9/29-10/1/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in Monroe and took Uncle Charles for a walk in the garden. Then I proceeded on to Camp Serendipity where I arrived at 11:54. The weather was beautiful and sunny.

After moving my gear in I had my lunch and a nap. One of the five, or so, mousetraps that I had set was sprung and its bait was missing. There was no other evidence of mice so I don't know if there really was a mouse in the cabin or not. I reset that trap and set out one more for good measure. Fall is coming so the mice are ramping up their efforts to get inside the cabin. The rodent wars continue.

I went to work outside and built a rack for lumber under the eaves between Grid D3 and E3. Then I moved all the lumber that was on the front porch either onto the rack or to the firewood pile. Then I swept the front porch. That was the first time the porch had been completely clear like that for many years. It is great to finally have it looking so nice.

On Wednesday I used the wheelbarrow to take the old lumber from inside the crawl space and bring it outside. Then I separated the lumber into firewood and usable lumber, stacking each on its respective pile. I wore a respirator mask the whole time because the air in the crawl space was really stinky and dusty.

After four or five wheelbarrow loads, the boards were all outside and it was time for lunch and a nap. After my nap, I started digging the trench that hopefully will drain away any water that gets into the crawl space. The trench will be deep enough, about six inches, so that the water table will be low enough in there to keep the surface of the dirt floor dry. That is the plan anyway.

I used the warthog for digging and dug only down to bedrock. There is a ridge of bedrock running down the middle of the crawl space along the Grid 2 line and the trench needs to cross that ridge. I used the big steel bar to see whether the bedrock was cracked enough to allow me to pry out a channel. It worked to some extent and I was able to get a start on the channel through the rock. The plan is to use my Bosch Bulldog roto-hammer to chisel out the rest of the channel through the rock.

On Thursday morning I woke up at 3:30 and couldn't go back to sleep. I kept hearing the clock bong each half-hour and at 6:00 I gave up and got up for the day. I had gone to bed at 9:00 so maybe that was all the sleep I needed.

After breakfast, I watered Brian and went into the woods to check on the sequoia trees. They seem to be doing fine.

Then I put on my dirty work clothes and went to work in the crawl space with the Bulldog. I finished cutting the channel through the bedrock and when the entire trench was ready, I tested it with five gallons of water which I poured in at the top of the trench. It worked well enough that I declared that the job is finished. I took some pictures of the trench after the water had flowed through it and we will now see how it works when the rains and the snowmelt returns.

I was sore, tired, and dirty when I finished, but I was glad that job was done. I left for home at 12:30.