5/17/10 Monday. Made eight bird blocks of quarter-inch plywood to block both ends of the spaces between pairs of rafters in the area where ceiling boards will be installed under the eaves.

5/18-20/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:20 in a light rain. Bert and Ernie were a little damp when they arrived for soggy hugs and biscuits. After moving in and having lunch, I drove the truck up to the upper roadway so I could unload a computer desk we had gotten for free at a garage sale, and a heavy oak tabletop we paid $10 for at another garage sale.

The rain had stopped by then so the furniture stayed dry after I removed the tarp. Unfortunately the desk had gotten broken during the trip. I was still able to use the porch crane to lift it up onto the porch, but once it was up there and I was able to examine it, I could see that the beautiful wood was not wood at all. It was all particle board covered with paper with a nice wood grain image on it. I decided that the thing was not worth repairing.

I also used the porch crane to lift the big oak tabletop up onto the porch. This was a really high quality piece of wood with a flaw in one corner. I’m not sure what I’ll do with it, but I brought it inside to store it.

While I was working on the porch, I noticed a lot of packrat poop. I hadn’t seen any since my last attempts to trap them after which they seemed to have disappeared. Now I feared that they were back. I brought the old refrigerator vegetable drawer up to the porch with the intention of setting a trap for them in the evening.

Next, I completely dismantled the computer desk. I suppose the parts should burn as well as Presto-Logs, since they are made of the same material. The desk was worth the price we paid, but not worth the effort. You win some and you lose some.

I took four of the bird blocks I had made up onto the high scaffolds and tried them out. I realized right away that I needed to modify four of them. The bird blocks are simply rectangles of plywood with notches cut out of each corner so that they fit sort of snugly between two rafters on the sides, the roof sheathing on top, and the ceiling boards on the bottom. The idea is to prevent birds from nesting on the ceiling boards before they are all installed. As I install more boards, I will pull the blocks out before I start, and then plug the spaces up at the last board I install. That way, I will just keep using the same eight blocks, four on each end.

I had made handles on the bird blocks by screwing a three-inch piece of 1x2 to the middle of each block. That way, I could hang on to the block while I jammed it in place, and more importantly, so that I could remove it later in order to add more ceiling boards. What I didn’t think of though, and what required the modifications, was that for the first blocks I needed to install, on the down side of the ceiling board on top of the Grid B purlin, I had to use the handles on the uphill side to install them, but later on, when I got around to installing ceiling boards on the other side, I would need handles on that side too. So I modified four of the bird blocks by installing handles on the other side.

Before I quit for the day, I set my usual Paiute Indian figure-4 deadfall trap up on the porch using the refrigerator vegetable drawer.

On Wednesday, I found that the trap was sprung but it was empty. The peanuts that I had set out and used for bait were untouched. There was also not a trace of packrat poop. Maybe the packrats had just passed through over the weekend, but they definitely weren’t there last night. I quit worrying about them.

Bert and Ernie showed up again so I took a break and we went down to the trailer for hugs and biscuits.

Next I built an extension to the high scaffolds so that I could reach all the way out to the fascia boards in order to install ceiling boards. I formed the scaffold support by rigging a short loop of log chain hanging from the outer anchor hook on the Grid B purlin. Then I ran a 4x4 from this loop over to a rung of the ladder that was set up against the peak of the fascia boards from the high rock. Then I set a few 2x4s and a 2x6 spanning from the 4x4 to the existing scaffold planks near the building wall. This allowed me to reach the underside of the eaves all the way from the Grid B purlin to the ridgepole.

Then I installed the four bird blocks with the extra handles on the downhill side of the purlin under the eaves. I used shims to wedge them in and hold them in place. I wouldn’t be able to reach in to install them once I got a few ceiling boards nailed on so I had to get them in now.

Next I made a few trips up and down the high scaffold bringing up the various tools I needed in order to install the ceiling boards. While I was up there, Earl showed up for a visit. I went down and we had a nice long chat. He was experimenting with his Parkinson’s medicine trying to figure out the minimum dosage required. He was shaking somewhat and told me that he had learned that he was below the minimum. He said that he had been using his chainsaw that morning, but that he was too unsteady to drive his motorcycle. It was a little chilly inside the cabin, so I burned a few cardboard boxes in the wood stove which took the chill off in short order.

