9/18-20/12 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. It was smoky all the way, especially east of the pass. I arrived at 12:10 and the smoke was so thick you could barely make out the Nason Ridge ridgeline. Bert and Ernie were soon there to get their hugs and biscuits.

Inside the cabin I was very disappointed to find a mouse in the first floor trap. Since there were four other traps that were still set, I had some slim hope that this mouse was a holdout who had been hiding inside the building or the cavity since I had sealed it off. I was hoping that he had not gotten in from the outside somehow.

After lunch and a nap, I decided to attend to some projects I have been putting off in favor of getting the ceilings installed. I started with the plumbing for the drainage system for the back of the building. I had made a sheet metal collector funnel some time ago for capturing the water that would run around the foundation and down the granite cliff under the front porch. This needed to be fastened to the cliff face.

Using a new bit for the Bosch Bulldog, I drilled six holes in the rock to match the corresponding holes in the sheet metal funnel. Then I cleaned the rock and gooped it up good with Vulkem where the funnel fit against the rock. Then I hammered in the six anchors to squeeze the funnel against the goop and to fasten it permanently to the rock.

Then I fitted a long ABS pipe over the nozzle of the funnel and continued the pipe run the length of the porch so that it would discharge the water onto Rosie, the rose bush at the end of the porch. I'll let that goop cure for a couple weeks before I pour a bucket of water in there to see how it works. I was glad to get that plumbing done before it rains again.

While I was under the porch, I had to rearrange some big rocks and in the process discovered that the packrats had brought in massive amounts of leaves and stuffed them into all the spaces around the rocks. I'm not sure but I think those leaves serve both as insulation for their sleeping quarters in the rocks and also as a food source during the winter. I removed as much of it as I could reach and discarded it. I would like to encourage them to move out and live somewhere else.

Next I went up on the scaffolding and caulked all the remaining seams along the Grid 1 gable wall where it meets the new ceiling boards. That completely finished the work I need to do up there and I can now dismantle those scaffolds.

It was unusually quiet during the night. I could hear no sounds of rodents at all. That was a welcome relief. It seemed that my theory might be right and that mice were no longer able to get inside the cabin.

On Wednesday morning, I was happy to see that none of the five traps had sprung. More reason for optimism.

After breakfast I went into the woods to water the giant sequoia trees. I also brought my chainsaw and after the trees were watered, I started bucking up the big tree that had fallen across the sequoia grove. I was greatly embarrassed and chagrinned when I made a mistake and got the saw stuck. I thought I knew how to buck a log without getting the saw stuck, but I was a little too overconfident.

The log is a big one and it is supported on both ends for one stretch. If you try to buck a log like this by cutting down from the top, it will bind and pinch the bar for sure. So I begin with a plunge cut through the center of the log, cut through to the underside from there, and then cut down from the top. This works well if you don't leave too much wood at the top of the plunge cut. In this case I did.

So when I started down from the top, I was at least smart enough to cut two parallel kerfs about a quarter of an inch apart. By alternately cutting a small amount from each of these kerfs, you are making a kerf an inch or so wide which should prevent binding when the log starts to sag. Unfortunately, I was a little too hasty and when the log sagged, it bound up my saw bar.

I knew I couldn't get it out without either jacking up the log, which would have been a hard, time consuming job, or by cutting the wood away from the bar. I chose the latter and went and got an axe. After cutting out a place to stand in the thick brush I was able to get at the log with the axe and free up the saw. Humiliating and embarrassing, but I got the saw out undamaged.

I got 50 to 80 feet of the trunk bucked up (I didn't measure it and it is hard to estimate the length) and I spudded the bark off most of the rest of the butt log as it went up the hill. There is probably another 50 feet of butt that goes up to about 2 feet in diameter and I can harvest quite a bit of that later if I can figure out an easy way to haul out the wood. If I can get most of it out, that one tree will last me for the winter and probably even more.

After 3 or four wheelbarrow loads of firewood rounds delivered to the cabin it was 1:00 and I quit for lunch. My back was telling me that I probably had better give it a break.

