6/16-18/09 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:30 and was promptly greeted by Bert and Ernie as usual. After moving in and having lunch, I unloaded a bunch of yard waste I had brought with me and put it on the compost pile. Then I drove the truck up to the upper roadway and unloaded six sacks of mortar mix that I had brought with me. The crane worked very well with its new molly CBA. I lifted two sacks at a time and I loaded the sling up on the tailgate without ever having to climb up into the truck bed. In three easy trips up and down the porch steps, I had all the mortar stored up on the porch. Then I backed the truck down with no trouble.

It was too hot to work in the loft, so I got the loppers out and cut branches and brush away from the driveway, the roadway, and some of the trails. There were quite a few mosquitoes out.

On Wednesday, Bert and Ernie showed up soon after I had finished breakfast. I got an early start and was chinking in the loft by 6:00 AM. It was very pleasant and cool working that early in the morning. I worked until about 1:00 and got all but a couple lineal feet of the entire Grid 1 gable wall chinked.

While I was chinking the seam with the electrical outlets in it, I stuck the trowel in an electrical box to get a little chunk of mortar out and I blew the circuit breaker. I also burned a little bit of the tip of the trowel off and I made a pit in one edge of the trowel. The trowel now leaves a slight groove or ridge which will probably be visible in the remaining seams if you know where to look. Oh, well. That will just add to the character of the building. I probably should make a habit of shutting off the circuit breaker whenever I take a cover off a box.

After lunch and a nap, it was still cool enough in the loft to work so I cleaned up the logs around the seams that I had chinked.

On Thursday morning I got another early start. I finished chinking the Grid 1 wall and I chinked the top two of the four seams on the Grid E wall. The end of the chinking project is now in sight. All that is left in the loft are seven straight seams with no corners or other complications that slow the process down. There are also some seams in the first floor bedroom and closet that need to be chinked, and then I will be done with chinking. I should be able to finish it all in the next two weeks. We'll see.

Bert and Ernie came by for biscuits when I was cleaning up the tools. I left for home at 12:30 feeling pretty good about what I had done and glad that my knee felt pretty strong the whole time.