11/11-13/03 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:40. It was 40 degrees, dry, but it looked like it had rained quite a bit recently. After moving in and having lunch, I went around and cleaned up all the rodent poop. I will use the presence or absence of poop as an indicator of whether or not the animals vacate my building. The peanuts were gone again from the stovepipe rodent valve, so I know they go in there. Once the building is rodent proof, they should have no trouble finding their way outside through the valve, and hopefully, that will end the occupation. I put more peanuts in the stovepipe.

I fed the jays and made the metal threshold parts for both the front and back doors. Bill had given me enough aluminum stock to make the parts wide enough to span the full width of my opening. I cut them to length and drilled and countersunk screw holes in them.

On Wednesday, it was 33 degrees and sunny. I cleaned up the rodent poop again and the peanuts were gone from the stovepipe again. I replaced the peanuts. I discovered a stash of leaves brought in by the pack rat and I hauled 8 gallons of them outside. Removing his food supply will give him an added incentive to leave the premises. I put the leaves under the porch so he can still get to them, but outside.

I made the wood threshold parts for both the front and back doors and stained them. Then I hung the back door. The rough opening was very close to plumb, square, and level, so it went pretty smoothly, especially with the tricks Bill told me about. The door opens and closes and fits perfectly. The only snag was that there were four screws missing from the deadbolt hardware. I robbed two screws from the front door so that I could fasten both deadbolts temporarily until I can get the proper screws. I fed the jays a couple times during the process.

On Thursday morning, I made the parts for the outside casing on both the front and back doors. I had a real nice 1x3 that was perfect for casing the headers of the doors. I had previously planned to use 1x2s on the jambs, but they would stick out beyond the 1x3. So instead, I decided to rip 1x2s down the middle and use the resulting 3/4" square strips for the casing.

These matched the 1x3 perfectly and I got two usable strips out of one 1x2. I cut all the wood parts to fit and tacked them in place. I didn't have any finish nails of the proper size up there and I want to stain the parts before I nail them in place anyway. By tacking the casing in place, I sealed up the only remaining ways the rodents can get into the building except for the space under the doors.

Before I left, I propped up one of the left-over aluminum threshold extrusions in front of the space below each door and put a concrete block behind each one to keep it in place. No rodent is going to be able to push the concrete block out of the way, or chew through that aluminum. I think that for the first time ever, my building is completely rodent proof. Hooray! I felt really good about reaching that important milestone. I can now begin to clean up the building and be sure it will stay free of new rodent messes. I left for home at 1:40.

11/14/03 Went to Northwest Lock and Key to see if I could get the lock screws I needed. The guy scrounged through a box of extra parts and found three of the four screws I needed. He gave them to me for nothing. I can easily make the fourth screw I need by cutting a longer one I have to make it shorter. I think I'll bring all the left over parts I have for those locks and give them to the guy so he can add them to his box of parts. It's the least I can do for his help.