9/11/05 Three of the dads (Paul, Dean and Brian) from the scout troop and I visited the log home to see if it would work out as a headquarters for a winter outing. We happened to be in a weekend planning session in Plain so we had a good opportunity to make the visit. We did the grand tour of the building and the trails to the spring. We decided that it would work out as a headquarters and we scheduled an outing for January. Brian was able to give me some valuable electrical advice after having seen my project. I am very happy and grateful about that and I am excited about having the troop camp there next January.

9/13-15/05 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:10. There was no frog on the gate. All the peanuts and mousetraps upstairs and in the rodent valve were still untouched, but the mousetrap in the crawlspace had caught another shrew. I am hoping that the pair of shrews I caught has been living down there ever since I closed up the building and I am hoping they are the last of them. I'll keep the traps set and we'll see.

I installed the new receptacle assembly in the EMT but I didn't fasten it in the box. That is because the box is one of those with a missing knockout and I'll wait until I plug the hole before I finish the installation of those receptacles.

I insulated and nailed the top six out of the ten seams in the kitchen. I fed the flock of jays and a chipmunk at various times during the afternoon.

On Wednesday, I was happy to find no shrew in the trap. All the peanuts and mousetraps were still untouched. I chinked the six seams I had prepared in the kitchen and I still had some mortar left. I insulated and nailed a third of the next seam (between two electrical outlet boxes) and used the rest of the mortar to chink that. A rough estimate is that I am chinking about twice as fast now that I am past the windows, columns, and corners that have been slowing my pace down up to now. There now seems to be a possibility that I can finish chinking the entire downstairs before the weather gets too cold. We'll see.

I got a half-bucket full of ripping sawdust for sweeping compound and swept up the mess on the floor. Then I vacuumed the entire first floor. It's nice to have it clean in there and know that there won't be any more serious mess in the living room for a while. Needless to say, I fed the jays and chipmunks throughout the day.

On Thursday morning I cleaned all the logs I had chinked the day before, and I fed the jays and chipmunks some more. I left for home at 1:15.

9/16/05 Made up two more receptacle assemblies and drilled holes in five knockout plugs so I can screw them into the boxes that need them..