3/6-8/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped and visited with Uncle Charles for a while. Then I proceeded on to a beautiful sunny drive over the pass. There had been some new snow at the higher elevations. I arrived at 1:15 and was promptly greeted by Bert all by himself. After a few hugs, we went up to the cabin where he got biscuits and gravy.

On the way up I saw that Chuck, the new Giant Sequoia tree, had tipped over in its pot. The thing is 6 feet tall and rather top heavy so it isn't too surprising. I set it back up straight.

After having lunch, I spent the rest of the day chiseling the logs in the Grid A wall to flatten them for the cabinet installation. I used the Bosch Bulldog with the wood chisel bit for the bulk of the work and I used a block plane and a hammer and chisel for the finishing touches.

In the evening, about 9:00, I heard gnawing coming from the loft ceiling over the big table I have up there. The gnawing continued even after I walked over there to investigate. It was clear that there were mice in the seventh insulation bat from the Grid A1 corner and about 2 feet from the Grid A wall.

After thinking about a strategy, I decided to get one of the electronic rodent repellers from the porch and install it right under where I heard the gnawing. That's what I did and the gnawing stopped immediately. I think those things really work.

I went back to bed and pretty soon the gnawing started up again. I got up again and made a rack from a long 1x2 and a camera tripod and taped the rodent repeller to it so that it was only a few inches under the Visqueen that is stapled to the underside of the rafters. That stopped the gnawing again and I didn't hear any gnawing the rest of the night.

On Wednesday morning, I found the missing mousetrap in the bedroom, behind where I had stored the cabinets. There was no trace of a tail or a foot in the trap. There also was no bait left in it. I think that the mouse had probably been trapped by his tail and was able to pull it free after getting the trap stuck in the crack between the floor and the wall. I'm sure that was one of the mice I nailed after that though. A small victory.

I inspected the Visqueen around where I had heard the gnawing, and sure enough, there was a mouse-size hole cut in it where the Visqueen meets the wall. That was fairly good news, because it meant that there was a good chance I had finally found out how the mice have been getting in.

Next I set up the extension ladder from the snow berm outside the back door up to the top of the log wall. I climbed up and had a look. Sure enough, there were some 1/4 " size cracks between the birdblock, the OSB sheathing, and the rafters. It looked like the narrow vertical screen on the left side was not quite long enough and had left a small gap at the top. I figured that this must have been how they got in. I got a caulk gun out and caulked up that hole real good and also all the rest of the gaps that looked like they might be vulnerable. Fortunately I can see that caulking from the porch so I will be able to keep an eye on it to make sure they don't try to get in that way again.

None of the traps or peanuts that I have set out inside were disturbed, so I am fairly certain that the repeller had driven the mice out of the building over night, and now that the holes are plugged up, I shouldn't see any more mouse activity for a while. I sure hope so.

The whole experience caused me to reconsider my priorities. I decided that as soon as all the cabinets are installed, getting the ceiling boards installed inside and outside will be my highest priority. That should close off all the potential mouse entry points for good. At least I hope so.

While I was outside, and after I had put the ladder back, I got a shovel and went down and dug Chuck's pot in a little deeper so that it wouldn't tip over again. In the process I hit what I think is bedrock so I may have to reevaluate that site. I think I'll get a piece of rebar, a big hammer, and test the ground around there to see how deep the bedrock is and choose a site that has enough dirt to support a Giant Sequoia. I know there is plenty as you get close to the stairs, but how close I need to get I don't know yet. I'll figure it out before I transplant the tree one of these weeks.

I gave the tree a good watering and took a picture of it in its future home site. Then I went back to work flattening the Grid A wall logs for the two upper cabinets to the right of the window. Then, before I took a lunch break, I glued the finished end panel to the side of the cabinet unit that will hang to the right of the window.

After lunch and a nap, I hung and fastened the cabinet unit that goes above the refrigerator. I used the two tall sawhorses, some old particle board, a small sturdy table, and a bunch of short boards to make a scaffold to hold the cabinet up while I aligned and fastened it. It is a fairly heavy cabinet unit, and it is mounted up pretty high, so it took all my ingenuity to figure how to get it up there by myself without hurting my back. I did it with no problem and was happy with the result.

With the cabinet installed, I checked the fit of the vertical panel that goes to the left of it. It fit nearly perfectly, maybe within a sixty-fourth of an inch, which is close enough for me. I took the panel back out so I could work on the lower logs, and went to work flattening the one log that needed to be cut back to accommodate the rightmost lower cabinet.

Since this was the last wall log that needed to be flattened, I decided to make a video of the process. When the log was flattened, I got the last cabinet unit from the bedroom and moved it to the kitchen. The unit has three drawers in it and is fairly heavy, but I slid it across the floor on small boards so I don't think I marked up the floor at all.

On Thursday morning, I set the lower cabinets into position and did some careful measurements. I discovered that the flattened wall logs had to be cut back some more in order to get the cabinets plumb and positioned correctly.

After cutting the logs some more, I put the cabinets back, measured some more, and discovered that the floor they sit on is not level. The joist next to the wall must be a little high because the floor rises up a little back there.

That leaves me with a problem to think about over the weekend. The first thought was to shim under the fronts of the cabinets. That is what I had done to get them positioned right. But that would make the counter top on that end higher than the other end. I didn't like that idea.

The next idea was to cut away the flooring in the back so that the backs of the cabinets could be set lower. It also occurred to me that I could cut material off the bottoms of the cabinets to make up for the floor irregularity. That seems to be the best solution, but I'll mull it over before I do any more cutting. I'll also probably call Terry and talk it over with him before I decide.

I took a picture of the cabinets sitting nearly in their final places before I quit for the week. I left for home at 1:10 feeling good about cabinet progress and feeling very superior to the mice.