10/22-24/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

Another gorgeous drive over the mountains. The high country was a little past its prime, but everywhere else the foliage was beautiful. I arrived at 12:15 and drove the pickup up to the building. After I had lunch, Earl came by and we chatted for a while. He was going to climb Dirtyface Mountain and wanted to know if I wanted to go along. I told him thanks but I wanted to get as much chinking done as I could before it freezes. When he left, I went up and unloaded 4 sacks of mortar I had brought, and then I backed the pickup back down to the trailer.

I chinked two seams before I quit for the night. The jays were getting peanuts from me the whole time. If I ignored them, they would land on my arms as I was troweling the mortar. When they did that, I would get the hint and get a few peanuts out.

On Wednesday morning, the temperature was right at 32 degrees but I didn't see any signs of frost on the ground. But, it's getting close. I chinked another one and a half seams and that completed all the wall I could reach from this scaffold position. Since I was done working with mortar for a while, I figured it was time to clean out the trailer. There was so much dust in there that I noticed it at night when I breathed. I turned a flashlight on when I was in bed and I could see the clouds of dust in the flashlight beam. I swept the trailer out and took all the carpets outside and beat them until no more dust came out of them. That should help.

I cleaned the log wall that I could reach from the scaffold by using a trowel, a stiff mason's brush, and a whisk broom. The mason's brush worked great for getting all the mortar dust off the logs. Where a spot was particularly tight, I would use the trowel which I held in my other hand. Then after I had brushed it clean, I used the whisk broom to get all the dust off. The wall looks really neat and clean after that. Then, I installed three plugs in the scaffold bolt holes from the previous scaffold position. I think there is no more reason I have to reach that part of the wall now, so the scaffold can come down for the winter. I decided the weather would be too cold to chink from now on, so the rest of it will have to wait until spring.

On Thursday morning, it was 26 degrees out. The hose going up to the building was frozen solid. I took the nozzle off so that when the hose thawed out, the water would drain. Then I began winterizing the trailer. There was no extra water in the water tank, so there evidently is not another connection to it from the plumbing. My method of completely disconnecting the plumbing from the tank during the summer, and then reconnecting just to winterize is very awkward. If only I could find a valve that would not leak under the 15 lbs. of pressure I have I could make the process a lot more convenient. But finding such a valve, and proving that it doesn't leak, is more of a nuisance than I want to mess with. While I am winterizing, I think it would be worth the trouble, but after winterizing is done, the priority plummets. Maybe next summer I will work on it.

I also need a better wiring plan. To provide the 12-volt power to the water pump, I open the hood of the pickup, hook the jumper cables on to the battery, unroll a bunch of wire and hook one end of each wire to the jumper cables, drag one of the wires into the trailer and connect it to a pigtail I hooked to the 12-volt lug in the power panel, and then shut the end of the other wire in the metal screen door to ground it to the frame of the trailer. I have to pay attention to polarity so the pump will run the right direction, and I test the circuit by turning on one of the 12-volt lights in the trailer. It would be nice to have a simpler power hookup, but it's the same deal. While I'm winterizing, I swear I am going to rig up something more workable, but between winterizings, the priority drops below the threshold and doesn't get done. Oh well.

I put the 3.3 sacks of mortar that I have left in a big garbage bag to keep out the moisture. I hope that will keep it soft and usable over the winter. Next, I measured the spacing between all the porch joists so I can come up with a plan for using the old scaffold planks for decking, and to determine the lengths to cut new planks from the big Doug Fir log up by the drainfield. Ripping that log into planks will be one of the first jobs I tackle now that I can no longer chink.

I took all my bedding home to wash the dust out of it, and I took the propane tanks home to refill them. I left for home at 1:45.