8/8-10/06 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:30. It was a pleasant 75 degrees with not too many mosquitoes. There was no frog in the gate lock can. After moving in and having lunch, I went up to the cabin and found three dead mice. There was one in one of the bucket traps downstairs, and one in the downstairs mousetrap. There was another one in a trap upstairs but the second trap was missing. I figured I had caught a mouse by the tail and he dragged the trap off somewhere. I looked around but didn't see it. I got a big caliper and used it to reach down in the crack between the wall and the floor and sure enough, I found the empty trap.

Again, I didn't know what to make of it. The best case would be that the mouse that got away upstairs later got caught downstairs and that that was the last of them and that there are no more holes for them to get in. Or, it could be that there are still more inside, or worse, that they can still get in somehow. I decided to prepare for the worst.

The way I set up the bucket traps they were only good for one mouse. I decided to rebuild them so they could catch a half a bucket full of mice. I fastened the piece of sheet metal to the stick on the bottom side so that after a mouse would tip it over and fall into the bucket, gravity would roll the metal back to its original position. I bent the far end of the tin around a peanut so that the peanut wouldn't fall off when the tin tipped. I made two bucket traps like that and reset all three of the regular mousetraps after I dumped the mouse carcasses outside. I also put some peanuts inside my rodent valve and then covered the inside opening. I don't think mice can get in from the outside, but if they can and do, then those peanuts disappearing will prove it.

One of the mouse carcasses was swarming with carpenter ants, so I put some ant bait out on the floor for them.

When I was inside the trailer, I heard some noise in the ceiling. I went up, got a ladder, and checked out the roof and vents to see if there was a way mice could get in. I couldn't find any way.

The phone didn't have a dial tone, but it also didn't sound like it was dead. I figured that whatever they were doing that knocked out the power had also knocked out the phone. As a result, when I went to work, I didn't bother to carry the phone with me. I worried about what to do when Ellen would try to call me in the evening, but by the time I quit for the day, the phone was working again.

I went to work with the intention of getting that first tread scribed, cut, and mounted. I did a lot of thinking about exactly where it should go. It is very complicated. After making a lot of measurements, I found that the CB66 on the right isn't positioned very well. The stringer is also too high so either the stringer or the tread or both will have to be notched pretty deep.

While I was deliberating on the placement, I decided to trim the nose of the tread so that it has a long radius convex curve to it. That will make a nicer transition from the stone steps, which curve. I found an eight-foot 1x2 that had warped in a nice smooth curve that was just about what I wanted. I used it to draw a line on the tread and then got the Skilsaw out to make the cut. I had about 18 inches to go on the cut when the saw stopped. It was very hot and I was sure I had burned the old saw up so I got Jack, the rip saw, and used that to finish up the cut by hand.

With the tread nicely trimmed, I used the jigs to align it where I finally decided it would go. It didn't quite point at the tree I was planning to use as a convergence point, but it finally dawned on me that I didn't need to worry about it. If I divide the stringers into equal parts from the top to the bottom tread, the treads will automatically line up converging on a single point. I just had to do a little geometry to realize this.

At one point I discovered that the power had gone off. I realized that might be the reason the Skilsaw had quit. When the power came back on, I tried the saw and to my relief it was OK. I hadn't burned it up after all.

On Wednesday there were lots of jays all day. They were at the trailer before I had breakfast. It is the same flock with a half-dozen or so juvenile birds. They have all gotten the hang of taking peanuts and they were constantly back for more. I shelled a lot of peanuts to keep them supplied.

Up at the cabin, there were no mice in the traps downstairs and the peanuts down there were untouched. Upstairs, the peanuts were gone and there were two mice in the traps. I took this as a good sign because if there were more mice in there, they would have taken the peanuts downstairs. Hope springs eternal. The peanuts were also still in the valve, so I took the cover off since I don't think they can get in that way.

Next, I made a scribe following a design I spent a lot of insomniac time thinking about during the night. The tread was positioned exactly level and above where I wanted it so the next step was to scribe it. I measured the distance it had to drop and it was 12.5 inches. I needed a scribe exactly that long.

To make the scribe, I started by making an alignment jig by loosely clamping a thin 20-inch board diagonally across the corner of a table with two bar clamps with the bars sticking straight up. Then using two small C-clamps, I clamped a horizontal 1x2 to the two upright bars so the bottom of it was about 12.4 inches above the thin board. The C-clamps twisted the bars so that they ended up in line with the 1x2. Then I tightened the bar clamps.

