9/14-15/04 I went up to the property for 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday.

I decided to cut the visit short by a day this week because Ellen was sick. I also decided to buy or rent a pressure washer before I went up. I checked at Sears, Lowe's, and Home Depot looking for a gas powered, 3 gpm, 2000-2500 psi washer, as specified in Jim Renfroe's book. I found that the money is in the gpm rating. I thought that the 2.0 gpm models were reasonably priced, but the 2.7 gpm ones were more than I wanted to pay. The 3.0 gpm one at Home Depot was $700 and the 4.0 gpm ones were all over a thousand dollars. I decided to rent a 3.0 gpm one from Home Depot for the day to see how it worked.

I arrived at the property at 1:15. It was 58 degrees, there were no frogs, and I was happy to see that the peanut was still on the floor and all the mousetraps were still set. One of these days I may declare final victory over the rodents.

For some reason my refrigerator door hadn't shut tight so there was meltwater inside the refrigerator. It seemed like the door was sprung somehow and I couldn't figure out how it got that way. I rigged a clip that would hold it shut tight so I won't have it leaking again until I figure out how to fix it properly.

I discovered that there was a brand new crop of mushrooms that were just popping out of the ground and a huge number of big mature ones that were all bad already. I picked a bunch of the young ones for dinner.

Then I got right to work with the pressure washer. I cleaned all the remaining logs and window frames in the living room and the first floor of the C2 RPSL. I really didn't like the way the logs looked but I will reserve judgement until they dry. I am sure the pressure washing helped but I am afraid that I will still have to go over at least some of it with the sander and maybe even the planer or scraper. We'll see. I was really glad I decided to rent before buying a pressure washer.

I worked until about 7:00 and then went in and cooked up a heaping frying pan full of mushrooms and my usual dinner. I have decided that from now on I will only eat the stems and throw away the caps of the mushrooms. The stems are the best part to me.

On Wednesday morning it was raining. I rearranged things so I could pressure wash the kitchen and utility room walls. I also put on my rain gear including the pants because I soaked my clothes the day before. Then when everything was ready, I found that I couldn't start the washer motor. There was gas, the switch was on, and it would kick every once in a while but would never take hold. I figured that the combination of the altitude and the rainy weather was the problem. I tried different combinations of choke and throttle settings but to no avail.

In between attempts to start the washer I fed gray jays and chipmunks. I had the front door ajar for the water hose and at one point I saw that a chipmunk had gone inside the building. I went in to chase him out but he ran further back in the building and ran down his usual route under the floor in the utility room. I decided to salt the one-way rodent valve with a string of peanuts so if he got trapped inside while I was gone, he would be able to find his way out through the valve.

I gave up trying to start the washer and decided to leave for home right away. Before I shut the door, I coaxed the chipmunk outside onto the deck. I left for home at 11:00.