12/18-20/07 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

There was compact snow and ice on the road going over the pass and snow on the road all the rest of the way. I was delayed once while they cleared a tree that had fallen over the road.

This was the day to make the annual deliveries of Ellen's Christmas jam. No sooner had I turned onto the road to Mike Dickinson's and started up a gradual incline than I got stuck in the snow. I figured this would be another good test of 4WD so I tried. It didn't help at all. I decided to install a new set of chains I had bought, but when I took them out of the bag, I could see that they were different from the old ones and I didn't know how to work them. I put them back and got out the old trusty rusty chains. I put them on and drove right up the hill to Mike's. Kari was home so I gave the jam to her and talked to her for a while. I asked if Mike had cleared my driveway yet but she wasn't sure. She told me Mike was in a shop a little ways down the hill and that I should stop and ask him.

I stopped and found Mike who told me that he hadn't scooped it out yet and that the county had plowed a big berm in front of it. He said he would go down and do it right away and be done before I delivered the rest of the jam. He was right. I stopped at Larry and Roberta's and went in for a fairly long visit. When I left there, I went to Tutinos, who weren't home. I left the jam on their porch and fed Bert and Ernie a few dog biscuits. When I got to the property, I saw that Mike had been there and cleared the driveway almost to the trailer. That made it handy moving in.

There was 27 inches of snow in the open flat areas. I put the snowshoes on, made trails to the trailer, the cabin, the privy, and the compost pile, and then moved my stuff into the trailer. I started a fire in the wood stove in the cabin and then went down and had lunch.

After lunch, I worked in the loft moving more stuff out of the way so I could varnish the Grid A wall. I also moved the pickup back down by the road because more snow was expected and I didn't want to get snowed in that far up.

On Wednesday there was enough new snow that I put the snowshoes back on and remade all the trails. I lit another fire in the wood stove and then shoveled the snow off the mixer and the privy. They each had a pretty heavy load of snow.

Next, I went up in the loft and finished moving the stuff out of the way. That left a big mouse mess that had accumulated under the stuff. I put on my respirator and carefully cleaned up all the mouse mess. Then I vacuumed the area hoping that was the last mouse mess I would ever have to clean up in the cabin. I can always hope.

When the area was nice and clean, I set up tarps around the wall and lights so I was ready to work on the wall. It sure was nice working comfortably in shirtsleeves with the fire going in the stove. It snowed pretty heavily all day. After lunch, I sanded about half of the Grid C2 RPSL which has been due for its final coat of varnish for quite a long while. Then I planed and scraped about a third of the top log on the Grid A wall. The log is in pretty bad shape and very lumpy so it was a hard job to get that much of it ready for varnish. Before I quit for the day, I cleaned up all the chips and vacuumed the floor and the wall.

On Thursday morning, I measured 39 inches of snow on the ground. Bert and Ernie came by for hugs and dog biscuits while I was digging the pickup out of the snow. After that, I went up and varnished the two logs I had prepared. I left for home at 12:30.