2/3-5/04 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:15 and got stuck trying to park the pickup. There was about 8 inches of new snow that hadn't been cleared from the parking place and it was soft and wet. I had to do some shoveling to get unstuck and get parked. While the trailer was warming up, I hauled another load of tree branches up to the compost pile.

After moving in and having lunch, I went up to the building and discovered that the peanuts on the floor and in the pipe were gone. Either there were still some rodents living inside or else they are able to get into the building somehow. Bad news. I got the metal refrigerator tray from the pickup and set the same kind of trap I used to catch the pack rat. I also put some peanuts in the pipe and then screened the inside end of the pipe. That way I will be able to tell if rodents can get into the pipe from the outside. In the process, I happened to discover that a big coffee can fits perfectly over the male end of the stovepipe. If and when I ever need to cap the pipe, a coffee can will be perfect.

I went to work sanding all the varnished surfaces that are due for at least one more coat. Then I got a start on preparing more wood for the sealer coat. To work on the awkward space behind the PSLs and the RPSL, I tried a big 18 inch gouge and found that it works great. I sharpened it first so that it was razor sharp and it works either like a block plane, or if I want to take off more wood, or if the going gets tough, I can drive it either with my palm or with a hammer. The convex cutting edge working against the convex surface of the log keeps the tool from digging in. There is also enough mass in the tool so that you can make successive passes just like you would with a block plane, but the cutting is done deep inside the tight little space that you can't easily reach any other way. I hope this discovery will speed up the work and it will definitely produce a lot less dust than using sandpaper to reach those spaces. Every little bit helps.

After I went in for the day, I drew a diagram of the southwest wall so I can keep track of how many coats of varnish I have applied to each log section. Since I am applying all three coats as I go so I don't have to set the scaffolds up again, it's starting to get a little confusing as to which logs have how many coats. The diagram should help from now on.

On Wednesday morning there was about one inch of new snow on the ground. When I went up to work, I was surprised to find that the trap was still set and the peanuts I had set out were untouched, including the one in the pipe. The screen was still intact over the end of the pipe. I wasn't sure what to think.

Before I resumed working on the logs, I got a big wrench out of the pickup and tightened the top lag screw in the Grid D PSL. I had noticed that the PSL had shrunk so that there was a 1/4 inch gap between the head of the screw and the log. Since I will soon be taking down the top tier of the scaffold, I figured I should tighten the screw while I could still reach it. The other PSL and the RPSL had evidently not shrunk noticeably because the lag screws in them didn't need tightening.

I spent the rest of the day planing, scraping, and gouging the logs between Grid B and C between the upper and lower windows. Then I broomed everything off to be ready for varnish in the morning.

I had noticed for some time that the privy roof leaked and I decided that I better fix it to keep the roof from completely rotting away. I put roll roofing on my list to bring up next week.

On Thursday morning, to my dismay, I found that the peanut was gone from the first floor and all the peanut butter bait from the trap had been eaten. The trap, however, had not sprung even though the figure-4 had been moved a little. I'll have to work on the trigger mechanism to make it more sensitive. The screen was still intact over the end of the pipe and the peanut was still inside so at least I know that the critter didn't come in from the outside through the pipe. I suspect that he has been inside the building all along and probably hibernating. I decided not to reset the trap until next week. If possible I'd rather evict the critters alive rather than have them die of hypothermia in the trap while I'm gone.

I varnished all the prepared surfaces using about a quart and a half of varnish and left for home at about 1:00.