6/6-8/06 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I got a late start and didn't arrive until 4:10. I saw a deer cross the road on the way, which I hardly ever do when I leave early. I also found a little frog in the can covering the gate padlock. That was the first time for that this year. It's good to see the little guy again.

It was 65 degrees and I noticed a sign on the way up saying no open burning allowed. I was glad I got most of those old logs burned up when I did.

After moving in, I dragged the two remaining logs from up on the high rock down onto the porch. Since they were smaller than the first one, I was able to drag them down by hand without using a come-along. Of course, I had gravity on my side helping me. I fed one gray jay a couple times during the work.

I decided that the second biggest of the logs from my old friend on the high rock was not big enough to serve as the second stringer of the staircase. So I took the chainsaw down to the fern field and bucked a 16 foot butt log from the 50 foot tree I had felled down there last week.

I wasn't sure how I should go about getting that log up under the porch. One idea I had was to rig up the 110 v. winch inside the cabin chained to a column. Then run the cable out to a block fastened to the Grid F2 PSL, and from there to another block on an anchor hook either on the Grid G purlin or the Grid E purlin. That way, I could leave the winch set up but when I leave, just bring the cable inside so it could be locked up while I am gone. I could then use the winch later to place the stringers.

The other idea was simply to use come-alongs and my own muscle power to skid the log up the cliff.

I decided to rig up to use come-alongs and see how hard it would be. If it got too hard, then I would rig up the winch. The come-along rigging was a lot simpler. I hooked my long chain to a Grid F3 anchor hook using my long-handled S-hook. Then I hooked two lengths of cable to the dangling end of the chain. The cable reached to the driveway below. Then I unwound two come-alongs all the way, hooked them in tandem to the end of the cable and was able to reach a chain choker around the log.

Then, cranking on the come-alongs one after the other, I skidded the log to the driveway. This was pretty easy since the log was moving over level ground. It would have been harder using the winch because I would have had to go back up the hill to operate it after doing the rigging down below.

I re-rigged eliminating one length of cable and pulled the log so that it was up against the first steep rock pitch of the cliff. This was pretty easy too and I was right there to help the log up over the rock when it got hung up. Again, if I had used the winch, I would have had to climb up and down the cliff to free it each time. I decided to do the whole job by hand with the come-alongs. I figured maneuvering the stringers would be easier with come-alongs too, since they are more versatile than the winch and I would be able to run them from down where I would be working.

The mosquitoes are pretty thick this year. They don't bother me much because I wear long sleeves, a hat, and I use Ben's repellent which works great. My technique of waving a big fan in front of the door of the trailer each time before I go in is also pretty effective at keeping them out of the trailer. It's the ones that get inside that are the most annoying to me, especially when I am trying to sleep.

On Wednesday I finished pulling the log all the way up the cliff and got it under the porch within inches of where it will finally go as a stair stringer. I didn't have my log chute up against the rock wall at the top of the cliff, so I had to be extra careful getting the log up without knocking the rocks loose. I had the log choked just a foot or so above the CG and I used a bipod of two short logs to keep the top of the log standing out away from the rocks. As I would crank the come-along a click or two, I would slide the bipod down the log to keep it away from the rocks.

When the CG was nearly up to the cliff edge, the top of the log was up in the air about 6 feet or so. I hooked a come-along hook to the top of the log and clipped the come-along to a chain around the base of the Grid F PSL. Then I cranked on this come-along, pulling the top of the log down to the ground. I had laid a short small log on top of the rock crosswise under the log, so when the log pivoted over the edge, it pivoted on that log instead of right on the rock.

With the log nearly level, and held fast by the lower come-along, I re-rigged the first come-along so it was choked below the CG of the log. Then by cranking on that come-along, the log skidded under the porch rolling off the rock on that short log section. The rocks in the wall were completely undisturbed and with a little more rigging, I pulled the log to its final place under the porch using two come-alongs.

The wild rose bushes around the porch were starting to bloom so I stopped to sniff the blossoms each time I passed them. I felt happy about the progress I was making.

I went back down to the old log pile to clean things up. I stacked all the limbs and bark in a pile which I will burn probably in the winter. Then I stacked the rest of the log plus two other good logs that were down there up on short log sections to get them off the ground.

I counted the tree rings on the two trees I had felled and as I suspected there was a huge difference. My old friend from up on the rock had about 63 rings at the butt which was about 11 inches in diameter. The tree from the fern field also had about an 11 inch butt but there were only 20 rings. At 16 feet, the lower tree had only 10 rings which were about 3/8" apart. That means the tree was only 20 years old and ten years ago it was only 16 feet tall. I remember when I bought the property, those trees were only four or five feet high. By contrast, the one from the high rock was about as old as I am.

Next, I strung a tight string where the noses of the stair treads will be and measured for where I needed footings for the bases of the two stringers and for the newel post. I decided to make two footing pads, one for the inside stringer and the other big enough for both the outside stringer and the newel post. I'm thinking of a CB88 or even a CB66 for the stringers and maybe a CB44 for the newel post. I'll do some more checking before I decide.

I dug the two holes for the pads down to bedrock and rammed the dirt under where there will be more rock steps below the pads. I fed the one gray jay and a chipmunk from time to time during the work.

On Thursday morning, I made a lot of measurements and took inventory of the slabs I have available for stair treads. I was surprised at how many I have so I don't think there will be any problem having enough to flair out the stairs at the bottom with long treads. I also measured the width and depth along with the lengths of each slab. I still have not decided exactly how deep to notch the stringers to receive the treads so I needed the measurements to make accurate drawings and to make the design decisions. The biggest remaining design question is how to interface the stringers to the existing porch structure. I have done a lot of looking, measuring, and pondering trying to come up with a good solution and I don't have it yet.

I fed the jay and the chipmunk again and I loaded some boards into the pickup with the intention of making the forms in Seattle. I left for home at 12:50.