I need to make sure I track the days properly. I lost track of time during the war more times than I can remember. Time disappears when something important comes along, I find, and what an example this has turned out to be. It’s good that only two days have passed or I might have missed one. Since the spring came I’ve been, with little exception, traveling on horseback and borrowed time, but now the days have the opposite effect: I feel the overwhelming need to make each one count.

There are very few days of the last eight months I can remember in anything more than brief flashes, and not for lack of trying. Even now I have to flip back to April to find anything from then, and even then the memories are hazy and dull. Still, I look back at that feeling of freedom from time with a strange fondness; I don’t know why. I was miserable. I was alone. When I took my infrequent moments of lucidity, they were nothing more than magnified pain. It doesn’t make sense to miss it. Yet, I do.

Snow will come soon. I can feel the cold in the air and I increasingly cling to my furs as I chop. I love winter, in all its peaceful greyness, but this is a cold I am yet unaccustomed to. I’ll get used to it. I hope I’ve gotten a roof up before the first snow falls, or this work of mine is going to become something of a chore.

I’ve doubled my stone-gathering efforts and constructed a semi-reasonable foundation! Amazing what a whole army at one's back can do for his productivity. I lay elated and tired in my tent now, having finished the better part of a turkey in stew form. I can hear the dog cracking open the bones outside. He’s quite the hunter, this dog; he seems to understand English better than most of my fellow Frenchman. I still haven’t thought of a name for him. I don’t suppose he minds. The way he understands me, I’m half expecting him to up and tell me his name himself. Would I be shocked?