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Treehouse Chronicles, our book about the building of an enormous timberframe treehouse in the Maine woods, has been named as finalist for a Nautilus Book Award in the catagory of Art/Specialty/Gift. If the book wins, this will be its 9th national book award (see the awards page).
According to the award’s sponsor, Marilyn McGuire & Associates, Inc., The Nautilus Awards are give to those books that ”contribute to our society’s awareness and well-being, and that embrace spiritual and ecological values such as compassion, sustainability, simplicity, and global peace.”
We are honored to be named finalists for this award and hope that the publicity that comes with the award will help the book’s sales. Although widely and critically acclaimed, sales of Treehouse Chronicles have been poor. It’s very hard for a tiny publishing company such as ours (TMC Books) to compete with the publishing juggernauts.
You can find out much more about the book–and how to buy it–by traveling around this blog, or visiting our web site, TMC Books, or by going to Amazon.com. Thank you for visiting.
April 13, 2007, finds us waiting for spring. We’ve already broken the all-time record for snowfall in April (we’ve had 29 inches at the treehouse since 4/1) and a huge storm is predicted for early next week. I’m sick of it. I want to hear birds and mow grass and work out in the yard. I want my wife to point and say “Right there,” so I can plunge a shovel into the ground and make a home for new flowers. I’m sick of shovelling slush. I’m sick of staring out at the treehouse and not gathering up enough energy to slog out through the snow to see how it’s holding up through the spring snows.
I went up a few weeks ago and found an ominous puddle of black goo on the second floor. My first thougth was that the roof was leaking. But wait: BLACK GOO? So I pounded on the ceiling from whence the goo dripped and there came an immediate and frantic rustling and chattering. Vinny, rogue squirrel was alive and well…and procreating. And his furry little offspring had been crapping and peeing in the same spot (obviously for some time) and the stuff had begun to leak out. Yuck.
Vinny, thug squirrel.
I just don’t know what to do about Vinny. We’ve had this love-hate thing going on now for almost five years. I invade his territory (by putting a cute little house up in his forest canopy), and he moves in and begins chewing on woodwork (and peeing through the ceiling). Some days (okay, most days), I want to kill Vinny. But he’s from the Old Country and he has ties to the rodent mob. I’m afraid if I bump him off that I will find a decapitated horse head in my bed (remember the scene in the Godfather?). So I let him chew (and crap) on. But now things have gotten truly foul.
Maybe the Nor’easter that’s planned for next week will blow the treehouse over and take Vinny (and his kin) with it.
