11/26-27/13 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 2 days: Tuesday and Wednesday.

This week's visit was cut short by a day because of Thanksgiving. On the way up, I stopped at Priscilla's and delivered a new calculator to her. Then I proceeded on to Monroe where I had a nice visit with Uncle Charles. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:25.

The weather was clear and still and the temperature was 30º--very nice out. Bert showed up right away so we went up to the cabin where he got his hugs and biscuits on the roadway. He doesn't want to try climbing up on the porch anymore.

I raised the flag, started a fire, and then had my lunch and a nap. Then I went to work and nailed up three more ceiling boards.

On Wednesday morning, it was another beautiful clear day with the temperature at about 25º. Bert was back for another round of hugs and biscuits.

I finished nailing up a course of boards and then instead of working any more on the ceiling, I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather. I decided to harvest the top of the tree that I had gotten the firewood from the past couple weeks. The top of the tree was lying broken up against the cliff in front of the cabin and I decided to use the porch crane to skid it up onto the roadway. I hadn't done that since I dragged the last log for the cabin up the cliff and I figured it would be fun.

I got a cable, a chain, and an axe for the purpose and then got the crane ready. I paid out all of the cable and found that it reached so far down the cliff that I didn't need that extra cable at all. I could reach the wood with the chain alone at the end of the winch cable.

The control cable was long enough so that I could control the winch from down on a ledge of the cliff so I could easily control the path of the tree as it made its way up over the ledge. When it reached the rockwork on the edge of the roadway, I moved up on the roadway and controlled the skidding from up there. It was great fun and reminiscent of the many times I had skidded logs up that cliff. This one was smaller and a lot lighter than the house logs had been so the process was easy and went smoothly.

Just as the wood was almost all the way up, a truck stopped in the driveway and Roland (Rollie) Schmitten came up and introduced himself. He is a fisheries expert and also a forestry expert. He identified the log I was dragging up as a White Fir (Abies concolor). I was mistaken when I called it an alder. I should have known better. I was going strictly by how the bark looked but I should have known that an alder branches more and differently than this white fir with its single straight trunk. I was glad to learn the true identity of the tree.

Rollie said that he is building a butt and pass log house in the Kahler Creek area. He helped me swing the log up onto the roadway where I set it down with the crane. Then we went inside for a visit. He had a lot of questions about the cabin, which I enjoyed answering. We talked a lot about how I wired up switch boxes in log columns. That's always a fun story to tell.

We went up to the loft where I showed him the model of the cabin and explained how good Louie Brender's estimates were, both on nominal log diameters and on the amount of rotten wood in a pile.

Rollie was also interested in the Log Wizard, which he had never heard of. I showed him the tool and described how I used it. When the visit was over, I walked down to his truck with him and he showed me a beautiful little white rabbit which he had found dead of unknown causes. He said he was going to take it to Ron Siderits. I told him about selling my trailer to Ron.

After Rolie left, I closed up and left for home at 1:30 to get ready for Thanksgiving.