8/15/05 Had a new windshield installed on the pickup.

8/16-18/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

When I arrived at 1:30, it was 80 degrees, there were no fires around, and there was no frog in the gate lock can. After moving in and having lunch, I went to work and nailed the first five seams from Grid E2 to D3.

On Wednesday it was cooler and cloudy for most of the day. It had rained during the night. That made it pleasant for working. I chinked eight seams in the corner between the two small living room windows. In the process I covered the first three sections of EMT.

The jays were around a lot and there are too many for me to count. There must be at least six youngsters plus the two adults. The young birds have gotten very bold and confident. One of them even drives off the adults every once and a while.

At some point during the day, I noticed that the peanut I had kept on the floor was gone. That means that either I accidentally swept it up or there is another rodent in the building. I put another peanut out in order to find out.

On Thursday morning the peanut was gone. I didn't see any pack rat scat so I suspect the new visitor is a mouse. I looked for holes in the usual places but I didn't see any. I think the mouse got in under the front door. The gap under there is nearly a half inch at one end and I think a mouse might be able to squeeze under there. To fix the problem, I went to work raising the threshold. There are screws specifically for this purpose, but when I modified the door frames to fit in my wider space, I messed up the screw heads so they were hard to turn. I used a big Philips bit in a vice-grip and, with a lot of work, I was able to raise the threshold to within less than an eighth of an inch of the door. I am sure a mouse can't get through there now.

None of the mouse traps I had set was sprung, but the peanut butter bait in them was so old and dried up that it probably didn't attract the mouse. If the mouse was still in the building, and if it came in under the door, then it will be stuck in there with no water until next week. That will probably kill it so I may have to find a dead mouse when I go back up. If I don't find a dead mouse and if the peanut is gone again, I'll go back to my old standby Paiute Indian deadfall trap and get back into rodent hunting mode. The best outcome would be if the mouse was outside when I left and that it had come in under the door. If that's the case, then the peanut should still be there next week and the problem is solved. We'll see next week.

I cleaned the logs around four of the seams I had chinked, fed the jays some more, and left for home at 1:30.