1/17-18/07 I went up to the property for 2 days: Wednesday and Thursday.

I stayed home on Tuesday to help the family deal with the snowfall in Seattle. It was melted enough by Wednesday morning for me to leave. It was pretty cold and I noticed that Lake Wenatchee was frozen over. That doesn't happen too often.

I arrived at noon. It was 20 degrees out and I measured 39 inches of snow on the ground. The driveway had been plowed so I had no trouble parking. There was about three inches of dry powder snow on the trails and the tree branches were beautifully covered with the new snow. The old snow was frozen hard as a brick so you could walk on it anywhere.

I brought a bunch of things with me for use when the scouts visit so I hauled it all up to the building in several trips. I brought two cots, a propane heater, a bunch of propane cylinders, a heavy weather WWII sleeping bag I got from Gus, and some other stuff. I let the trailer warm up while I was carrying the stuff up the hill, but by the time I went in for lunch, the temperature in there was only up to 34 degrees. By the time I finished lunch, though, it got up to about 50 degrees.

I went to work in the loft to clean up the mess the packrat had made in the wall while he lived there. I had plugged the hole up from the outside a long time ago, but now I removed the screen from the inside and cleaned out the nest. He had fouled the nest pretty badly. After I removed the remains of the nest, I used a gouge, a chisel, a scraper, and a saw to cut away the wood that had been soaked and stained. I got it pretty well down to new, clean wood for the most part, but I think I will still bring up some Nature's Miracle to make sure that I get rid of as much odor as possible.

I vacuumed the loft floor really well and then I set up a cot with Gus' sleeping bag in the loft so I could sleep up there overnight. This would be the first time I had ever slept in the cabin.

After having dinner in the trailer and talking to Ellen on the phone, I went up to the cabin to sleep. It was 14 degrees outside and in the cabin, so it would be a good test of that sleeping bag and give me a taste of what the other scout parents would have to endure. The WWII technology in that sleeping bag consisted of lots of canvas and lots of layers of wool. The bag is big and must weigh 30 lbs. It has snaps instead of a zipper so if you aren't careful you can let cold air in at the seam. I ended up staying warm enough to get a fair night's sleep.

When I went down to the trailer for breakfast, the temperature outside was still 14 degrees and the temperature inside the trailer was 62 degrees in spite of the electric heater having run all night long. Fourteen degrees pretty much maxes out the capabilities of the trailer insulation and that little heater.

I spent the morning putting tools and things away, tidying up the first floor to make more room for people to eat and sleep in there. I hung a tarp to make a wall along the closet in the bedroom with the idea that the propane heater might be able to raise the temperature in there since the loft provides a ceiling for the room, albeit a pretty high ceiling. I vacuumed the first floor, had lunch, and left for home at 1:45.