12/3-5/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 11:50. It was 32 degrees and foggy. Things looked strange because there were no leaves on the trees and no snow on the ground. The first snow usually comes before the leaves have fallen so I have never seen things look this way. This being an El Nino year, I suppose we won't get much snow at all. That will make my work a little easier, but I will miss the deep snow.

After moving in and having lunch, I finished ripping the plank that was nearly done. I skidded the plank down to the gwiz station and then rolled the log over to work on the other slab. I scribed and cut the slab, skidded it down to the gwiz station, and rigged up the strings to scribe the next plank. I scraped the log for one scribe line with the floor scraper, but it got too dark to draw the line.

On Wednesday morning it snowed a little. I hadn't checked the hose line since the leaves had fallen and I need to do it before the snow gets very deep. So after breakfast I cleared the hose line. I have to remove any branches that have fallen across the hose because if I don't, the accumulated weight of the snow on the branch will push it down and it will pinch off the hose. If the water flow stops, the hose will freeze and I will not have a handy water supply. While I was at it, I also cleared all the fallen leaves out of the spring area.

Then I scribed the log for the final cut and it was time for lunch. The snow stopped around noon and the temperature went up to 33 degrees so the half inch of snow on the ground started melting. My shoulder was hurting pretty bad so the week I took off was not quite enough to heal it. I try not to stress it too much while I am working.

After lunch I ripped the final cut and got two planks as a result. I was happy with the cuts. Mother Sow started and ran pretty well. To help save my shoulder, I pull the starter cord with my left hand. Pulling that cord seems to aggravate my shoulder more than anything else.

I skidded both planks down to the gwiz station which was starting to get pretty crowded. Next, I bucked another 10' 2" log and dragged it up onto the rip rack using a steel bar, chains, and a come-along. By then it was too dark to work.

On Thursday morning, two jays visited me. I hadn't seen any for quite a while so I was happy to see them. One of them was Scruffy and when he sat on my hand, I noticed he was only using one foot. He had the other one tucked up to his tummy. He did put it down a couple times so I could see that it was still there, but it had some lumps on a couple knuckles so it evidently got injured somehow. Poor little guy.

Since it was getting so crowded at the gwizzing station, I gwizzed three planks and one slab and moved them out of the way. I gwizzed the planks on only one side but I gwizzed the slab on both sides. It was fun gwizzing the round side of the slab because it has been quite a while since I gwizzed a round log and it is a lot easier than gwizzing the flat surface of the planks. During the work, three jays, including Scruffy, came around for peanuts a few times. I packed up and left for home at 1:00.