12/16-18/03 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way up, I stopped at Priscilla's and fixed her dryer vent. Then I stopped at four places and delivered Ellen's Christmas jam. Earl told me that it had snowed 14 inches the day before and 6 inches so far that day. The highway was bare and wet on the west side but it had been snowing ever since I crossed the pass. I was able to get around okay without chains, but I did get hung up crosswise in Mike Dickinson's steep driveway for a while.

When I got to the property at 2:00, I found that it had not been scooped out recently. It took me until 2:40 to dig through the 2-foot berm and then dig out a parking space in 20 inches of snow. There must have been no wind at all when it snowed and the flakes must have been big. The snow was pretty wet but it was still very loose. When I made the trails with snowshoes on, I sank knee deep. Then, to take the next step, I had to lift up all the snow that had fallen onto the snowshoe. It was very hard work. I soon learned to take small steps so the amount of snow that I had to lift up was less. As I lifted each snowshoe up, the snow that was on it fell back off and then I would pack it down into the trail when I stepped down again.

I worked up quite a sweat making the trails and carrying my gear to the trailer. Since it was getting late, I skipped lunch and went to work shoveling off the mixer and the privy. I hadn't shoveled off the privy yet this season and the tonnage of snow on top was beginning to get dangerously heavy. It was about three feet deep but very dense.

When I went into the cabin, I discovered to my delight and satisfaction that all the peanuts I had placed around were still there. If there are still some critters in there, they are either hibernating or they don't like peanuts. I suspect there may be some lizards still in there and I don't think they would eat peanuts.

On Wednesday I went right to work on the inside walls. I tried steel wool on the logs I had varnished last week. It worked really well to smooth the small bumps down, but the steel wool disintegrated very quickly. I got out my two sanders and tried them. I started with the small Black and Decker Mouse. I had some sort of grinding or polishing pad that was like coarse plastic wool. It worked better than the steel wool, but unfortunately, the pad came loose from the sander. I don't know if it was because it was too cold, or because the pad was too old and the adhesive lost its grip.

Next, I tried using that same pad by hand and it worked as well as steel wool, but it, too, disintegrated right away. Then I tried the DeWalt palm sander but it was way too powerful. If I just barely touched it on the wall, it immediately ground off all the varnish and dug down into the new wood.

Finally, I tried sandpaper. I have a whole box full of used sanding disks for the DeWalt sander. The outside edges of the disks wear out, but the center of them is still good. That's why I didn't throw them away. It turned out that these worked better than any of the other methods, and the sandpaper didn't wear out very fast at all. Of course, sanding by hand like that gives my shoulders, arms, wrists, and hands a real workout. It was gratifying work, though, because I would use one hand to feel the log to find out where the bumps were, and then use the other hand with the sandpaper to smooth them down. Using this method, I smoothed all the logs I had previously varnished and then broomed them all off so they were ready for the next coat.

Next, I set up a two-tier scaffold tower between Grid A and Grid B and tied it into the other tower. I didn't have enough diagonal braces for this configuration, so I made 8 diagonal braces out of 1x2s. My plan is that as soon as I get the final coat of varnish on the top 3 courses of gable logs, I will dismantle the top tier of the scaffold. This will allow me better access to the logs just below the top, and it will also free up some frames and diagonal braces I can use to widen the platform. For now, I need to leave that top tier in place.

I planed and scraped some more logs further down the wall that I could reach with the scaffold I have in place.

The weather was sunny and beautiful so I took another picture of the building, still hoping for one that comes out looking as pretty as it does in real life.

On Thursday morning, I varnished all the logs that had previously been varnished or prepared. That makes three coats on the top three courses which I think will be the final coat for them. We'll see how they look next time I come up. I used all but an inch at the bottom of a one quart can of varnish. I left for home at 1:00.