2/15-17/11 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:45 and once again, there was no new snow. The old snow was shrunken way down and the driveway and parking area were bare dirt. It was 35 degrees outside.

After turning down the valve at the trailer in order to provide water pressure at the cabin, I carried my gear up the concrete staircase and went in the back door. Then I opened the front door and went out on the porch.

I surprised Rocky, the local pine squirrel, who had just hopped up onto the porch when I went outside. I was happy to see the little guy because even though we meet quite often in the woods, he never lets me get too close. This was the first time I had seen him visit my porch while I was there. He occasionally leaves pinecone messes on the steps so I know he visits when I'm not there.

I froze in my tracks and started talking to him to see whether he might visit for a while or just take off. To my surprise, he hopped up on a projecting wall log just under the porch crane and sat and looked at me for a while. Then, he climbed up one more log to sit on the next one.

It seemed that he had no fear of me and that he just might visit for a while. But then he climbed up even higher, and soon he was at the very top of the wall just under the roof. In a flash, he went up between two rafters and disappeared. This was a bad sign.

The two rafters are the ones that straddle the Grid 3 gable wall and they had been insulated long ago before the OSB was nailed on. There was no other way to get the insulation in between that pair because of the log gable wall directly under the rafters.

The screen over the vent opening in the bird block between that pair of rafters had been chewed open by mice several years ago and I had repaired it so I thought rodents couldn't get in any more. Rocky just proved that the screen had been compromised again.

I got the ladder out and went up to take a look. Sure enough, there was a fist-size hole in the screen. It now became a high priority to do something about it. Since I couldn't be sure whether Rocky, or another squirrel was inside the roof, I decided to make another version of a rodent valve so that I could prevent further entry and still allow any rodents inside the rafters to get out.

Since this was going to be fairly light work inside the cabin I decided to build a fire to warm the place up. My original plan was to work on the stovepipe clearance problem up under the ridgepole and since it gets so warm up there I wasn't going to build a fire. But my work plans were now changed.

While I was splitting wood for the fire, Bert and Ernie evidently heard me and came by for hugs and biscuits. I also had some left-over gravy that I put in trays and gave to them. They really loved it. It's not every dog that gets biscuits and gravy when they go visiting.

After lunch, and after the fire had warmed the place up, I got a piece of sheet metal and made a second-generation rodent valve. The one I made on 3/17/04 was made for a six-inch stovepipe and was too big for this application. I made a new one that was 4 1/4 inches square and about 7 inches long with a rectangular flapper inside. I took a couple pictures of the new valve before I installed it and a couple more after installation.

Since I didn't know whether Rocky was inside or outside, and if inside, I wanted to know whether he came out, I put a little wood chip on top of the flapper valve so that if he went through, he would knock the chip off and I would be able to tell.

After dinner I set the camera up on the tripod and made a video telling how I built the log cabin by myself. Later I decided it was not good enough to publish so I will try again later.

On Wednesday morning it was 28 degrees outside. I went out on the porch and saw that the wood chip on the rodent valve was still there. That could either mean that Rocky was still in there sleeping or that he wasn't in there when I installed the valve.

Next I got serious about cutting away the 2 inches of OSB from around the chimney to provide the required clearance to combustibles. The first problem was getting a comfortable working platform. It was clear that the scaffold tower was in the wrong place. It needed to be moved about 3 feet to give better access. Before I started moving the tower, though, I used it where it was to replace the light bulb in the fixture on the ridgepole. I have decided to quit using that light because it is really only there to provide a future box to hang a ceiling fan on and it doesn't provide much light now. Without the scaffold tower, it will be a hard job to change the bulb in the future.

The scaffold tower was a little too heavy for me to move the way it was but after taking down all the planks I had on the first tier, I was able to move it little by little. I thought that after I moved it, there would be enough clearance to allow for a third tier, but after measuring I found that it still wouldn't work. I decided to use the jury rigged scaffolding for the third tier that I already had built.

With the tower moved, I had pretty good access from the one plank I had up high. It was still extremely awkward working up there because the chimney is about 7 or 8 inches in diameter and it is in about a 14-inch space between two rafters which are 12 inches deep. That only leaves about 3 inches on each side to get my hands and tools in. Then there is the ridgepole which is right where my head would like to be. So to work on the OSB, I either have to have my face up against the ridgepole which means I can't see what I'm working on, or have my head down under the ridgepole with my arms extended straight up and have to look up under it directly into the falling chips. And then there is the stovepipe that got in the way of where the rest of my body wanted to be.

I ended up sort of sitting on the top rail of the steel scaffold frame with my feet on that one plank. It was about 25 feet straight down to the floor if I looked down over my shoulder, and I had nothing to lean back on. It was awkward and uncomfortable to say the least, and it was very hot up there. Plus, I had to work by holding the cordless drill with one hand up above my head and try to drill where I wanted to without being able to see very well.

To start the work, I used a sharpie to draw the circular line on the OSB where I wanted to cut it. Then I cut a short piece of 1/2-inch EMT that I placed over the 3/8-inch bit in the cordless drill to act as a stop. The EMT left 3/4 of an inch of the end of the bit exposed so that I wouldn't drill all the way through the OSB and into the metal roofing on the other side.

The plan was to drill a series of connected holes all around the line. Once you have a hole drilled, it is very hard to drill another one right next to it without having the bit migrate back into the first hole. Or, if there is a gap between holes, it is very hard to drill out that gap. And, I couldn't really see what I was doing because the drill and my hands were in the way.

I could only work for a few minutes before I would have to take a break and climb down to cool off and rest my arms. By lunch time I was exhausted and had holes drilled only about 1/4 of the way around the circle.

After lunch I tried to take a short nap but I heard a commotion outside and I went out to investigate. Here was Rocky trying to get in through the rodent valve. He acted really angry but he couldn't get in. Then he climbed onto a rafter and by scurrying along the underside of the rafter, he went up to the ridgepole and down the other side to the opposite side of the building. There he tried to get in from the other end. I was relieved after I saw him give up and quit trying. I was also relieved to know that he was definitely outside the building. I'll have to keep a close eye on things to see that he doesn't chew another hole in another screen. I also realized that I need to boost the priority on getting the ceiling boards installed on the outside. That will be the permanent solution to keeping the rodents out.

I went back to work removing the OSB. It was very hot, tiring, and hard work. I tried various tools including a tin snips and a narrow chisel to break out the OSB after the holes were drilled. I was able to remove about 1/4 of the OSB before I quit. I quit at 4:30 because I was so exhausted and because I started dropping things from the top of the scaffold. I think it would have been dangerous to have kept on working. My body was so fatigued that I took a nap before I showered and had my dinner.

On Thursday morning I found a shrew in the trap in the crawlspace. Poor little guy. I threw the body out, reset the trap and went back to work cutting away OSB.

I got the idea of using a tool I had made on 10/23/08 for replacing a roof panel. I modified it a little by straightening out the shoulder and sharpening the end of it and then tried it out. It worked great. I got a little better at using the drill as a router to connect the holes, and by using the new tool and a hammer and chisel, I was able to cut away about 3/4 of the OSB before I quit for the week. I took some pictures of what I had done. I'll need these pictures to prove to the building inspector that I really did provide the required clearance to combustibles up there. I left for home at 1:10 happy in the knowledge that I will be able to finish cutting all the OSB away.