4/5-7/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:55. There had been some new snow in the pass but there was none on the ground at the property except for a pile under the eaves. A pair of jays came around for peanuts while I was moving in. After lunch while I was drinking my coffee, Earl drove up. He had a drink of water in the trailer while I finished my coffee and then we went up and had a chat in the cabin. He told me about the bad weather they had in southern California while they were there, but the worst part was that Dana's brother got terribly sick from a brain tumor. Dana flew back to Pennsylvania (I think) and was with him when he died. It was pretty sad news to hear about. On a lighter side, Earl remarked on how loud the frogs were. It was good to hear so many frogs croaking. He said he didn't have as many frogs at his place.

We bought a new vacuum cleaner for home so I brought our old one up to the property to replace Gus' old one. The tubes didn't quite match between the two machines so I spent some time modifying Gus' old pipes to fit in our old machine. Then I tried Gus' machine again and it ran fine so I decided to keep using it and have the other one there as backup. I sanded all the surfaces that were due for another coat of varnish. These were the top five logs in the northeast utility room and the window frame.

Next I decided to try tempering the scraper blade I had made to see if I couldn't make it hold an edge longer. I heated it to red hot with a propane torch and then quenched it in ice water. I sharpened it up and tried scraping some logs and it seemed to work pretty well.

On Wednesday I planed, scraped, and gouged the bottom five logs in the northeast utility room wall and the scraper worked just fine. I had to sharpen it a little more often than the original blade, but I was able to sharpen it with a file so I didn't have to go down to the basement to use the grinder each time. I was happy to have a satisfactory solution to the scraper problem. I can now make as many blades as I need from black iron pipe so I can keep on using my favorite scraper. Before I quit for the night, I swept up the chips and vacuumed the wall and floor.

On Thursday morning, I scraped the glue beads from the trim on the Grid B3-C3 window. There wasn't much so it was pretty easy. Then I mitered the molding pieces and trimmed the Grid D3-E3 window. I am really happy with how those windows look especially after the molding is on. Then I varnished the entire northeast utility room wall and window. The pair of jays came around again just before I left for home at 12:50.