The masthead says it all: books, illustrations, science, history, visual materia obscura, eclectic book art. — Drawn

Another super link from Drawn (it’s a great site, what can I say?): BibliOdyssey — curious vintage and antique images culled from digital book exhibits across the web.

There are some great comments at Drawn about ballpoint pen techniques in response to DQ, a collaborative sketchbook. On the subject of humble materials, there is also The Pencil Revolution. Of course, it quickly becomes apparent that finicky people (and I include myself in that group) can be finicky about anything. Even a wooden pencil.

“Don’t bother, it’s just a little thing!” … “It’s not worth the time, no one bothers with that.” In that case, you must spend the time! … if no one else bothers with it, you probably just found your competitive edge! —Don Schenck, Signal vs. Noise

A xylothek is generally speaking a collection of simple pieces of wood specimens placed together in some kind of cupboard. In a refined form it is in the shape of “books” where you can find details from the tree inside, everything arranged as a “library”. This latter form flourished in Germany around 1790-1810. Four different manufacturers existed and three of them offered their products for sale…Each “book” describes a certain tree species and is made out of the actual wood (the “covers”). The spine is covered by the bark, where mosses and lichens from the same tree are arranged. “Books” of shrubs are covered with mosses with split branches on both covers and spines. —The Wooden Library in Alnarp

Large photos of the Alnarp collection of Xylotheks can be seen at The Wooden Library in Alnarp website. Wonderful stuff!

Damn. As I write this, our roof is being removed by the shovelful. The raining debris and house-shaking noise evokes the excitement/terror of a natural disaster — I don’t know whether to weep or yell, yee-haw! (I’m inclined toward the latter.) The crew seems to be a conscientious bunch. They thoughfully moved items they knew would be in the way (a task that was our responsibility), though the hedge which flanks our house has been dinged by falling debris (that debris is now being redirected). It turns out that we have 4 layers on our roof. 4. That means that the weight of the debris is 30% more than anticipated. No small thing. Oh, and by the way:

Re-Roofing - FHA will accept a maximum of 3 layers of existing roofing. If more than 2 layers exist and repair is necessary, then all old roofing must be removed as part of the re-roofing. (4905.1 REV-1, 2-12)

http://www.hud.gov/offices/hsg/sfh/ref/sfhp1-24.cfm

I’m sure more house secrets will be revealed as the work progresses.

I made this little quicktime movie of some of the debris falling action. I apologize that, without thinking, I shot it at a 90 degree angle and I don’t think one can rotate movie clips (at least not in my software). Ah, well — it just adds to the the tension.

Butchie had an unpleasant trip to the vet on Friday and has spent the last couple of days recuperating. The experience put me a bit on edge as vet stuff in general still reminds me of Bongo’s last days. I’ll be able to relax once Butchie seems to be back to her old self. She has strange shaved and bruised patches all over and, for a while, the subcutaneous hydration caused one of her front paws to swell to twice its normal size. It looked like she was wearing a catcher’s mitt — comical in retrospect. After two days of rest she is still walking a little strangely, but seems to be making steady progress. She underwent a battery of procedures and tests — teeth cleaning, blood tests, x-rays, etc. — that required the use of general and local anesthesia in addition to pain medication afterward. All were administered in the name of setting a baseline for her entry into her senior years. The x-ray revealed a bit of arthritis in her spine near her tail, so we now know to keep an eye out for any behavior that might suggest she is in pain. We have arthritis medicine that we are holding in reserve until it seems necessary — her other health concern is liver-related, so we don’t want to overdo the administration of any medicine that might tax her liver. The vet diagnosed her simply as “old cat”, so that was a relief after her sister’s bizarre problems. I can’t help feeling a little over-protective of Butch, now.

I have had one minor issue with the roofing company, so far. Our house color consultant required shingle samples so we could look at the different color choices in our particular exterior environment. When I requested samples from the roofers, I got the sense that my request was highly unusual, above and beyond. Not only would they not supply samples, but they didn’t even suggest that such a thing was a possibility. I was told again about their display out in Gresham, which I had already seen — it was helpful at the time, but their open parking lot did not exactly mimic the more sylvan setting of our house. I called Mary McMurray, the color consultant, in a panic and she suggested some roofing supply places that I could check out. I did some running around and gathered shingle swatches from a couple places and found that there are whole sample boards put together by the roofing company for precisely this purpose — ABC Supply happily handed over numerous sample boards (even though they were running low) and Dealers Supply handed over whole shingles as if it was the most usual thing in the world. Needless to say, I’m a little annoyed by our roofers. I completely intend on telling them that this is a need they need to accommodate in some way, but I’ll save that for the end-of-project evaluation. Maybe their usual customers don’t request this? Hm hm hm.