photographing the tree I took a closer notice of what makes it special. The photo doesn’t do it justice, and it doesn’t help that Izzy’s in the way (but she’s there for scale)…what in the hell is going on with that ground burl? There appears to be a pefectly spherical burl growing at the root of the tree. I don’t know if that’s beautiful or grotesque but one thing it m

09 March 2025, 8:23 a.m. (Sunday) | The Nearly Full Worm Moon

And again, you may have been wondering, is Koppa going to continue with the lunar-based newsletters in 2025, or was that just a 2024 thing? More likely you weren’t wondering that at all, but either way I’m here to let you know that I do plan to continue writing these this year and this one is almost two weeks late because all available time was dedicated to creative production in preparation for the trip to England in just a little over a week.

The photo above was taken 27 February, which happened to be the day of the new Worm moon, so that’s nice and coincidental, at least. This is the wooded hillside (south facing) above the Klubhaus, which I walk in the morning with the dog (that’s my trail going between the two tree trunks) before settling down to business in the shop. On this particular morning, the vibrance of the green moss on every stone surface was unusually dazzling, giving the entire woodland floor a new texture. Tolkien-esque in my imagination. I took about a dozen pictures to capture the moment (you’re welcome), and this is best of them. But it’s not that great of a picture. It’s also not the best hill for hiking when it comes to knee fatigue, but it’s what we have and therefore I hike on it. I like to think that after five years I have  lumbered out a little more level trail than was ever there before. Life can be so full of accomplishments.

HAIL, HOLY QUEEN

It is an honour to have had a book accepted into the Ritual exhibit of artists’ books at Baylor University. The show is presented by 23 Sandy, and every book in it is listed for sale (thoroughly described w/photos) through the 23 Sandy online gallery. All of the books in this exhibition are wonderful. Just a half hour  browsing the show could only increase one’s interest in what is there for you to see and think about, but what else is happening among the book arts community at large.

ENGLAND: MARCH 2025

It is now eight days before departure for England to exhibit at the PAGES Artists’ Book Fair in Leeds, 21-22 March 2025. Also on the itinerary are visits to Birmingham, where they are commemorating the life of John Baskerville (stone engraver, typographer, printer, book maker), marking 250 years since his death in 1775; and a few days in Oxford to visit the letterpress shop at the Bodliean Library. It is a little crazy to me that this is all happening, and I am quite excited about the upcoming adventure.

After learning about the Baskerville celebration in Birmingham and Cambridge, it became rather clear that making a book featuring the Baskerville typeface should top the list of things to create if I had intentions of bringing something other than the other recently completed books to England. Kind of a long run-on sentence? Yes, my apologies. It stays. No time for thoughtful edits right now. After ordering a used fount of 30 point Roman from Michael Murphy, I was very pleased to find Ed Rayher at the Swamp Press, and that he would be willing and able to cast some fresh 8 and 10 pt Baskerville in both the Roman and Italics. All that arrived  couple weeks ago and again, just following the obvious path, it was decided that an abecedarium would be the most automatic and appropriate thing to create. I have never created one, people collect them, and how else to showcase Baskerville’s typeface and offer something Birmingham-centric to librarians and collectors of artists’ books in England in 2025? Along the way, it came to me that there is no really good reason not to employ an inkjet printer if it prints well enough on the paper, and to my great delight, images printed beautifully on the Zerkall Frankfurt Cream, and the registration was suprisingly accurate. This book piggy backs nicely on 2023’s Understanding This Book both in terms of the improvisational creative process that spawned it, the design within it, and speedy nature of it’s production. See for yourselves:

A lot of other things happened today between this morning when I started writing this and now when I need to get to bed, so I’m going to spare you any further description of what transpired over the past two weeks and just let that cascade of photographs tell the story.

22 copies of Baskerville for Brummies have been printed, and they all need to be bound before next Monday. Cover building starts tomorrow. Price to be determined. If you think you want a copy and want to reserve one before I sell them all in Leeds, you better let me know. Standing orders will of course be receiving copies of this book.

STONES WATCH

IN SILENCE

The design of David Steingass’s book of stone-themed poems is complete and proofs approved. Grimm Book Bindery in Madison is working on printing and binding 25 hard cover copies, while 250 soft cover copies will be printed by Bookmobile in St. Paul, Minnesota. This book will be accompanied by a limited edition letterpress-printed artists’ book featuring one of its poems: Stacking Dry Stone Walls. Unfortunately, none of this will be done before the trip to England, and that’s okay because it will give me something to feature next month or the month after that.

THANK YOU

The picture above was taken of that same hillside shown in the opening photo, about ten days later. We never did get a lot of snow here in Wisconsin this winter, which was disappointing for people like me, but at least we had a few chances to enjoy how quiet and beautiful the world is under a blanket of snow. It has since melted. It was 60° F here today.

