4/3-5/07 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

It was a beautiful 35 degrees when I arrived at 11:40. The snow had melted a lot so I went up to check on the sequoia trees in the woods. I started above the drainfield and found one that was doing pretty well. There was too much snow up there and I couldn't find any others so I gave up. I'll check later when the snow melts more.

I sanded all the surfaces that were due for another coat of varnish. Then I took the chainsaw up into the woods and cleared logs and trees that were across the creek where I needed to roll out the next section of water pipe. This was the perfect time to work on the water line: the snow was gone near the creek, there were no bugs yet, the leaves weren't out yet, especially the Devil's Club, and the temperature was nice and cool for working.

On Wednesday I started out by scraping the last third of the Grid B purlin. This was another welcome milestone. It was the last overhead scraping I needed to do in the entire building. It's much easier scraping at shoulder height, or lower, so I am really glad all the overhead scraping is done.

Before lunch, I went back up into the woods and rolled out another 50 feet of copper pipe into the creek bed. Then I rolled up and retired a 50 foot section of hose. I used the post hole digger to clear a channel for the pipe, and then I lay the digger across the creek to make a bridge to step on while I rolled the pipe out. I didn't have waterproof boots on so I either had to work from one bank or the other, or stand on that bridge. It worked slick so I had the pipe rolled out in no time without getting my feet wet.

In the process, I noticed that some animal had bitten my hose again so it was spraying water all over. I got the duct tape, some paper towels, turned the valve off at the springbox to make the holes suck rather than spray, and then cleaned and taped up the holes. I missed some the first time so after turning the valve back on and seeing it still spraying, I had to go through the whole process again to get all the holes taped up.

While I was up at the spring, I cleaned out all the debris that had accumulated during the winter. When it was all cleaned up it looked so pretty. The sphagnum moss, which is growing over most of the rocks and the concrete, was a brilliant green. The water was flowing fast enough that it was white and frothy and made a pleasant babbling sound.

I had enough water pipe to take me past the point where the pipe leaves the creek and will go underground in a trench the rest of the way. I had previously thought that I would have to divert the creek through a drainpipe so that I could dig the trench without having it fill with water. But now I don't think I will have to go to that trouble.

I dug about a three foot long trench in the creek bank leading out of the creek, which of course filled right up with water. But after I rolled the pipe into that trench, I backfilled the trench on top of the pipe with the mud I had dug out. This plugged up the trench so that now I can dig more trench below the pipe without having it fill with water. I think I can just use this trick to continue the trench without having to dam up and divert the creek. It will save me a lot of work. I'm kind of excited now to solder another coil of pipe onto the end and continue burying the pipe in the trench. The end is finally coming into view on the pipeline project.

After lunch and a nap, I went back to work and planed and scraped the rest of the B2 PSL. Then I swept up the chips, took down the tarps, and vacuumed the floor, the wall, the window, the PSL and the purlin so I am ready to varnish.

On Thursday morning, I made some measurements of the stair stringers, and the distance from the stoop to the top level of the back deck. These measurements will be needed for designing the back staircase and deck. When I finished the measurements, I went in and varnished the window, two wall logs, the purlin and the PSL. I left for home at 1:15.