5/15-17/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

My cold was all gone except for a few sniffles and a cough now and then so I was happy to be back in the groove. Since I thought I might still be contagious, I decided not to visit Charles or Claude this week. I had some errands to run though, before heading over the mountains, so I didn't arrive at Camp Serendipity until 1:30.

It was about 80º when I arrived and Bert and Ernie were right there to greet me. In spite of the heat outside, it was nice and cool inside the cabin. I had my lunch and took a nice nap.

It felt good to have my strength back. I spent the rest of the afternoon cutting and nailing ceiling boards over the front porch.

On Wednesday, I started out by watering all the giant sequoia trees. I hooked up the hose going down to Bill and timed how long it takes to fill up the basin around the tree with water. I found it takes 5 minutes. From now on, I can water that tree simply by hooking up the hose and letting it run for 5 minutes. I won't have to walk down there if I don't want to.

Then I hooked up the hose going up to the main sequoia grove and went into the woods to water the rest of the trees. I leave 3 buckets up in the woods now so I don't have to carry buckets back and forth to the cabin. I'm trying to streamline the watering process wherever I can. It's too bad I don't have enough water pressure to run hoses all the way up to those trees. But the way it is, it's just a short carry from the end of the hose to the trees so I can do the entire watering job in about a half an hour. That's how long it takes to run enough water from that end of the hose.

Then I spent the rest of the day cutting and nailing up more ceiling boards. The tricky part is installing the last board in a span between purlins or the roof edge. There is already a board installed on top of each purlin which I did when I originally installed the purlins. These boards present a tongue on the upper side and a groove on the lower side. Since the boards get installed from the bottom and working up, each new board's groove fits into the tongue on the installed board below it. But when the purlin is reached, there is a problem.

First of all, it doesn't come out exactly for one board to fit. And even if it did, you wouldn't be able to mate both the tongue and groove in order to get the last board in. Another problem is that because of the original alignment and some creep, the last gap isn't exactly parallel. So it is a time-consuming process to deal with whatever special case that happens all along the run.

The space between the Grid G purlin and the lower edge of the roof was not filled in so that is where I spent most of my time. The first two courses of boards, including the one with the vent holes, had been installed all the way across, but on the Grid G1 to G2 end the rest of it wasn't filled in.

There was one fairly short section where the last gap was exactly the right size for a full board. On one end of that stretch the gap was wider. So in that case, I was able to install a full-width board by starting it where the gap was wide and then sliding it lengthwise into position with the tongues and grooves engaging as the gap narrowed to the right width. There were all sorts of complications even getting this done, but eventually I got the section in place.

For another long stretch, the gap I needed to fill ran from zero (where it butted up against the full-size board I just described) to about 3/4" wide. I ripped a piece to fit from the groove edge of a long board. I hated to ruin a full-size board just to get this narrow strip of groove, but I couldn't figure any other way to do it.

In order to rip long strips like that, I had to decide what saw to use. I use a hand saw for making the cross-cuts because I just don't like the noise and sawdust that a Skilsaw throws up. The few extra seconds it takes me to make the cuts don't matter in the overall picture. But making the rip cuts was a different story. For each purlin, there will be 42 lineal feet of ripping and I wasn't sure I wanted to do that much ripping by hand. Still, I didn't like the idea of using the Skilsaw.

I decided to try ripping by hand and seeing how it went. I have a couple of really good old sharp rip saws so I got one and tried it out. The cutting was so fast and easy that I decided to to the job by hand and leave the Skilsaw on the shelf.

Unfortunately, after I cut the first strip, I discovered that I had measured wrong and that it should have been a quarter of an inch wider. I would have to cut twice, as I too often have to do.

I cut a second strip, ruining another length of board, and that one fit properly. Before installing it, I used a block plane to chamfer the top of the cut I had made. That will match the chamfer of the groove edge of the board it will mate with. As it turned out, I was able to use the skinnier strip I had made in another section.

All of this rigamarole took a lot of time and it was complicated by being in an awkward part of the roof to reach. But by the end of the day, I almost finished the section between the Grid G purlin and the roof edge. There is just one more short strip to make and fit in. I also got a few full-size boards nailed up between the Grid F and G purlins.

Once during the work, a chipmunk came up on the porch for peanuts. He didn't come back and it didn't dawn on me until the next day that maybe the reason was the electronic rodent repellers I have set up on the porch. I'll have to remember to turn those off while I am working on the porch from now on and maybe the chipmunks will visit more often.

On Thursday morning, I set up my board staining operation and stained another 15 boards. I had used up almost all of the boards I had previously stained and I needed to prepare another new supply. I like to do staining on the morning that I leave for home so the fumes can air out while I am away.

After putting away the tools, cleaning out my brush, having my lunch, and packing up, I left for home at 1:30 feeling very good about my health and about being in a routine of completing a very visible project that is fun to do.