Thank you, as always, for your interest in what I have to share, and your support of The Heavy Duty Press. Replies, comments always welcome.

Peace be with you. And remember that you are dust and unto dust you shall return.

Enjoy the Full worm Moon 14 march 2025

This edition The New Moon Monitor was written pretty quickly and the beginning and end of the day, with some binding work and band practice in between, taco salads for two, and the last episode of season two of Funny Woman. Please excuse typos and misspellings. Thank you.

MOTORCYCLES AND ME

I  had the most excellent motorcycle adventure of my life last week, thanks in     part to the internet making it possible for my daughter to make a Harry     Potter pen pal in Sudbury, Ontario, many years ago. This is the same     daughter who recently turned 18 and wrote For     Dust I Am. Three     days after graduating from high school (two Saturdays ago), she embarked on     a one-day, 12-hour solo road trip to Sudbury to pick up her BFF and bring     her back to Viroqua for a week. My wife and I are of the mind that when you     turn 18 you are an adult and you get to decide what you are going to do or     not do, so we had no choice but to allow it. We provided the car (2012     Subaru Impreza), she paid for the gas.

Beatrix     is pretty determined and adventurous, and while she was confident she could     make the 12-hour journey in one day, I felt some obligation to be at least     a little bit protective. I have a motorcycle and I use it to take short     trips with friends once a year, but it has been a long time since I have     taken a multi-day solo adventure, and I saw this as the opportunity to do     it. She agreed to allow me to escort her (from a distance) to the Canadian     border, and while she was visiting with the Sudburians, I would remain a     few hours away in the Algoma     District.

Because     a 12-hour day on a motorcycle is completely out of the question, my plan     included a one-day head start, leaving Memorial Day afternoon and riding up     to Lappen’s camp on the Pesthigo River, near Crivitz, Wisconsin. It was a     250-mile day on the motorcycle, in and out of unexpected rain for the last     100 miles, ending on a wet and sandy road into the woods to eat and drink     with close friends I haven’t seen in years, and sleep in a spare pop-up     camper. Stories around the fire included Mike’s connection to relatives who     survived the Peshtigo     Fire in 1871, and his most recent     assignment, as CEO of Milwaukee County Behavior Health Services: overseeing     the total closure of the Milwaukee County Asylum for the Chronic Insane.     Both topics, and especially the latter, are very intriguing as material for     a book project in the future. We talked about that possibility.

Tuesday,     Day 2

Staying     up late talking to an old friend about endlessly interesting things makes     me feel hungover the next day, and that’s not the best way to wake up on a     day that will include a 325-mile motorcycle ride. My daughter left home at     6am, and I was expected to meet her at 1pm in Escanaba, Michigan. After a     good camp breakfast of eggs, bacon, blueberries, and coffee, I started     feeling a little sharper and ready roll, but apparently not quite clear     headed enough to remember the route, because I missed a turn on the way,     and my 1.5 hour ride became a 2-hour ride. Add that Beatrix was ahead of     schedule, and needless to say she was a little short with me when we met,     and had no time for idle chit chat. I gave her a solid 5-minute head start,     as we pressed on without delay from Escanaba to Sault Sainte Marie, again     in and out of (lighter, thankfully) rain, to cross the border.

Crossing     over the Soo     Locks and St. Mary’s River into Canada is a sight to     behold, and things like incredible bridges are much more remarkable from     the seat of a motorcycle than from behind the wheel of a large automobile.     And you may ask yourself, “Well, how did I get here?” but you know full     well, because you’ve been actively engaged in riding, out in the weather     for the entire journey.

I     watched Trixie pass the customs window from a few cars behind, and as she     carried on straight east for another couple hours to Sudbury, I turned     north on Highway 17 en route to my lodging, the Sawpit Bay Resort, about an     hour further down the road. The reservation was made over the telephone a     few days earlier with a bad connection due to work on the phone lines,     according to the woman on the other end. When I asked if she needed my card     number to reserve a room, she said, “No that’s okay. Just come. There will     be a room for you.” Upon arrival, I found the place to be pretty desolate.     Almost abandoned by appearance. No cars in sight, except for the one that     might have belonged to the owner. As I approached the office, I learned by     hand-written sign in the window there was no tv, no wi-fi. When I walked     in, I learned there was also no credit card machine, and I was asked if I     could pay cash. The whole scene was a little weird for a road weary and     damp fellow nearly 600 miles from home. But when the proprietor extended     his hand and accepted my $35 cash for the room I was grateful and went to     check for bed bugs. All good. Bed felt like it would be plenty comfortable,     and cozier than the pop-up camper I slept in the night before.                        

