Next, I measured for the CB66 notches in the second stringer and for the end cut. I used the chainsaw to cut the end of the log off and to make the crosscuts for the notches. Then I finished the notches with a hammer and chisel.

I used the same lifting rigging as I did for the first stringer and it worked fine for the second one. After a little persuasion and some enlarging of the CB66 notches like I did before, I got the stringer placed. It fits nice and tight like the first one. I was happy.

The work was very pleasant. The weather was nice and cool, the leaves are starting to turn and they are beautiful, and a little chipmunk kept me company during the work. He convinced me to take periodic breaks so I could feed him peanuts from my hand.

Wednesday was another beautiful day. Dave called me in the morning before I started work. He wanted my advice on a question of policy for his yacht club.

I shifted my priority from the stairs to the stove and started out by digging up the marble slabs I had gotten from Vera Aldrich many years ago. I had stockpiled them on the hillside, but Mike had buried them when he installed the septic tank. I got a spade and dug the slabs out of the dirt. There were 48 of them and it took several trips with the wheelbarrow to move them all over to the front porch.

Once they were all stacked, I used Leonard's stiff masonry brush and a hose to clean the dirt off of them. They had been underground for so long that roots had grown in the spaces between the slabs and had left their marks. It was quite a job to scrub and clean them all up.

After I cleaned each piece, I carried it up onto the porch and propped it up in the sun. By the time I ran out of places to prop the pieces up, the earlier ones were warm and nice and dry. I took them into the cabin when they were dry and laid them on the floor all spread out.

After 48 such trips up and down the front steps carrying those slabs, they were finally all dry and laid out inside the cabin. With all of them visible, I selected ten of them to use to make the platform. Ellen had found that the platform needs to be 8 inches wider than the stove on the sides and back and it needs to be 18 inches wider on front side with the door. I measured the stove and found that the platform needs to be 48 inches square. I marked the square on the floor where I wanted the stove to be. I slanted it nearly 45 degrees so that the fire will be most visible from the eventual furniture in the living room. The stove will also be nearly under the chimney that is already in the roof.

The marble was salvaged, so there are holes, chips, and scratches on the pieces. But I figure they fit in fine with the rustic motif of the logs which also are full of holes, cracks, and imperfections. By the time I quit for the night, I was happy with how the platform is going to work out. A couple of the small pieces needed to be cut in order to fit, but I had a rock cutter down in the crawl space and I had plenty of marble in case I had trouble cutting the rock.

On Thursday morning, I started by taking pictures of the stair stringers and of the marble platform as it was roughly laid out. Then I used the rock cutter and cut the two pieces that I needed. I was surprised at how soft marble is. I had never worked with it before. I didn't need to hammer on the rock cutter at all. I just cranked on the lever of the hydraulic jack and when the jaws closed in on the rock, it just split with no problem.

I removed the lifting rigging I had used for the stringers and put the chains and come-alongs away. I also had to make another wood plug for one of the scaffold hanger holes in the wall because I had lost one when I initially installed the rigging.

I have invited Herb Roberts to come up and visit but I need to make the place wheelchair accessible first. I measured to find the length of the ramp I need from the back deck to the ground through the gap in the rock pile opened up by the scouts. It is 30 feet. I thought I would bring up some long 8x8 timbers I have stored down by the trailer, but I decided instead to use the 10-foot 4x4s I got from Doris. They will be easier to work with and I have enough of them to do the job. I also checked and found that I have plenty of 3/4" OSB to deck over the ramp. It should be an easy job to build the ramp. I had already made the privy wheelchair accessible for my mother, so it will be a simple matter to hook a ramp back up to it again. While I was working outside, the gray jays and the chipmunk came around for peanuts periodically.

With the ramp questions settled, I went back to work on the marble platform. The marble slabs are not all the same thickness so I had to figure out how to make them even and level on top. I did a lot of strategizing and thinking about the problem. I did a lot of measuring and testing with a level. After trying several ideas, I decided that using thin cedar shims to raise and true up each piece of marble would be the easiest. Then I could set the pieces down on a mortar bed with the shims still in place to make sure each piece seated at the right level. I put cedar shims on my list for next week. I left for home at 1:45 happy with my plans both for Herb's ramp and for the marble platform.