12/11-13/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I stopped at Priscilla's on the way to investigate a possible water leak. Then I proceeded on to Monroe via Duvall and visited with Uncle Charles for a while before I headed up over the pass. When I got to Ron Siderits' place I saw that he was outside so I stopped. I had some extra keys for the trailer that I wanted to give to him. We visited for a while but when I tried to get the keys, I couldn't find them. He said he would like to have them so I told him that I would bring them to him when I find them.

Bert and Ernie were right there to greet me when I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:30. After moving my gear in and giving the dogs their hugs and biscuits, I built a fire in the wood stove and had my lunch. I tried to nap but I was too eager to get to work and couldn't sleep.

I had done a lot of thinking about the problem of lifting a 4x4 support up and hanging it on the Grid D3 S-hook hanger. I had gotten the hanger hung on the Grid D3 anchor hook last week, but getting the 4x4 hung onto that was another problem altogether.

The solution I came up with was to make what I call a "skyhook" which I set about to make. I took an extra #3 rebar S-hook that I happened to have and lashed it to the end of an 8-foot 1x2 which will serve as a long handle. Then I found a medium size pulley and tried to hook it to the bottom hook on the S-hook. It almost fit, and I did some grinding of the end of the rebar on a bench grinder trying to get the pulley to fit over the hook, but I finally gave up. Instead I simply lashed the pulley to the bottom of the S-hook. Finally I threaded a light rope through the pulley so the pulley was in the middle of the rope. That completed the skyhook. It reminded me of a wooden-handled, steel-shanked harpoon, especially with those two ropes coming off the business end.

By the time I finished making the skyhook, it was too dark to go out and work on the scaffolds so I quit for the day.

On Wednesday I extended the 20-foot extension ladder to its full length and set it up on top of the scaffold tower. Then I carried the skyhook up the ladder and hooked it onto the Grid D3 anchor hook. That was scary but it worked.

In order to hook it, I had to hang on to the ladder with my left hand, twist my body around to the right and look nearly directly overhead and then raise the skyhook with my right hand and hook the end of it into the anchor hook. My body is not flexible enough to do that easily.

I couldn't turn my head far enough to be able to see the anchor hook with both eyes. I could only barely see it out of the corner of my right eye. So I didn't have any depth perception to use in trying to guide that S-hook into the anchor hook. And with the weight of the S-hook, the pulley and all that rope, it wasn't all that easy to hold the thing up with one hand. But fortunately I did it, and I got back down off that ladder safely.

I realized that I would have to do something different for the Grid C hanger, since it was quite a bit higher.

But now I had a rope hanging from a strong pulley that I could use to lift the 4x4 support. I choked the 4x4 near the center and standing on the scaffold deck, hauled it up so that it was about even with the bottom of the D hanger. I passed the standing part of the rope under a horizontal member in the steel scaffold frame and then took the rope up the ladder with me.

When I got up near the hanging support, I tied a tautline hitch over a ladder rung and snugged it up. That held the support fast and left me with both hands free. I could easily adjust the level of the support downward with just one hand by sliding the tautline hitch up a little. It took two hands to adjust it upwards, but I had gotten it high enough so that I only needed to adjust it downward.

With just one slight adjustment, I was able to guide the hanger on the end of the 4x4 over the hook in the rebar hanger so that it engaged, and then by sliding the tautline hitch, I lowered the 4x4 so that it was hanging from the hanger. Welcome success.

The next step was to install the lag screw, but while I was up on the ladder it looked like I could use a bolt from my original scaffold system instead. There was a hole with a plug in it that was in just the right position. So I got my Leatherman pliers out of my pocket and used that to loosen and extract the plug from the hole.

Then I went inside the cabin, got a stepladder so I could reach up to that hole from the inside, and shoved a 1/2" allthread with a nut and washer on the end through the hole. When I went back outside, climbed the scaffold and then the ladder, I saw that I had used the wrong hole. There were two holes, one over the other, and I had used the wrong one.

I pushed the allthread back into the log so I could replace the plug, and then I removed the plug from the "correct" hole.

Then I took a closer look and realized that both holes were too low and I would have to use a lag screw after all. So I replaced the second plug and climbed back down to get my drill. I brought it up the ladder and drilled the hole for the lag screw. It was a little scary because the lag screw needed to go exactly even with the very top rung of the ladder.

While I was working on installing the lag screw, I heard the Canadian Jays behind me so I got the peanuts out of my pocket and held them out. I couldn't see the birds until they landed on my hand, but they both got their peanuts and then they left me to my work.

With the lag screw in place, I lifted the bottom end of the 4x4 that was hanging from the S-hook hanger and hooked it over the lag screw making the 4x4 horizontal. Then I tightened up the lag screw and the 5/16" bolt and the job was done.

I climbed down off the ladder and scaffold a little shaky and very tired. I went into the cabin for a rest and realized that in order to install the Grid C hanger and support, and even the upper Grid D hanger and support, I would need to raise the scaffold tower another tier.

