10/16-18/07 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The fall colors were beautiful on the drive over, especially on the eastern slopes. I arrived at 1:45. Things were wet and there was a light rain most of the afternoon. I had planned to install the stovepipe and get the stove working this week, but the stove store had to backorder some of the parts. I had to change my plans and work on other projects this week.

I started out by using a piece of tar paper to fix a leak in the privy. Then I drilled the bolt holes for the CB66s in the two stringers and the newel post on the back staircase. There was barely enough clearance to get a drill and a short bit in between the logs to do the drilling, but I managed to get the job done. I didn't have enough pieces of 5/8" allthread to make all six bolts, but I used the three pieces I had to make sure all of them worked. I'll put the allthread on my shopping list for next week.

On Wednesday, I made the decision to make log treads for the staircase rather than make temporary plank treads like I did on the front. The log treads are simpler in the back and there isn't any time pressure to get the stairs built. I think I can make and install the log steps just about as fast as I could the temporary ones anyway, so making the temporary stairs would just be a waste of time. I did a lot of measuring and drawing to come up with the final design for the stairs and the final tread and riser sizes.

The log treads that I have had stored in the woodshed for so many years are already the right size. All I have to do is notch them to fit the stringers and clean them up. I got one out and started installing it.

I started by making two plywood brackets that I intended to use to suspend the tread so I could scribe it. I soon discovered that it wasn't easy to make adjustments to position the tread correctly. I realized that what I needed were the jigs I had already made for the front staircase on 8/2/06. I discarded the plywood brackets and set up the jigs that I had already made.

A chipmunk, three or four gray jays, and a Steller's Jay came around for peanuts during the work. It was about 45 degrees out and very pleasant for working. When I was in for lunch, a pickup drove up to the trailer and then started backing out. I went out and talked to the guy. He was a really animated salesman selling meat. He called himself "The Meatman". After talking with him for a while and telling him about my website, he left and I went back to work.

I aligned the first tread hanging it from the jigs, scribed it and the stringers for the notches, and then used the chainsaw to cut the notches. The chainsaw was hard to start again, but after quite a few pulls, it finally started. After it warmed up a little, it acted normally. I worked on the notches quite a bit with Rasputin and by the time I went in for the night, I got it to fit pretty well. It is still a half inch or so high so it will take some more work to get it to fit right.

On Thursday morning it was 45 degrees and raining. A storm had come in and I was pretty sure it would be snowing up in the pass. I decided this would be a good time to winterize the trailer. I had bought a gallon of antifreeze on the way up.

I went up to the cabin to get my antifreeze IV bottle and I discovered a mouse in the trap in the crawlspace. The peanut and the traps upstairs were undisturbed so I figured the mouse came in down below somehow. I checked all the vent openings down there and the screens and plugs covering all the pipes and conduits and I didn't see any way a mouse could have gotten in. The peanuts in the Rodent Valve were gone, though, and I could see mouse tracks in the dust inside the pipe.

I had convinced myself that even with the Valve flap open, a mouse wouldn't be able to get in the pipe from the outside. Since I know the mouse was in the pipe, it seemed like that was the way he got in. I put another peanut in the pipe and then sealed it up with a coffee can from the inside. If that peanut disappears, I'll know for sure that they can get in from the outside. But I'll leave the coffee can on to plug it up from now on so they can't get into the building that way any more.

Winterizing using my home-made IV bottle worked like a charm. Everything was all set up so the only complication was that I was working in a cold rain. After I winterized the trailer, I drained the outside hose at the cabin by disconnecting it from the spigot, putting that end in a bucket, and then going up on the porch and hanging the open nozzle to the Grid E1 anchor hook. By draping the hose over a chair on the porch, and over the toolbox in the crawlspace, I was able to hang the hose so that it drained completely. When it was empty, I fastened it to the spigot again, which I left turned off, and coiled the hose back up and stowed it on the porch. I went in for lunch and then left for home at 1:40. The rain seemed to make the leaves more vivid so the drive back was absolutely gorgeous. It was snowing going over the pass and I saw one car in the ditch on its side just west of the pass. A police car was already on the scene.