Took these photos just before leaving the shop tonight, ahead of the second wave of snow. Yesterday's drifts had melted in town by midafternoon, but I still needed to turn the hubs and make my way back to the Old Same Place in 4-wheel-drive. Brought home hay, finally, for the hungry llamas. They galloped down off the hillside in the dark to chow down. They were down to a heap of crumbs early this morning when I took down the teakettles of hot water to their frozen trough and gave them their oat ration. Running all the necessary errands and keeping the shop open and getting home to the animals before late is a challenge. Plus, if there's any chance of precip, anything I have to haul—books, say—won't get hauled if I have to get out in 4WD, because I have no cover for the pickup bed. Tomorrow, though, I'll fetch more big heavy-duty garbage bags. I can seal book boxes up in the bags and haul them that way.

I was remarking to a friend yesterday that I haven't had a lot to say here since turning capitalist. He allowed as how he'd noticed. Really, though, the problem is mostly coordinating computers. Now that I have the new operating system on the big blogging computer, I imagine I'll schlep it back to the shop the first sunny day and set it up again as a server. The crippling exhaustion of the month past finally has been displaced by garden-variety tiredness, and not too much of that.

Today was a great day in the store. It seems the first wave of customers, in the earliest weeks I was open, were folks used to libraries, thrift stores, yard sales, and free boxes, and the prices scared them off. The next wave was the urbanized younger folks, Barnes & Noble-ites who smirked a lot at my miniscule inventory. Now, though, I've been discovered by the book people. I was so heartened today. One person after another opened that door and exclaimed: "At last! A bookstore!"; "How long has this been here?!" "Wow!" and one woman, leaving: "Please, please don't go away!" A businessman told me I was doing everything just right! And I sold lots of books.

And I'm feeling pretty good about that.

In other news: yesterday I signed rental papers for a house in town. We move January 1, I don't know how we're gonna do it in the snow, but it will happen, AND the owner says she'll consider holding the paper if I come up with a down payment before someone else buys the place. Great big hooray. Photos of the new place to come. Love.
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