5/18-19/04 I went up to the property for 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday.

I arrived at 12:45 and found a little one-inch frog in my gate padlock can. I coaxed him into the can and as I was about to set the can on the telephone pedestal, I saw some sort of bug or fly on the pedestal. I set the can down so that it opened towards the bug hoping that the frog would be able to see it. Lo and behold, the bug crawled right up into the can and the frog ate it right up. I figured that might make the frog a little more comfortable about me disturbing his home.

I was happy to see that the peanuts were still on the floor indicating that PR (I have begun calling the pack rat by his initials since I couldn't think of a suitable name) had not found another way into the building. I went up in the loft and saw that he was cozily sleeping in the cavity. He had replaced all the leaves with chewed up bits of white styrofoam and he was sleeping on top of that.

I took the wheelbarrow out and used it to haul a huge amount of debris I had cleaned out of my gutters in Seattle and dump it on the compost pile. Then I went to work and sanded the logs due for another coat of varnish, and after that, I planed, scraped, gouged, and sanded one more log at Grid A which happens to be the bottom log in the wall. Before I went in for the night, I set the trap just in case PR finds a new way in overnight.

On Wednesday morning the trap was still set and the peanuts were still on the floor. When I went up to greet PR, I noticed the cavity looked different. When I got up there, I saw that he had a new layer of leaves on top of the crumbled styrofoam. The little guy seems to keep busy redecorating his quarters. He woke up and peeked at me, but then I left him alone.

I varnished the prepared logs, but since there were so few, I was done by 10:30. I had to go home that evening so I could take Gus back home the next morning, so I had the rest of the day to work. I couldn't work inside because of the varnish fumes and I didn't want to raise any dust. The weather was perfect for working outside so I decided to try to make some progress on getting a water pipe inside the underground chamber formed by the stream coming out of the spring. This is a problem I have been thinking about and worrying about for at least 10 years.

I brought a 50-foot coil of 1/2 inch copper refrigeration tube with me. I figured this might be stiff enough and yet flexible enough for me to work it all the way through the 30-foot underground channel. After working at it for quite a while, I found that I could only get it in about 10 feet. I went back and got my big steel bar, a post hole digger, and a long thin rope, and I started looking for the pipe about 10 feet from the mouth of the tunnel. After driving the bar in several times and digging a couple holes, I hit the underground stream and could see the copper pipe laying in it.

I reached into the hole and tied the rope to the pipe. Then I pulled the rope through the tunnel. I was elated that I was able to get a rope through at least a third of the way. Encouraged, I ran the copper pipe into another hole over the stream and by doing the same trick, I ran the rope another 8 feet or so. Then after one more process like that and I had the rope through all but the last 6 or 8 feet.

After working on that last part for quite a while, I came to realize that the channel didn't run straight under there.

The water has dug a channel about 18 inches deep all along the big boulder by the spring. From there, it runs underground in some crooked pattern for the first 6 or 8 feet. I figured that even if I could get my rope through that channel, I would never be able to pull a 1 inch copper pipe through it. The copper pipe doesn't bend that easily so the channel would have to be pretty straight. Fortunately, by digging a trench, using the post hole digger, directly from the channel by the boulder to the last hole with the rope in it, I made a nearly straight shot for the pipe. And I felt really good that I had a rope strung through it.

Since that worked out so well and since I still had time, I decided to see if I had a cable that would be suitable for pulling the pipe through. I got a 5/16-inch cable that was 30 feet long which would be plenty long now that the trench was dug. I whipped an eye in one end of the cable with a length of wire and then removed the cable clamps that had previously held that eye together. That way I figured I could get the eye into the 1-inch pipe.

I took the cable up to the spring and tied the eye to the rope and tried pulling. It went through pretty easy so in no time I had the cable strung underground in the creek bed. I felt great! This was much more than I had hoped to accomplish, and there was still time. I figured I might as well try pulling the pipe itself through.

The eye in the cable didn't quite fit in the pipe so I used a hammer to flatten about 10 inches of the end of the pipe into an oval shape. The eye went in easily after that. With the eye deep in the pipe, I used a hammer and a small nail set to punch a hole through the pipe from both sides, and I used the nail set to enlarge the holes so I could get a bolt through the holes. The bolt ran through the eye of the cable and with a nut on the end of the bolt, I was ready to pull the pipe.

I used a come-along chained to a tree to pull on the other end of the cable. I was surprised at how smoothly it worked. I had to go up and wiggle the pipe a few times when it started getting stuck, and I had to re-rig it three times after using all the cable up, but in a short time, I had the copper pipe completely through so one end was up by the spring box and the other end was sticking out from beneath the big tree roots. I felt really good about getting that job done. The rest of the plumbing for the water supply will be easy.

I packed up and left for home at 4:35. When I checked the gate lock can, there were two little frogs in there. The new one was a light tan color. I got to thinking that maybe the advantage of the can is that it resonates so that the croaks are amplified and carry further. Since the original frog seems to have lured a mate up there, maybe that's what happened.