Construction Journal Entry Week of 6/28/09

6/30-7/1/09 Andrew and I went up to the property for 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday.

We arrived at 12:30 and were greeted by swarms of mosquitoes. I think this ranks among the worst years for mosquitoes that I have seen. Bert and Ernie showed up while we were unloading and they brought their own clouds of mosquitoes with them.

After lunch, Andrew and I went to work on the chinking. Andrew mixed all the mortar while I stayed in the loft and chinked. The timing was almost perfect. It took him just as long to deliver a new batch of mortar as it took me to use up a batch. We finished chinking the loft, which took only two or three batches, and then we went to work on the remaining seams on the first floor. These seams were not yet ready for mortar.

Andrew cut some insulation strips and insulated the few seams that still needed insulation. I started nailing the insulated seams and when all the insulating was finished, Andrew joined me in the nailing. We finished nailing all the remaining seams. These included the entire log wall inside the bedroom closet and the bottom one and a half seams in the bedroom itself. It was a little awkward working on that bottom seam, but we got the job done.

Before we went in, I built a rack to hold three small electric fans that I think Vladimir gave me. Since the fan I had at the front cabin door was so effective in keeping mosquitoes out of the cabin, I figured I might as well set up a fan in front of the trailer door as well. When we quit for the day, I took the fans and an extension cord down to the trailer and set the fans up. A few mosquitoes got into the trailer, but for the most part, I think the fans were effective at keeping them out.

Andrew talked me into going to the 59er Diner for dinner, so we washed up and headed out. We had a nice dinner. When we got back we played three games of chess. I managed to win two and I got beat pretty badly once. For some reason the white bishop was missing from the set. I was surprised by that because I thought that the set was complete after I made a replacement pawn. If I can't find that bishop, I guess I'll make a new one.

On Wednesday morning, we went right to work chinking. Andrew again mixed all the mortar and I stayed inside chinking the whole time. It didn't take more than a couple hours to finish the job. I didn't count but we probably used 8 to 10 batches of mortar. I still have a little more than a sack and a half of mortar mix left. I'll use that to build some more stone steps at the foot of the main outside staircase.

Bert and Ernie showed up during the work and Andrew went down to the trailer to get them their dog biscuits. Before we left for home, I planted some potatoes to see if they would thrive up there. The mosquitoes were thick where I planted the potatoes so I didn't do a super good job. If they can survive that planting, then it will be a good sign that they will grow up there. We'll see how they do. We had lunch and left for home at about 12:30.



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