6/28-30/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 1:29 and found a fat little frog on the gate padlock. He was almost the same size as the body of the padlock. I was expecting the electrical inspector to be there at 1:30 so I was relieved that I got there before he did this time.

I brought six sacks of mortar mix with me so I didn't even stop at the trailer. I just kept going right up to the cabin and carried the mortar mix up onto the porch. Then I went back down and had lunch, expecting the inspector to show up any minute.

After lunch, I reconfigured the scaffolds. I removed the planks on the top tier and placed a couple planks part-way down the top frames about even with the bottoms of the top two windows. I planned to use these to reach and wash those two windows and to chink the short seams between the windows. I won't have scaffolding up there again for a long time so this is the right time to clean the windows.

Chad Heiserman, the electrical inspector, showed up about 4:00. He told me to fix the holes in boxes where knockouts had been removed unnecessarily. He also told me I had to put bushings in the ends of the EMT where I had them coming out of a stud. He said that since my distribution panel is more than 15 feet from where service enters the building, I would have to get a service-rated disconnect, rated for indoor use, and install it where the wires enter the building. Then I need to run 4-0,4-0,4-0,2-0 wires in the floor from the service-rated disconnect to the distribution panel. After he left, I got to wondering if I couldn't bring the outside wires in closer to the distribution panel to avoid the extra disconnect. I'll have to ask him about that later.

He gave me the OK to cover the EMT after I fix the problems with the holes and bushings. He said I have to use green screws in the threaded holes at the back of each box to fasten a bare pigtail and then to wire nut all the ground wires in the box, including pigtails from the receptacles, to this pigtail. I still have questions of whether I can daisy chain the receptacle ground wires, and daisy chain the green screw and the wire nut with either the incoming or outgoing ground wire. That will reduce the number of wires in the wire nut from five to three or four.

Chad doesn't want Romex inside of conduit for thermal reasons, but since my runs are so short, he said it would be OK to run Romex from the distribution panel to the first box on each circuit even though some of the run is in conduit. The wires to the rest of the boxes need to be individual THHN wires. He also advised me to put the wiring off until all the plumbing, heating, and ventilation pipes and ductwork are all in place. It's easier to work wires around these than the reverse.

After Chad left, I washed the two top windows.

After dinner, Mary Jackson came by with several family members. I took a picture of them which they said I could post on my website, and then we went up for a look at the cabin. As they were leaving, I walked down with them and checked on the frog in the can. He was still there so one of the youngsters got a peek at him.

On Wednesday morning, I built a scaffold to reach Grid E2 to E3. I fed a couple of jays in the meantime. I broomed the wall off between Grid E2 and B3 and then insulated four seams between E2 and B3.

After lunch, I insulated three more seams between E2 and B3 for a total of seven. Then I set up a scaffold to reach between Grid A2 and B3. I insulated six seams between A3 and B3 and five seams between A2 and A3. At that point I ran out of insulation.

On Thursday morning, I nailed three seams between E2 and B3, four seams between A3 and B3, three seams between A3 and A2, and the six short seams at C3 between the windows. I left for home at 2:15.