To complete the jig, I made a pencil mark on the edge of the 1x2 near the middle and hung a plumb bob so the string ran right over the pencil mark. I lowered the plumb bob and marked the spot on the flat board directly below the pencil mark. With a pencil point, I made a small dent in the flat board on that mark. The jig was now ready to align the scribe.

To make the scribe, I started with a piece of 12 AWG copper wire. I bent a circular loop in the middle of it that was just a little smaller than the round bubble level I had that came with my trailer. Then I twisted the wire a couple times to make the circle rigid with the two ends of the wire sticking out. I bent each end so that they were parallel with each other and a couple inches apart. The plane of the loop was perpendicular to the plane of the parallel ends. Then I took two long, sharpened pencils, arranged them in a sandwich with the two wire ends between them and with the pencil points pointing in opposite directions. The pencil points were exactly 12.5 inches apart. This made the wire loop perpendicular to the axis of the pair of pencils. I used two rubber bands to bind the scribe together. By starting a rubber band by looping it over the end of one of the wire ends, and then tightly winding the rubber band around both pencils, and finally securing it by looping it over the wire end again, the whole assembly ended up very tight and rigid.

Next, I duct taped the bubble level to the wire loop so it was tight. Now I was ready to align the scribe. What I needed to do was to get the bubble level centered when the pencil points were exactly on the same vertical line. That is what the jig is for. I put the lower pencil point in the dent on the thin board. The top pencil point just overlapped the 1x2 by a little and I held the point against the upper pencil mark. That put the two points exactly on a vertical line. Then I could see from the bubble which way I needed to bend the wire in order to center the bubble. After a few trials and some bending, I got it so that the bubble stayed centered even though the scribe was rotated completely around with the pencil points staying on their marks. The scribe was now ready for use.

This jig and scribe can be used for each tread even though the distances will be different. I'll just have to unwrap the rubber bands, re-adjust the pencils, wrap it back up, and align the level again. It was great fun designing and building the scribe.

Next, I used the scribe to scribe both joints on the tread and the two stringers. I marked both the tread and the stringer because I wasn't sure exactly which piece to cut. After the scribing, I was disheartened because it didn't look like it was going to work. It looked like the stringers were to high and that the CB66s weren't going to fit between the treads like I wanted.

I spent a lot of time re-thinking, re-measuring, and finally decided to go ahead and cut the notches. I decided that I had to cut both pieces at each joint otherwise one member or the other would be too weak. I even decided on two new alternatives for the notching. On one, I established a point out from the stringer, which together with two points on the scribed line form a triangle which will be the surface of the cut. The matching surfaces, then, will roughly be trapezoids. On the other joint, the surface will be a hyperbolic paraboloid.

I got the chainsaw out and before I quit for the day, I cut both notches for the left hand stringer. This was the one with the trapezoidal interface. Since the other side wasn't notched, I couldn't test the fit completely, but it looks sort of like it will work. Not perfect but maybe workable.

In the evening there was more noise in the trailer roof and I knew I had to do something about it in the morning.

On Thursday morning I was ecstatic to find no mice in the traps and all the peanuts were still there. Since I will be having hernia surgery next week it may be several weeks before I get back up to the property and I dreaded the thought of mice making a mess in there while I am gone. I think, at least I hope, that the place will be mouse-free while I am gone.

Next, I brought a ladder down to the trailer and did a thorough inspection of the top of the trailer. I convinced myself that there was no way a mouse could get in. I figured that it must be ants. After thinking about it some more, I was sure that the sound was the same as when I had a bad carpenter ant infestation except it wasn't as continuous or persistent. I would only hear chewing for a short time and only occasionally. Maybe it was only a couple ants so far. I decided that I would set out some ant bait the next time I am up there.

I swept out the trailer, beat the rugs, and fed the jays a lot. I took some pictures of the scribe and the alignment jig and also the notched tread and stringer. I had to leave early in order to pick up Andrew so I left at 12:50. When I went to shut the gate, there was a little green frog in the gate lock can. I tried not to disturb him, but he jumped to the ground before I could replace the can. I always enjoy seeing those little guys (or gals).