Excavator

I have returned to civilization! I spent about half a week at my grandparents’, which I class as a writing retreat, because there’s absolutely nothing to do in their house, above and beyond the lack of internet. Grocery shopping every few days is a grand adventure. But it did mean I finished the discovery draft of book 3!

I also got to get my archaeologist on peering at a historic railroad trestle, and also this little guy came to visit one day:

That’s him at rest, after pulling up a tree and clearing away brush from one they chainsawed down.

Then he trundled off into the woods. The funny thing was, we didn’t see him come out again that night, so it rather seemed like he’d snuck off to play by himself. When we went walking along the road the next morning, we heard him beeping around backing up in the trees, and then arranging his new log friends in rows.

We also went to the Weird Thrift Store, which is run by one guy who puts all the stuff out onto shelves in only vague groupings and then you take it up to the counter and he makes up prices on the spur of the moment. Since I was last there, he’d converted his back room into store space.

He’s also apparently given up entirely on hangers, because the Scary Clothes Dungeon had been created. You had to cross into the new room from a doorway in a back corner, down a ramp into chilly area that seemed poorly-lit in comparison to where you entered. The clothes were all piled up on tables around the room. They were all very clean, and good-quality, the guy just hadn’t apparently bothered to hang them. The lights were a little better at the back, but the first impression was hilarious.