After     unpacking my gear, I walked across the highway to take some time staring at     Lake Superior. Really nice.  Done for the day and looking forward to a     good long sleep.                       

Just     a little bit about my motorcycle. This is my third motorcycle. Each one has     been a Moto Guzzi. Guzzis are Italian motorcycles, notorious for their     transverse V-twin engines and shaft drive (like an automobile). These     motorcycles are strong like a tractor and easy to understand, which makes     them ideal for the amateur motorcyclist who wants to maintain his own     machine. Aside from the practical aspects, the aesthetics are superb to my     eye. And they’re not terribly expensive. I found this 1979 1000SP on the     internet a few years ago for $3,000, and had it shipped to Viroqua from     Baltimore, Maryland. Recognizing its age an my limited ability to fully     restore the engine, I bit the bullet and paid the pros at Retrospeed in     Belgium, Wisconsin, to fully rebuild the engine two years ago. And this is     why I am able to have the confidence to take a 45 year-old motorcycle on a     5-day, 1,500-mile adventure.

Wednesday,     Day 3

The     day I’ve been waiting for: 325 miles of remote Ontario. Sawpit Bay Resort     to Wawa, Wawa to Chapleau on Highway 101, and Chapleau to Thessalon on     Highway 129, highly regarded as the primo road to ride in the Algoma     District.                         

The     best thing about riding alone is the freedom to stop and take a break     whenever you are moved to do so. Passing a very large stone on Highway 101     between Wawa and Chapleau, for example. Aside from visiting with my old     friend, Mike, another mission invented for this adventure was to find and     capture stones in photographs for the upcoming book of stone-themed poems     by David Steingass. Every once in a while I would pass something, think     about it for a mile or so, and decide it was worth turning around and going     back.               

With     gratitude for the solitude, I took advantage of this freedom many times to     photograph stones for the book… 

…and     vistas for this newsletter. Like from this bridge over the Mississagi     River, for example: A     few thoughts on the zen of motorcycling, even though it’s all be said     before by better writers. I remember the first ride on my first motorcycle     (1972 Moto Guzzi Eldorado) in 1995. I remember being on the highway going     60 miles per hour heading west out of Milwaukee and looking down at the     pavement beneath my feet. I remember realizing that I was going very fast,     that the road was less than twelve inches below my feet, and that I was     essentially sitting on the engine that was pushing me forward. That’s a lot     to digest. And then realizing that I didn’t feel like I was in any danger.     I felt perfectly safe. As long as the machine did what it was designed to     do, and I kept my hands on the handlebars and didn’t intentionally ride off     the shoulder or into oncoming traffic, everything would be fine. That’s     actually something you think about on a motorcycle. I do, anyway. It’s     dangerous, so you have to be on your A-game.

I     still feel that way when I am riding. It’s not constant, but it’s like     this: In between long meditations about whatever happens to be on the mind     (because there is no audio input, other than the engine), every once in a     while you come back to realizing you are moving very rapidly through space,     and you think about how the spark plugs are firing and alternately pushing     the pistons in the cylinders down to drive the cam which transfers directly     to the rear wheel, about how many miniature explosions are happening     between your legs, and how gravity and the gyroscopic potential of a     2-wheeled vehicle allows you to travel gracefully over the tarmack. On this     particular trip it went a step further for me. Maybe it was the duration of     the meditation, but I began to think about how grateful I was for the     opportunity to experience what I was experiencing. This turned into     gratitude for everyone who helped make it possible. That goes for the     obvious family support, but further to every single person who has helped     me do anything at all up to this point in my life. Everyone who has     influenced the way I think. Maybe even everyone I’ve ever met. As in, the     act of doing this is the result of every single thing that has come before     it. And furthermore, gratitude for the civil engineers who made these     incredible roads and bridges, gratitude for the designers and builders of     my motorcycle in 1979, gratitude for the people who made the tires on my     motorcycle, the person who figured out how to wire the electricity,     gratitude for the people at Aerostitch in Duluth for making a riding suit     that makes me feel safe, gratitude for the internet for helping me plan my     adventure, gratitude for all the people who are working while I am riding:     the people who are working at the gas stations, at the oil refineries (and     thoughts about how this adventure requires the burning of fossil fuels that     are contributing to the climate crisis), the people working at the border     crossing, at the restaurants, the motels…everyone, everything. Absolute and     complete gratitude.             

