For the past three weeks I’ve been building a library. I don’t mean gathering books, I mean building book cases. It’s a bigger job than I anticipated. I’m filling a large room with floor-to-ceiling book cases. Nine, to be exact. For all my adult life, I’ve longed to have a library of my own. As I am now constructing it, and having all kinds of problems with leveling and anchoring and trimming and wiring, it occurs to me that this is an extraordinary effort for the simplest of aims—seeking a place to put books.

But, of course, a library is more than the books themselves. It’s an idea, a symbol, a hallowed place. A personal library is a luxury, within reach of us common folk only for the last hundred years. We amateur librarians strive to replicate the luxurious surroundings of the original private libraries—those dark wood-paneled sanctums of the rich—because these surroundings seem to do justice to our passion for reading and collecting. When I walk into a library, I want to feel that I’m in a special place. Which is why I’m a fan of old libraries and dismayed by the architecture of new ones. If you want to see an awesome old library in Baltimore, visit the Peabody Library. OMG.

The books in my library are a rag-tag collection. I like old paperbacks as much as old leather-bounds. By the way, you should know that older books were printed with paper covers, which the owners would have bound in leather or cloth. Books didn’t come bound until the mid-nineteenth century. I have a John Dryden play in pre-bound condition. Not that I like Dryden, but I couldn’t pass up a bargain. Which is why I try to stay away from book auctions. The last auction I attended, I came away with two boxes of nineteenth century French texts that I have no use for.

Mostly I collect dictionaries and encyclopedias and other old reference. No books better reflect the changing times. I have nineteenth century science books whose authors assert that the discovery of dinosaur bones—then called “ante-diluvium remains”–was nothing less than the discovery biblical “monsters” destroyed by the Flood and no more than 3-4,000 years old. I have geography books that call all land west of Ohio “Indian Territory.” I have an early edition of Samuel Johnson’s two-volume dictionary. And an old Webster’s (the size of an ottoman) before they started putting in illustrations. I love book illustrations—I scan them and have hundreds in my archive. The earliest illustrations in books (pre 1830s) were hand-tinted. Here’s a hand-tinted illustration from an 1813 text for the amateur zoologist.

Years ago, when I thought I wanted an unencumbered life, I got rid of my books—everything except my dictionary–and resolved to visit the local library for all my reading needs. But, within a year, I had started buying books. A book is a beautiful thing. And I want lots of them, I decided. More than that, they make me feel well-contained, taken care of, self-sufficient. They are like first-aid kits or filled canteens. As a result, to stand in my own library, engulfed by the lovely smell of decaying paper, I feel bunkered against the depredations of the world.

Even though it’s becoming increasingly easy to access information online, including old books that have been scanned, no source of information can make the private library obsolete because no source is complete. For example, one of my earliest encyclopedias—called the Penny Cyclopedia—was the edition used by Herman Melville to write the “whaling chapters” of Moby Dick.. I’m not going to find a copy of that anywhere but the Library of Congress. And I’m not going to drive to Washington, D.C., just so I can browse through the Penny Cyclopedia’s 35 volumes. Browsing is what I do in my library. When I find myself browsing, I feel guilty because it’s to no useful end. It’s simply an indulgence. But that’s precisely the point of a library and why it must look and feel so special: it has always been a quiet place that belies the passage of time so that you will take the time to indulge yourself.

The book cases I’m building have many old glass doors I’ve salvaged from architectural warehouses and special cabinets for special books, like my collection of miniatures. I’ve also found two nineteenth century plaster sculptures that seem made for a library. It took some time to figure how to incorporate these into the scheme but I think they will look splendid. The book case trim is mahogany, a load of which I got at an auction. There will also be a ladder to reach the higher shelves. Just yesterday the brass rail arrived for the ladder, which I have yet to build. I’d like to think that within another three weeks, this will be done. In the meantime, my books are stacked under sheets throughout the third floor and I miss their solemn, odorous company.

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Lou, our frog, died this week. He grew to maturity just this summer and should have lived for a few years. We’re upset about it. Since putting in our pond four yeas ago, we’ve bought at least 60 tadpoles, in batches of 15 each season. The first two seasons, we made the mistake of raising bullfrogs, which overran the pond that second summer—they were leaping all over the yard and eating anything they could get into their formidable mouths. We vacated them to a nearby lake, then brought in Green frog tadpoles, a more civil breed. (You’ve got to start them as tads; otherwise, they won’t stay put.) Lou was the only Green to survive this last hard winter. We were proud of him. Actually, we thought he was a she and named him Lucy until, come June, he started croaking for a mate.

A green frog’s croak is more like a ram’s bleat. Or, actually, very much the sound you get from one of those old children’s toys you turn upside down and it makes a cow’s low. The croak of a Green Frog is loud enough to get your attention but not so loud that it disturbs neighbors. As summer wore on and Lou hunkered on his rock, bleating for a mate, we began to worry about him. It must have been lonely in that little pond.

