8/8-9/07 I went up to the property for 2 days: Wednesday and Thursday.

My trip was cut short a day because I stayed home for the Seattle Night Out picnic on our street Tuesday evening. I am the Block Watch Captain so I pretty much had to be there.

I arrived at 12:20, moved in and had lunch. I was curious as to whether the county had moved the big boulder at the outcropping further onto my property. I went down and had a look. It looked like they did move it, but not very far. There was one rock that was small enough to be moved that was now exposed. It was one of the greenish rocks and I figured that if I left it there someone would run off with it. So I backed the pickup down to the outcropping and into the ditch so that the tailgate was on the ground a few feet from the greenish rock. I was able to roll the rock into the bed of the pickup and drive away with it. I dumped it at the outside of the hairpin turn where it should be pretty safe from thieves.

Up at the cabin, I was happy to discover no traces of mice. I think those last holes I plugged have done the trick. We'll see.

I stripped the forms off the first stringer pad and was pleased with the result. It is not perfect, but it is plenty strong and looks pretty good. The imperfections sort of go with the rustic motif of the cabin anyway.

Next, I made some measurements and dug the hole for the second stringer pad. After marking out the measurements, I made the decision to make all three pads independent -- the two stringer pads and a third one for the newel post. It would take a lot more concrete to tie two or all three of them together and it would serve no purpose. In fact, by leaving a dirt-filled space between them I think I will get better drainage down the hill past the pads. I dug the hole down to bedrock, which at that location was about a foot or so below the surface. Of course most of the digging was through rocks mixed with a little bit of dirt.

It was pleasant working. The weather was cooler and there were noticeably fewer mosquitoes. One chipmunk came around during the work to take peanuts.

On Thursday morning, there were no traces of mice, meeting my new expectations. Using the same old fence boards, each of which has been in more than one form or other structure over the years, I built the form for the second pad. It has pretty much the same geometry as the first one, except the first one overlapped with the cabin footing and the second one is free-standing. That made it considerably simpler. It is just a rectangular box a foot wide, two feet ten inches long, and about two feet deep. It has the slanting mount for the CB66 plate in the middle of the structure which makes the surface of the concrete on one end about seven inches higher than on the other end.

I also shaped two pieces of #4 rebar which will reinforce the CB66. I did the same thing with the first pad but I forgot to record it in the last journal entry. I had a bunch of pieces of #4 rebar which Sid Fadden had given to me that were about 4 feet long with a six-inch right angle bend on one end. By using the rebar cutter/bender Dr. Dick gave me, I made one acute angle bend in each piece such that with the right angle bend engaging the lower loop of the CB66, the rebar hung down so that the longer straight end of it lies along the bottom of the hole riding on the high points of the bedrock. Perfect for tying the entire structure together. With that rebar in there, if anything is going to move the CB66, it will have to move the entire mass of concrete and some bedrock as well. I don't think it will ever move.

As a sort of experiment, and in an attempt to improve the quality and look of the pad, I lined the inside of the form with 6 mil Visqueen. That should make the vertical corners nice and smooth and round and it might make it easier to vibrate the concrete into nice smooth sides with less exposed aggregate. We'll see.

Finally I mounted the CB66 on the form with a short dowel and a couple screws, and hung the two rebar pieces on the CB66. It's ready for concrete.

During the work, a flock of gray jays was intermittently there the whole time and so were a couple chipmunks. I took a lot of breaks from the work to oblige them. At one point, a Steller's Jay even got up enough nerve to take peanuts from within ten feet of me. I left for home at 2:40 ready to pour concrete on my next trip.