Construction Journal Entry Week of 8/7/11

8/8-10/11 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

On the way I bought eight 80-lb sacks of concrete mix. I let them load it into my truck to save my back. I proceeded on to Priscilla's where I repaired her handrail. She gave me a big stone chisel of Leonard's that she said she would never use and I could see that it was exactly the tool I needed to chisel the rocks I am working on. I was very happy to receive it.

Then I stopped at Mike's to see if someone might be available to help me again. Ian met me at the door and said he was available again and would be over at 9 the next morning.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:50. Just like last week, I drove the truck right up to the cabin, stopping short of Rosie where I unloaded my gear. I went in and called Terry right away. I relayed the bathroom measurements, we discussed options for the bathroom vanity, among other things, and we formalized the order for the kitchen, bathroom, and utility room cabinets. Terry quoted me a price and I paid about half of it with a credit card. He will hold the order so that it will be delivered some time after the scouts come up for a visit on September 16-18.

After lunch and a short nap, I went to work. I tied up Rosy, pulled the truck ahead, and unloaded the eight sacks of concrete mix using the porch crane just like I did the week before. It sure is easy on my back that way.

I was planning on making a video of me unloading and stacking the concrete using the crane, but I realized that I had forgotten to bring the camera. It was a disappointment, but there will be other occasions.

After backing the truck back down, I got three buckets and watered all of the surviving sequoia trees. Then I went behind the cabin and prepared the second bay, between Grid C1 and D1, for pouring concrete the next day. I used a level and chalk to mark a sloping line on the foundation wall for the top of the pour.

Looking at the remaining two bays, I could see that I hadn't been so dumb in placing those drain pipes after all, except for the mistake of placing the one at Grid D1 a little too low. In the bays between Grid A1 and C1, the pipes are almost down to the bedrock level and the bedrock itself is not level in the bottom of the bays. It will take some chiseling to level off the bottoms of the bays and there will be little room for concrete. It struck me that with the eight new sacks of concrete I had bought way too much. I began to think of other projects where I could use up the extra concrete.

I had recently discovered that I could get cell phone service on the back porch. I decided to check it out by retrieving a video message Ellen had sent to my cell phone. I tried for quite a while and found that even though I could get service sometimes, it was unreliable and would switch between service and no service every minute or so.

On Tuesday morning, Ian showed up at 9:00 and we went to work mixing and pouring concrete into the Grid C1-D1 bay. Since we had so much concrete I didn't have to bother embedding rocks as we went. That made it somewhat easier. But I was surprised that we used so much. We ended up using six and a half sacks so we only had three sacks left over. That was not nearly as much as I thought, although I think it is still more than we need for the rest of the project. We'll see after I do some more work on those first two bays.

Since I didn't have my camera, I used my cell phone to take some pictures of Ian. He left about 10:30 after cleaning up the tools. When the concrete had set up a little, I troweled the surface and was pleased with how it came out. I think the channel will drain nicely.

After lunch and a nap, I decided to free up two big plastic storage bins that were full of planer chips. I used to use the chips as tinder for starting fires in the wood stove, but since I started using a propane torch to start the fires, I haven't been using chips. I decided to spread the chips on the trails through the sequoia grove and use the bins to store emergency food. Those bins are nice mouse-proof containers.

When I finished spreading the chips on the trails, I went up to the springbox and cleaned the debris from around it. I also unscrewed the overflow pipe and discovered one big caddis fly larva inside. Those things must be able to swim up into the spring in a gravel seam underneath because there is no other way for them to get in there. I guess I will just have to depend on that fine-mesh stainless steel screen over the outlet pipe to keep them out of my plumbing.

Next I went back to the hard work of chiseling rock at the bottom of the Grid B1-C1 bay. I used the Bulldog to drill holes down into the rock and then I used that big chisel I got from Priscilla with a big hammer to break away the rock. It was hard work but I got quite a bit of rock removed. I'll have to get in there with a short level to finish getting the right grade.

In thinking about placing concrete in there, it looked to me like it is too shallow for the aggregate size in the concrete mix that I have. It seemed like mortar might work better. But then I thought that a thin layer of mortar or concrete would probably get broken up by frost heave over time and that maybe it would be better to just pack the bottom of the channel with bentonite powder and leave it at that. I'll give it some more thought after I get it chiseled out completely.

I was very tired and sore when I went in for my shower. It was extremely pleasant taking a long shower taking occasional peeks at Nason Ridge over the shower curtain, through the open bathroom doorway and the living room windows. From my shower, I could still see some patches of snow on the ridge even though we are well into August.

On Wednesday I spent the morning inventorying the emergency food we have stored in the cabin. It has been accumulating and I figured it was time to inventory it properly so we could implement a sensible plan for rotating it. I left for home at 1:15 feeling pretty good about getting close to having the drainage problem fixed at last.



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