12/3-5/13 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in for a visit with Uncle Charles. There was snow and ice on the road from Skykomish on so travel was a little slower than usual. I took the turn-off to Plain and bought a sledge hammer and a splitting maul at Plain Hardware. My sledge hammer broke last week after a lifetime of driving in 1000 rebar spikes into the cabin logs and I figured it was time to replace it. My old splitting maul was also on its last legs so I replaced it while I was at it.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:30. It was 25º out and there was about 5" of frozen snow on the ground. Ernie showed up shortly after I arrived and he got his usual hugs and biscuits. After raising the flag and starting a fire in the stove, I had my lunch and a nice nap.

Since it is fairly late in the season and there was finally snow on the ground, I figured it was time to take the gate down. I took a steel scaffold frame, a short chain, and a come-along down to the gate and lifted the gate log off the gate post and laid it out of the way of the snowplows.

Instead of putting the scaffold frame away, I carried it all the way up to the loft. I am going to need a few scaffold frames up in the loft to work on the ceiling so as long as I had this one out, I saved a few steps and brought it up where I will need it.

On Wednesday, the weather was clear and the temperature was 20º. I spent the morning carrying two more scaffold frames up to the loft along with braces, planks, long 4x4s, and pieces of plywood and OSB. I used them to set up a scaffold system up there so I can work higher up on the ceiling.

After lunch and a nap, I used the new scaffold to nail up a course of ceiling boards all the way across the cabin.

On Thursday morning, I found that the scaffold was not comfortable or safe enough to work on the next course of boards. That course is right up under the Grid D purlin and it leaves a gap somewhat narrower than a board in order to complete that section of the ceiling. I will rip ceiling boards so that they fit into that gap later on.

To improve the scaffolding, I got two cantilever brackets and hung them on the side of the scaffold tower in the loft. Then with a plank on these brackets, I could reach the work easier and safer. As it was, it was very awkward and tiring to do the nailing. I couldn't quite stand up on the scaffolding without ducking down so I didn't hit my head on the purlin, and if I got on my knees, the ceiling was just a little too high to do the nailing. The scrunching down worked, but it made my whole body very sore and tired. I ended up nailing half of the top course before I quit for lunch and got ready to leave.

I left the cabin at about 12:45, but when I went down to open up the hose valve to let the water flow into the creek, I found that the hose had frozen solid. That was bad news. The good news, though, was that there was a leak in the connection between that hose and the pipe coming down from the cabin. The flow through that leak had been enough to keep the hose further up the line from freezing.

At first I thought I might be able to thaw out the hose, so I got a half-gallon bottle and filled it with hot water. I used that to thaw the valve at the end of the hose enough for me to take it off the hose. I used more of the water to thaw all of the ice from inside the valve.

I could tell that the hose was frozen solid for quite a ways up from the end so I decided to replace the hose with an empty one. I went back to the crawlspace and got another hose. When I disconnected the first hose from the pipe, it occurred to me that since I had that bottle full of hot water, I might as well pour it into the frozen hose on the chance that it might thaw it enough for a little water to flow through. Then I wouldn't have to string another hose.

After pouring in the rest of the bottle into the hose, it was clear that it was not going to work. But then, in thinking about stringing that second hose, I decided against it. The water was now gushing straight out of the pipe and into the creek. There was no real reason to have it run through a hose and into the same creek further down. So I screwed the valve directly onto the pipe and carried the hose back up to the crawlspace and put it away.

It was about 1:30 before I finally left for home with very cold hands. I have a better idea now of how much water I need to leave flowing out of the hose in order to keep it from freezing. That skinny stream I had left was not enough. The temperature had gotten down to about 18º overnight.