12/5-7/06 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over was beautiful. It was a sunny day with a blue sky. The trees were all covered with fresh snow, just like in a Christmas card. There was some snow on the road but I didn't have any trouble getting over the pass.

I arrived at 12:45. The driveway had been plowed halfway to the trailer so I was able to drive right in. I measured 14 inches of snow on the ground. I put on the snowshoes and made trails to the trailer, the compost pile, the cabin, and the privy. I had thrown an apple core on the compost pile, and while I was making trails up at the cabin, a raven came around and we exchanged quite a few croaks. He swooped down to the compost pile and took the apple core. I'm never sure who eats those cores, but I know the raven does sometimes.

When I opened the cabin I found one shrew in the mousetrap downstairs. The peanut and traps were untouched upstairs so at least I don't have a mouse or pack rat problem. I don't know what I can do about the shrews because I think they must have tunnels under the rocks. I guess I'll just keep a trap set and try to discourage them.

There was a big snow pile under the eaves so I made snow steps up to the porch deck so I could get in the front door. The snow bank was well over the piece of plywood I had set up as a baffle, so I got another piece of plywood and put it on top of the first one. I leaned it in and rested it against the newel post. That should keep at least some snow off the work.

I shoveled the snow off the treads and went to work with Rasputin to make the second tread fit in the notches. I got it very close before I quit for the day.

On Wednesday I carefully measured the position of the tread and got it to where it should be. Then I counterbored and drilled the holes for the lag screws, and screwed the second tread into place. I'll take it apart later to stain it since it is too soaking wet to stain now, and I want to have the treads in place to walk on.

Next, I brought the ladder and some tackle down to the trailer to get a tread down that was stored in the snow shed above the trailer. I had a 5/8" rope, a pulley, and a rebar S-hook with a 5-foot 1x2 handle screwed to it. With the handle, I was able to hook the S-hook over a 2x4 up near the peak of the snowshed. The pulley and the rope were hanging from the S-hook. Then I fastened one end of the rope around the tread slab I wanted to take down. I tried to fasten it to the center of gravity but I judged a little wrong.

Then I climbed back down the ladder and took the other end of the rope over to a tree and wrapped it around the tree three or four times to snub it. With the slack out of the rope and the end snubbed, I could pull on the rope and slowly lift the slab. I figured that the rope was near enough to the center of gravity so that if one end dropped, it wouldn't drop by very much. What happened was that one end of the slab gently dropped right onto the flimsy plastic skylight cover and smashed a hole in it. I couldn't see it from where I was, but I heard it. I felt pretty dumb. I should have been able to predict that.

I lowered the slab to the ground and then decided that I had better fix the skylight right away. I figured I would do a quick and dirty repair job with duct tape, but I got to thinking about heat loss and the trouble my little heater has in keeping the place warm. I figured that as long as I was going to be messing around with the skylight, I should put some Styrofoam insulation in there. I got a couple of 2x6s and laid them on top of the trailer roof so I could walk to the skylight. I didn't want to crash through the ceiling and have a bigger problem. Then I got the Styrofoam and cut pieces that fit into the vent and duct taped the plastic cover. Since I was up there, I decided to insulate the other skylight the same way. We'll see if that makes a difference in the heating.

With that diversion out of the way, I dragged the slab up the hill and got back to work on the staircase. First, I moved both suspension jigs up the stringers to the next position and fastened them in place. Then I used a curved 1x2 to make a mark on the nose of the tread so I could trim it. I got the Skilsaw out, rigged a power cord to it, and cut the tread nose.

Then I suspended the tread from the jigs and adjusted it so that it was level and directly above its final position. I carefully measured the distance between the suspended tread and the one below it, and also the distance between the suspended tread and the porch deck. With these measurements, I calculated the scribe distance, and knowing that distance, I rebuilt the scribe to that length. Then I used the truing jig to true up the bubble level on the scribe.

Then I went down to the staircase and scribed both stringers and the slab. The scribe has a pencil point on each end and it made a good mark on the stringers. But the slab had a skin of gray wood and the pencil mark didn't show up very well. I got a red Marks-a-lot and marked the slab as I scribed. It went pretty slowly, but I got a visible red mark. I took the slab down from the jigs and turned it upside down. The scribe marks looked good so I darkened them all so I could see them easily when I sawed the notches.

My plan for notching was to notch both members with a rectangular plane in both notches. I should have marked the corners of the rectangles as I was scribing, but I didn't think of it at the time. Once I took the slab down from the jigs and turned it over, it was too late. I had to figure some other way to locate the rectangle corners.

On Thursday morning it was a beautiful sunny 30 degrees. Just right for working. I went to work establishing the corners of the rectangles on the scribe lines. It was a fairly tricky geometry problem which I finally solved using a length of rebar tie wire which I bent to match part of the scribed curve, and then a I used a level with a couple different methods of making sure the two lower rectangle corners were at the same level.

I deliberately made the notch very shallow, about 3/4", on the left stringer which made a very deep notch in the tread. The right stringer is a lot stronger and bigger so I made a deeper notch in that one. That left more strength in the tread. When the rectangle lines were drawn on the logs, I got the chainsaw out and cut all four notches. I flipped the tread over and into the notches and it sort of fit. It needed some trimming but I was out of time. I packed up and left for home at 1:15.