The only company Lou had were two tiny leopard frogs, which he apparently ate. That’s one of the complications of introducing tadpoles into your pond—you’ve got to coordinate the growth cycles. Tadpoles are hardy but unpredictable. Sometimes the fish get them. Sometimes they seem to simply disappear. We’re hoping the little leopards got away; they’ll live outside the pond. But it’s hard to tell at this point.

The only frog visible now is a small Green, which we call Lou, Jr.. During Lou’s last week, it emerged from the pond and sat boldly near him. It seemed to unsettle Lou. When Lou disappeared, Jill speculated that the little Green had freaked him out. Several days went by. We missed Lou’s now-familiar bleating. There was something comforting in knowing that a semi-sentient being was camped out in the back yard, staking his claim and seeking a mate.

Then, two days ago, Jill found Lou’s dried, blackened body in the weeds near the water filter, just a foot from the pond. I figured he went into hiding when he got ill. A predator would have carried him off. Jill can’t stop shaking her head in dismay. What happened? Lou was doing so well. She’s read of the deadly chytrid fungus that’s taking out frogs all over the world. But his remains showed no signs of the fungus.

I’ve always loved frogs and their amazing architecture. My brothers and I never kept them as pets because frogs are infinitely more interesting in the wild, toeing their way through the mossy undergrowth. Once you put a frog in a jar, what do you have? We did handle our share of toads and frogs, however. My favorites were no bigger than a dime. These invariably peed in the palms of my hands. By the way, the rib-bit! call you hear from frogs in old Hollywood movies belongs to the Pacific Chorus frog. It’s a sound you won’t hear anywhere but in coastal California.

Some years ago, when I was hiking in California’s Sierras, I ran out of water and the only source I could find was a clear alpine lake full of dead frogs. I was above the tree line and autumn had begun. Apparently the night’s freeze had killed the frogs. But there were so many of them! Bloated and floating belly-up. I filled my canteen with lake water, then dropped in several iodine tablets. It was the worst tasting water, but only because of the iodine, which probably wasn’t necessary.

It will take a while for Jill and me to get over Lou’s death. The summer seemed so promising for him and we were sure a mate would emerge from the few remaining tadpoles. Jill has ordered yet another batch. Every day we find ourselves pausing at random during household chores and exchanging a look of regret, both of us lamenting, “Poor Lou!”

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Jill and I took the dogs berry picking. The dogs don’t pick berries, but they like to be with. Thanks to a wet, cool summer in Baltimore, the black berries and raspberries have done well. Every year we go to the same place, ten miles north of the city—a county park so remote, it’s not even marked. If you don’t know which dirt road to turn down, off a winding two-lane blacktop, you’ll never find it. We seldom see others at this park. Its paths run adjacent to corn fields, then wend into hilly woods and settle down to the Jones Falls river, which isn’t much of a river this far north.

Inevitably the dogs get muddy. Frieda is a fan of wallowing. She’s also fearless about water and will jump into any pond, puddle or pool. We forgot to bring buckets for the berries – you really need plastic buckets – so we used plastic sandwich bags instead. Plastic bags always leak. Towering blackberry and raspberry bushes grow in the sunny weedy margins of the corn fields. Best way to pick berries is to wear hiking books and trample the bushes as you go. Mind you, they can take. They are weeds in the best sense—hardy, rampant, irrepressible. To stand among berry bushes in the fly-droning midday heat, surrounded by more fruit than a day’s picking will allow, fingers stained with sweet berry juice, an atheist might contemplate the existence a God.

No matter how hot the summer, it’s never too hot for a berry pie.  A few tips on pie-making: corn starch is the key to keeping the filling solid. Heat your berry mixture in a pot, with a quarter cup of apple juice, then sift in corn starch until the goop stiffens (keep stirring). Add a few tablespoons of maple syrup and a few of lemon juice, some lemon zest (peel), a dash of cinnamon, and — if you’re feeling evil — brown sugar.  Pre-bake the bottom crust for about ten minutes (keeps it firm).  Then assemble your pie. Bake at 350 until the top crust is browning.  Always put foil below the pan because berry pies bubble over.

We made several pies, surprised by the bounty we gathered. Every year, after a successful berry run, Jill and I promise ourselves that we’ll return for a second picking—all that goodness for the taking and free. Come autumn and the first frost, we’ll recall the sun-burned, thorny fun of berry picking and shake our heads in dismay because, as usual, we never did get back and now it’s too late and late summer is a long way off.