After my rest break, I went out and reconfigured the scaffold to a single two-tier tower. I raised the brackets and the deck to the top level. In order to get the ladder to the scaffold deck, I had to extent the ladder a few rungs so it would reach up there, and then I had to lash the rungs together so that when I pulled it up from the top it wouldn't slip and continue to extend.

When I got the ladder up onto the deck and set it against the log wall, I found that it was extended just the right amount so I left the rungs lashed together.

About that time Bert and Ernie came up for a visit so I took a break to get them their expected hugs and biscuits. Then I hooked the upper D hanger, hooked the skyhook, and used it to raise up the 4x4 support.

When I raised the end of the support up to see where the lag screw needed to go, I hadn't relaxed the skyhook rope enough and the other end of the support came loose from the hanger. That was a little unnerving. The S-hook was now swinging free and the 4x4 support was sort of cradled in my right arm with the end supported by the rope but swinging free as well. Fortunately I was able to see well enough with one eye and reach back and get the 4x4 hooked back up.

With things back in control, I installed the lag screw and then got the 4x4 support hooked and fastened onto the lag screw. By that time it was time for lunch and I was glad to be taking a break. There was only one hanger to go now, and that was the dreaded Grid C hanger, the highest one, hanging from the ridgepole itself.

After lunch and a nap, I moved the ladder over to the Grid C position on the scaffold deck. In this position, the ladder had to set on the cantilevered overhang that was supported by the steel extension brackets. That meant that the ladder was setting on a plank hanging out in mid-air, 15 feet above the ground, and then extending up another 20 feet to lean against the log wall.

This was just too scary for me to climb without guying the ladder. So I got a long rope and rigged up a guy from the left side of the ladder over to the 3-tier tower, and from the right side over to the right hand corner of the 2-tier tower that I was on. I tied tautline hitches on both ropes on the ladder side so that I could apply the tension gradually and evenly until it felt nice and secure.

Then I carried the C S-hook up the ladder and discovered that the Grid C3 anchor hook was still out of reach. Then it dawned on me that I had already figured that out and had a plan B that might work.

Plan B was to reach over and hook the S-hook from the Grid A-B platform which was already almost installed. All that remained was to haul up one more piece of OSB to complete the platform deck. I hauled up and installed the OSB and I hauled up the C hanger and the skyhook.

I found that I still couldn't reach with the hanger, so I lashed the hanger to the handle end of the skyhook. That allowed me to hook the hanger onto the Grid C3 anchor hook. I had lashed the hanger with bights so I was able to pull on the ropes to loosen the lashing so I could get my skyhook free. Then I hooked the skyhook to the Grid C3 anchor hook which I was able to reach OK.

All that remained now in order to to complete the support system was to raise and hook up that last 4x4 support. But I couldn't find it. I looked on the back porch, the front porch, behind the cabin, up on the high rock and was about to give up. Then it dawned on me to look in the crawlspace and sure enough, back in the corner where I keep my scaffolding, there it was in a nice place I had chosen for it. I think I might be able to benefit from some memory training.

I choked the 4x4 with the skyhook rope and then from the scaffold tower deck, I raised the 4x4 to what looked like the proper height, way the heck up there. I tied it off and then decided that I didn't want to work up that high without being tied off. So I went and got my lineman's belt and when I got up to the top of the ladder, I roped myself to a rung. Then feeling pretty secure, I hooked the 4x4 to the hanger and raised it to figure out where the lag screw needed to go.

I climbed back down and got my drill. Back up on the ladder I hooked up my rope again and discovered that the battery on the drill was nearly dead. I switched it to low speed and started drilling anyway. The battery got deader and the RPMs got slower as the drill went deeper. Progress going deeper also got slower, but eventually I was able to drill the entire hole on the charge that was left. That saved me one trip up and down the ladder and scaffold and into the cabin. I guess it was worth it.

With the hole drilled, I installed the lag screw and hung the support from it. That was the last of the supports and I was very grateful it was done. It was starting to get dark so I took the ladder down and went in for the night.

I built a fire in the wood stove and since it was still fairly early, I decided to make a video about how I made log gables on the cabin. That was fun.

On Thursday morning I slept in and just didn't feel like going up on the scaffolds for some reason. I did make one trip up, though, to retrieve and coil up my guy rope so I could put it away. Then I decided to set up the wands down on the gate log to mark it for the snowplows. I took a picture of the work I had done so far on the front scaffold system, and then I found, and staged for lifting, a 16-foot 2x4 that I use for getting the initial planks across the spans of the hanging scaffold.

It was a beautiful, clear, calm, sunny, cold morning and it was delightful to be outside. I took a little walk in the woods and then got my big one-man crosscut saw out and cut down a skinny pine tree that had arched over from the high rock and was scraping on the roof. I bucked it into three pieces and moved them under the eaves where they can dry out. I left for home at 12:45 feeling good about my progress. On the way out, I stopped on the road and talked with David and Nancy Bartholomew who were out walking the dogs.