6/17-19/03 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I had another meeting late Tuesday so my schedule was the same as last week. I arrived at 9:20 PM, moved in, and talked to Ellen. Before I went to bed, I did a tour of the building to see that everything looked okay. Chuck had been up on the weekend with some people so I wanted to make sure that everything was left in order. It was.

On Wednesday morning there was some light, intermittent rain and some thunder. I had brought six sacks of mortar mix with me which was still in the pickup, so I figured I'd better get the pickup up the hill and unload the mortar before it started raining very much. I got the mortar unloaded before breakfast. About 8:00, when I got the pickup back down the hill, a pretty loud thunderstorm started. I figured I got the unloading job done just in time, but as it turned out, it didn't rain at all. Just a lot of thunder and lightning.

After breakfast, I went to work and insulated three seams. Then I nailed four seams and chinked about half a seam. During the work I was visited by quite a flock of Gray Jays. There were about four adults and about four fledglings. I think it was the first time the young ones have been out of the nest because they didn't know how to do much. Some of them went into their begging routine anytime an adult was near them. They would tip their heads back with their mouths wide open and scream as if they were starving to death. The adults just ignored them. The young ones watched the adults pick up peanuts and fly away, but they just couldn't get the hang of picking them up themselves. One of them started pulling the fiberglass insulation out of a seam and then didn't seem to know what to do with it. Some of the youngsters did finally learn how to pick up a peanut, so it shouldn't be long before they join the flock and come by for something to eat. I also fed a chipmunk a few times during the work.

There were a lot of mosquitos out this week, so I started using insect repellent. I also whacked a bunch of brush down between the mixer and the privy. It had gotten pretty overgrown in that area. I think I'll bring a pruning shear with me next week and cut away a lot more brush and low branches.

On Thursday, I chinked about 1 1/2 seams. That leaves just two more seams to do before I lower the scaffold to do the bottom of the wall. The end is in sight for this job. The flock of jays came by again but this time I laid the peanuts out on the scaffold planks. That way I could keep on working and the young jays could get some practice in picking up peanuts. I left for home at 2:30.