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At three this morning, as I was readying for bed – flossing my teeth – I noticed Sophie, our tabby, had joined me on the third floor, which isn’t unusual, except she was looking too alert for the hour. I’ve seen this look before. It means something’s up. In this case, “up” was literal, for no sooner had I hatched my suspicion than Sophie flinched, her eyes widening, and we both ducked as a bat swooped down the hall. Immediately my mind screamed Bat! There’s something about a bat’s silent herky-jerky flight that thoroughly creeps me out. I love the little things but, my god, what miniature monsters.

Chills spilling down my back, I ran for the windows to open them to the welcoming night. But our bobbing, swooping little friend couldn’t find his way and, instead, dove into the upper shelf of a bookcase, where he began to scratch around, much to Sophie’s great interest. I suspected that this was a “little brown bat” (myotis lucifugus), though he didn’t look so little in flight. I gathered up Sophie, closed the library doors behind us, and went looking for some leather gloves. We’ve had plenty of visiting bats in our old house. But I’ve never had to handle one. My mind kept yelling Bat!

Mind you, I’m neither strong nor brave but necessity sometimes compels me to do things I thought I could never do, like the time I had to dig out a rat’s nest (full of rats) from our back yard. You can hire people (at great expense) to do such things for you but, at three in the morning with a bat scratching around behind your books, who you gonna call? So, yes, I fetched some leather gloves and a ladder. Five minutes later, in the closed up library, I was gingerly lifting books from the bat’s shelf and talking to him in my most reasonable voice: “Come on now, I don’t want to see you up close any more than you want to see me. Let me remind you that the windows are wide open . . . .”

A small bat, I have learned, can eat as many as 1,200 mosquitoes an hour. This is a comforting thought nowadays since mosquito-borne West Nile virus has made inroads to temperate zones like Baltimore. Bats themselves are not susceptible to the virus. Remember too: some insects can hear a bat’s approach from 100 feet away. This means that the mere presence of bats sends the peskiest bugs packing. Oh, and the rabies thing? Ninety percent (90%) of all rabies cases are caused by dogs. Only one species of bat gets rabies. And that species isn’t anywhere near your house.

With every book I removed, I took a deep breath. It’s not that I feared the bat. I feared what might become of him. I didn’t want to hurt him and I hoped he wasn’t hurt already. Okay, I did fear looking him in the face. Bat! I didn’t want to look him in the face. And I didn’t want to hold him in my hand, gloved or otherwise. Bat! Laddered and nearly breathless at the bat shelf, I gingerly removed my three-volume facsimile edition of the 1771  Encyclopedia Britannica (which was originally called the Edinburgh Encyclopedia), then my collection of vintage Babar books, then my Time/Life “History of Man” series, which I got at a flea market for $5. Then I lifted a volume of Metropolitan [Museum of Art] Miniatures and that did it: I heard the rapsy rattle of a dry leaf in the wind. And there he was, the bat in all his batty gruesomeness, grimacing toothily and scrambling in his batty hunker. Suddenly, he was in flight. Bat!

I clambered down the ladder and saw that Sophie had sneaked back into the library. I clutched her and sat, hunched, on the floor as the bat circled again and again. “Come on, you can do it,” I coached. “Window’s right there.”

But he didn’t do it. Instead, he abruptly latched onto the wood molding near the ceiling. The molding was precisely the same color as he—dark brown. He hung upside down in that classic topsy-turvy bat manner. And I could see that he was withdrawn into himself, his face covered, his wings tight against his furry body to make himself as small as possible. He was in hiding. This was the best he could do, poor thing.

I went looking for a hand towel. If he would stay put, I might be able to swaddle him in a towel and toss him to his freedom. A few years back I erected a bat house on our roof. It’s like a bird house but specially built for bats. Apparently the roof is just too high for the bats. None came. They prefer 15-20 feet from the ground, not 40-50. Jill and I have been talking about erecting a bat house in the back yard—on a tall pole. Bats need places to sleep.

A towel in my gloved hand and standing four rungs up on my ladder, I reached out to my visitor. He lay very still, clinging to the molding high on the wall. He probably had no idea I was closing in. I hesitated. I didn’t want to hurt him. But I’ve captured birds this way. I moved closer, dreading his sudden escape and the prospect of my chasing him all over the house for hours. I lunged and grabbed gently and got him, a hot handful. He chittered a trilling twitter of alarm. Then I released him out the nearest window. And he winged away. “Don’t fly over here!” I cautioned, racing to shut the windows.

Downstairs I found the front door wide open. That’s how he got in. It’s a big door, eight feet tall. Why wouldn’t a bat enter what seems like a warm cave? The bat episode ended, it took me a while to cool down. Everywhere I looked, I thought a saw the velvety dervish of another bat, flitting from the shadows. And even now, in the glare of morning, I can’t help anticipating surprising guests and scaring myself with visions of little things that aren’t there.

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