2/5-7/13 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in and visited with Uncle Charles. The road and the weather were clear going over the pass so the trip was pleasant. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:30.

There had been no significant new snow since last time so I was able to park with no problem. After carrying my gear up and turning the water on, I had my lunch and a nap.

My dry firewood pile was almost gone so I decided to try burning the pine firewood that was super wet. I had it stacked near the cliff edge because it was infested with carpenter ants and I had covered the stack with a tarp. There was about 18 inches of snow on top of the tarp.

I got a shovel and shoveled the snow off the tarp so I could get at the wood. Since I had the shovel out, I shoveled off the front steps. Then I split up a couple of the pine firewood rounds and used it to start a fire in the wood stove.

Next I went out on the front porch and figured out how to stage ceiling boards so that I could get them up on the high scaffold. It worked out well. I could lift the boards over the porch crane boom and rest the top end on the edge of the scaffold. Then I could set the bottom end of the board down on the top of a tall sawhorse. I should be able to stage several boards that way which would make it easy to get them up on top. I'll do the sawing up on the scaffold.

When I staged the ceiling boards, I was disappointed to discover that the stain was still not dry. The instructions on the can said that the stain shouldn't be applied in temperatures lower than 50º. It was only 36º last week when I stained the boards. I think I now know the consequences of not following the instructions.

Before I quit for the night, I walked down the trail far enough to be able to see the chimney and I could see that that pine firewood was producing much more smoke than I want. I always try to burn the fires as hot as I can with all the dampers open so that creosote doesn't accumulate in the flue. I decided not to burn this pine wood until it has dried out for a year or two. I let the fire burn out and set the thermostats up from 60º to 65º.

On Wednesday morning it was comfortable in the cabin without building a fire. After breakfast I went up on the scaffold and swept out the cavity above the gable with a whisk broom. There was still a lot of small debris left in there after taking out the old insulation. There was a lot of packrat poop, little wads of Fiberglas insulation, bits of dried leaves, and just plain dirt. I wore a respirator mask so I didn't breathe in any of that stuff and I swept it all down out of the cavity and onto the scaffold platform. Then I swept it off the log walls, the purlins, and the scaffold platform and out onto the roadway as far as I could. I knew that some of the debris would fall through the screen that was at the bottom of the cavity and inside the gable wall so I was prepared for a mess on the living room and dining room floors inside.

Next I used the power sprayer to spray the enzyme deodorant into the inside of the cavity now that it was cleaned out.

It was so warm working on the scaffolding that I had taken my jacket off and I was just in shirtsleeves. It became clear that it was so warm because warm air from inside the cabin was pouring out of the cavity. Right then I realized that I needed to seal off that opening to keep the heat in. After thinking about it, I decided to use 2" rigid foam insulation. I happened to have enough in the crawlspace to do the job.

While I was still up on the scaffold, I inspected all the purlins to see what kind of cover I needed to plug up the holes in the ceiling boards on the purlins that were cut to accommodate the anchor hooks. I decided the easiest and best thing would be to use sheet metal and nail or staple it down from the top.

After having my lunch and a nap, I cut four strips of foam insulation about 5 inches wide on the front porch. To fasten the foam, I decided to use 8d common nails. I could just push the nails into the foam, leaving about 3/4" to drive down into the 2x6 on top of the gable logs. When I first started the cabin project, I bought 50 lb. of 8d common nails and 50 lb. of 16d common nails thinking that I would surely need that many based on my experience as a teen-age carpenter. As it turned out, I used some of the 16d nails but almost none of the 8d nails. I was glad to finally have a use for at least some of them now.

I went back up on the scaffold and started installing the foam strips. There was enough clearance for a hammer swing to drive the nails in, but I couldn't see the nails at all while I was driving them. That, I found, makes it very difficult to drive them in, even though the foam held them pretty much in place.

On the first two strips, I learned that they were barely wide enough which made it tricky to get the nails far enough to the edge to catch the 2x6. I used the widest two strips I had and went back down and cut three more strips that were wider—about 8 inches wide. I also decided to give up on the 8d nails and use the 7d galvanized siding nails that I use for the ceiling boards. They are about a quarter of an inch shorter and skinnier so they are a little easier to drive in without being able to see them.

I finished installing the long strips and then worked on two special cases. One was a 2 inch gap between the 2x6s over the Grid B purlin and the Grid D purlin. I could feel warm air pouring out of these gaps. I plugged one of them with a chunk of foam insulation and the other one with a wad of Fiberglas insulation.

The second special case was right at the peak. I couldn't reach up that high in order to figure out what it would take to plug the gap so I went down and got my short stepladder. I staged it below the 3-tier scaffold and used Leonard's trusty rope and hook to hook it from on high and then pull the stepladder up onto the deck.

Standing on the stepladder, I could reach up and plug the hole with a big chunk of loose Fiberglass insulation. That seemed to stop all the noticeable hot air flow. Getting the ceiling boards installed, both inside and out, will also help prevent heat loss from over the gable walls.

At some point during the work, Bert and Ernie showed up so I climbed down to treat them with biscuits and gravy and to give them their usual hugs. It was good to see them. I hadn't seen them since before the big tree-fall storm.

Before I quit for the day, I pulled up one of the ceiling boards I had staged at the end of the scaffold just to see how it was going to work. It worked slick. It was easy to pull the board up and lay it on the scaffold deck. I'll install the ceiling boards on this gable just like I did on the other side of the cabin. I'm almost ready to start.

That night it was so warm in the cabin that I got out of bed and set all the thermostats down from 65º to 62º. That made it just about right.

I spent Thursday morning cleaning up the mess in the cabin. Quite a lot of packrat turds had come through the screen, along with bits of Fiberglass and leaves, and it was pretty much all over the floor. I vacuumed the floor, the log walls, the window ledges, and the furniture and hopefully that will be the last rodent mess I will have to clean up. I was happy when the cabin was nice and clean again. I left for home feeling pretty good about the week's progress.