All     in all, between my departure from Wawa and arrival in Thessalon six hours     later, I honestly saw no more than a dozen other vehicles on the highway,     and two moose. I have never before enjoyed so many uninterrupted minutes of     riding through such beautiful, seemingly untouched land, and my arrival at     the Carolyn Beach Inn on Lake Huron iced the cake: Pakistani owners, an     attached restaurant with Indian dishes on the menu and samosas for an     appetizer, delightful conversation with my server, and an elegantly simple     room with a view of the lake. What an incredibly fortunate day. All I can     say is thank you. Yes, even you   

The     adventure continued on day four with a ride to Marquette, Michigan, taking     a detour through Tahquamenon Falls State Park, and concluding with a visit     to St Peter’s Cathedral,  paying respects to the Venerable Bishop Frederic Baraga.     The fifth, and longest day, included a stop at UW-Stevens Point to talk     with Brad Casselberry about the possibility of adding books by The     Heavy Duty Press to the William C. Bunce Artists’ Books Archive. We     had a nice visit and now there is a stronger possibility they will buy some     books from me in the future. That’s great news and more reason for     gratitude.

There     is no great pleasure in riding a motorcycle on the interstate, as     remarkable as the interstate system may be, and that happened to be long     stretch in the middle of day five. Also not much pleasure between Stevens     Point and Tomah (via Wisconsin Rapids), but the last stretch from Wilton     through the Kickapoo Valley was pure pleasure and a wonderful final hour     before arriving safely home at 7pm Friday evening. 

Credit to The New Moon Monitor, July 2024

heavydutypress.com

Moments of Hope: A Photo Gallery of Our TRIP

There has always been something burrowing under the   Klubhaus for as long as I can remember. I have always assumed it was a   groundhog, or groundhogs, until it or they left and the rabbits   took it over until springtime. A few years ago, I took the time to add   treated plywood to the foundation, extending as much as 18” below a packed   gravel perimeter about 2’ wide. The hole reappeared last year, I ignored it,   and this year there have been groundhog sightings almost every time I go out   there. Groundhogs can be problematic to a wooden foundation, and I don’t want   them gnawing at the insulated base the Klubhaus sits upon, so I decided to   borrow a live trap to catch and release however many of them are living on   the property.

I set the first trap yesterday morning, with cantaloupe   as bait (recommended by the lender), and picked up a second trap from the   rental department at the hardware store in the afternoon before going back   out to check on the first one. Sure enough, trap tripped. It was fairly small   for a groundhog, as far as I could tell, so I think it was a pup. I’ve read   that before the babies are born, the male leaves the den and the mama   groundhog raises a litter of 3-5 pups in it. Took the trap to the van and   hauled it about 5 miles north and on the other side of the West Fork of the   Kickapoo River to let it go. When I went back to Holy Hollow, I set both   traps for the night to see if I could catch some more.

When I arrived this morning, I was happy to see one of   the traps tripped, but less happy when I found it was not a groundhog, but a   skunk. And so began an entire morning blown trying to figure out what to do   when you trap a live skunk.

It’s the 21st century so I started texting friends.   Almost everyone I asked gave the same advice: cover the trap with a blanket.   Apparently, skunks become pretty deactivated in the dark, and the blanket not   only subdues them, but protects you somewhat if it decides to spray. I did   not have a blanket, but plenty of sheets of black plastic, and that did the   job.

Once the cage was propped open, we waited patiently. No movement inside the cage as far as anyone could tell. It seemed like the skunk was just going to sit in there huddled up in the corner until  we were gone. The black sheet over the cage made it impossible to see inside it, and neither of the gunmen wanted to shoot unless they knew it would be a clean shot at the heart. We didn’t want to take a chance of it soaking the Klubhaus with its spray. After about twenty minutes of

 waiting patiently, and me agitating the cage with a pole to coax it out, Glenn had to leave. 

Shortly after he left, Terry and I got a little tired of waiting, and I suggested maybe my Bluetooth speaker near the cage would make him want to leave. It worked. Not more than 30 seconds of Henry Mancini and the USC Marching Band (I think) playing The Theme from “Rocky”  and he decided make a lope for it. While the whole scene was slightly amusing, Terry gained his composure and kept a bead drawn on it as it went directly for the hole, just as Glenn had supposed it might. Next thing I know Terry, with composure and the gun aimed right at it, is in a  backpedal as the skunk is moving towards him. I, of course, moved further away and sorry but this was no time for photographs. Gratefully, it turned away from Terry towards the west and lumbered its way to the  path into the woods. It looked big, but never stopped long enough for Terry to get a good shot at it. Game over.

Skunk on the run.

I I set three traps before leaving, this time thinking about placement, as in  having a clean shot at another (or the same) skunk if necessary: away   from the building with no obstructing vegetation. If rodents are anything like my dog, they can smell that cantaloupe from 20’ away, and they’ll go get it no matter where it is.

And that’s the end of the story, for now. As soon as I drop the photos in this   newsletter, I’m heading back out there to check the traps. Maybe I’ll let you know how it ends, if it ends, if I don’t have anything more interesting to report next month. 

Credit to The New Moon Monitor, July 2024

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