It was lunchtime by the time Earl left so I went in for lunch and a nap.

When I went back to work, I couldn’t find all eight bird blocks. I was completely baffled. They are big and bright enough that I can’t imagine how I could have overlooked them, but after searching every inch of all three floors of the cabin, and the bed of the truck, and everywhere I had been, I just couldn’t find the last one. The missing one is one of two special ones that fit up against the outermost rafter. One of the corner notches is bigger on these than on the other six bird blocks. I remember showing Earl this particular bird block, but now I simply couldn’t find it. I thought maybe I was going crazy.

I spent the afternoon installing four ceiling boards. That was all the material I had in the two long 1x8s I had stained some weeks ago. The first one was by far the most difficult. It needed to mate with the existing board installed on the Grid B purlin. The problem was that there was about an inch and a half of the purlin that stuck out farther than the existing board. The space between the purlin and the rafters was too skinny to accommodate the mating ceiling board. So I used a hammer and chisel to work the purlin down so the board would fit. I also used a small screwdriver to clean out the chiseled chips and whatever other debris was in the slot between the tongue on the existing board and the newly chiseled surface of the purlin.

Inch by inch, I removed wood and debris until the groove of the new board could mate with the tongue of the existing board. I worked from the fascia toward the log wall. When I got to the wall, the problem got more difficult. Here was the slot between the gable logs and the 2x6 that was sandwiching the 1x2 that runs over the gable log ends.

Both the gable log and the chinking around the purlin were too high by as much as a quarter inch, which made the slot way too tight to accept the 1x8. I decided that it would be too difficult to rasp, or otherwise work down, the gable log, and it would be virtually impossible to work the chinking mortar down without cracking and ruining it. Instead, I decided to work the ceiling board down so it would fit in the slot.

I used a super sharp 2” chisel and a big hammer to work the ceiling board down where it needed it. I also had to cut a groove to accommodate the rebar from the inside anchor hook. After a lot of work, and trial fittings, I got the first ceiling board to fit nicely.

Unfortunately, I think I did some damage to my hearing by pounding on the board trying to get it to fit. I had neglected to wear hearing protection because I didn’t realize I would be making so much noise. But hammering on the end of that board, in that cavity between the log wall, the eaves, and the scaffold deck, with my ear pretty close to the board made enough noise to cause pain in my ears. I definitely should have stopped, climbed down, and gotten my ear muffs. But I didn’t. I hope I recover without too much damage.

The next three ceiling boards were simple by comparison with that first one. I was able to drive each of them into the slot without having to work anything down. And all the tongues and grooves mated nicely. I was a little disappointed though with how small an area those boards covered. They only got a quarter of the way to the ridgepole. Now I don’t know whether to buy some more 1x8s right away and finish this part of the job, or whether to take the scaffolding down and re-erect it later to finish the rest, or whether to leave the scaffolding set up for a longer term.

I installed three bird blocks over the last ceiling board I had installed, thus blocking all those cavities against the birds’ using them for nesting. I still needed to find that last bird block.

On Thursday morning, after looking everywhere again for that last bird block, I gave up and made a new one from scratch. Then I went up on the scaffold and installed it, thus closing up the last cavity.

With the ceiling board job done as far as it could go without more boards, I went to work on the ventilation system. This was a fun job because it is new to me and because there was still some design work to do.

I double checked the hole locations I had figured out before by suspending a plumb bob between the loft floor and the main floor. When I was convinced that the locations were correct, I used my 6-inch hole saw to cut a hole in the loft floor and one in the main floor. Then I snapped a few sections of 6-inch stovepipe together and was pleased to discover that they went through the holes but were so snug that they almost would stay put if you let go of them just from the friction against the hole.

With the use of some rope rigging to suspend the phony log in the loft, I was able to run three lengths of stove pipe from the bedroom closet up through the loft floor and inside the phony log up to the roof. It was pretty tricky, but with a little ingenuity, I got past some of the problems that had I been worried about for quite a while. The only tricky part remaining is how to mount the fan to the foundation wall. That will be fun to figure out and gratifying to do.

I left for home at 1:40 feeling pretty good about what I had done, but concerned about my hearing.