After lunch and a nap, I dug out four sheets of aluminum that I had stashed away and loaded it in the back of the truck. I plan to use it to make more storage bins for the cabinet of small parts in the crawl space. I'll make those at home so it doesn't take time away from the work at Camp Serendipity.

Then I went to work dismantling the scaffolding under the Grid 1 eaves. I got all the decking removed and the planks, plywood, and OSB stacked and stored. I also removed a couple of the support 4x4s and rebar hangers that were within easy reach from the cliff.

At about 5:00 PM, I began to hear helicopters flying back and forth over the cabin. There was one big Chinook, or some two-rotor helicopter, and at least one smaller single-rotor helicopter. It took them about 2 minutes to make a round trip from the cabin to the lake, and it took them about 6 minutes for them to go the other direction and return. From that I guessed that the fire was a few miles up the White River Road which, unfortunately, is upwind from Camp Serendipity. Not a good sign at all.

I called Byron, whose log cabin project is one mile up that direction and he told me that he has known about that fire for a couple weeks. It was up the mountainside on Wenatchee Ridge right above Sally VanDuesen's place. He said the fire hadn't been very active and so the firefighters had not done much about it. Now they must have freed those helicopters up from the many other fires raging around eastern Washington right now and decided to work on this fire. Needless to say, I hope they get it under control. The helicopters continued flying until about 6:30.

In the evening, at about 10:00, I heard the trap on the first floor go off. There was no mouse in it and the bait was gone. I held out hope that the trap had gone off spontaneously and that it had flung the bait out somewhere. I reset the trap and went to bed.

At about 10:30, the trap went off again. Again no mouse and no bait. I wasn't feeling very optimistic or good any more. I went back to bed trying to imagine what was going on.

At 2:30 I was awakened by a trap in the loft but this time there was a mouse in it. I threw the carcass outside, reset the trap, and went back to bed wondering how that critter had gotten in. It seemed that my nice theory was being blown. I was very discouraged.

On Thursday morning, while I was fixing breakfast, I was overjoyed to feel a cool breeze coming in the kitchen window. I instantly realized that I had forgotten to shut that window when I went to bed. The nylon screen on that window had a gash in it and I had patched a rectangle of hardware cloth over the gash. I immediately looked at it and saw to my great relief that that patch had been moved aside. That mouse evidently got in through that window and my theory was once again plausible. I felt much better and closed the window.

The smoke was still just as thick as the day before. You could barely make out Nason Ridge. I went to work dismantling the rest of the scaffolding. This required an extension ladder set up on the cliff and resting up against the log wall. From the ladder I could reach the lag screws in the wall and lift the 4x4s up off the lag screws so they could hang from the rebar hangers. Then I lifted them off the hangers, stacked them, and finally lifted the hangers up and removed them from the anchor hooks. The system works very well and I will use it with some modifications when I get around to the other gable wall.

The modifications will be in the lengths of the rebar S-hooks holding up the 4x4s. In the scaffold I just dismantled, the sections between Grid A and C were perfect for working. The section between Grid D and E was too low by a foot or more. I had had to use a short stepladder to move from one level to another. When I set up the scaffold from now on, I will make the hangers for the Grid D and E purlins the same length as those I made for the Grid B and A purlins respectively. I marked the hangers for Grid A, B, and C and made a permanent place to store them on the Grid C3 RPSL in the crawl space. When I make the new hangers for D and E, I'll hang them in the same place so I will be ready for the final gable wall.

While I was removing the last of the scaffolding, I was visited by a couple of gray jays. Again only one of them had the nerve to eat out of my hand, but this one returned for peanuts several times.

I was also visited by Bert and Ernie and I took a break to give them their usual hugs and biscuits.

Not to be outdone, the chipmunk also came around a few times to take peanuts from my hand. Having visitors like that is one of the rewards for working on projects that keep me outside.

I left for home at 12:30 feeling pretty good about my progress and my theory about my status in the rodent wars. On the way home I stopped at Haight Carpet in Monroe and ordered the last of the flooring needed for the cabin. It will cover the bedroom and loft floors. I will pick it up on my way next Tuesday.