5/31-6/2/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I had to make a dump run before I left because of the girls' move. I arrived at the property at 1:30. There was a little frog on the padlock when I lifted the can. I moved him over to the telephone pedestal. A pair of gray jays came around for peanuts as soon as I parked. After moving in and having lunch, I hauled six lengths of EMT up to the building and I hauled up a cabinet left over from the girls' move that I thought was too good to throw away.

I installed all the receptacle boxes and EMT in the living room and the bedroom before I quit for the day. I learned that it is pretty tricky trying to bend the conduit to fit around irregular logs. I had done so much bending on one piece trying to get it to fit that I finally gave up and started over. It was about a 5-foot section and I was hoping that I would still have enough left to finish the job after wasting that piece.

On Wednesday, I installed all the boxes and EMT in the utility room. I had just enough EMT to do it. Since the boxes and conduit were ready for inspection, I called the building department to schedule an inspection. They told me that my permit had lapsed and that I needed to renew it first. They said they would have Doug call me before I left on Thursday to tell me how to renew my building permit.

I noticed that there were tons of wild rose blossoms on bushes all over the place. I took some pictures of them and took some time to smell them. I also fed the pair of jays a few more times.

Next I went to work on the plumbing. I installed a 1" ball valve on the discharge side of the water line after the spigot in the crawl space. That way, I can close the ball valve and get pressure for the spigot. Otherwise I would have to shut the water off down at the trailer in order to get pressure for the hose up at the cabin. Since I will be needing a hose to make mortar for chinking, it will be a lot easier to be able to control the water from up in the building.

I drained the water from the line by opening the hose connection from the spring to the copper pipe down at the bottom. Then I cut the supply pipe just above the spigot and then un-sweated the coupler on the other side of the loop. Then I rebuilt the loop with the ball valve in it and also with a union on each end. After a little bending and aligning, I reconnected the loop using the unions and the job was done. I should have done it that way in the first place, but that's what comes with a quick and dirty solution.

On Thursday, I set up a three tier scaffold tower in the living room and a two tier one right next to it. This will allow me to reach the gable peak on the southwest wall to start chinking up there. I also repaired, and braced with wire, a small stepladder that I will use to step up from the loft floor onto the second scaffold level. I will be walking up there a lot with loads of mortar so I want the footing to be nice and safe all the way.

I left for home at 1:30. Nobody from the building department had called me by then.