Construction Journal Entry Week of 3/20/16

3/22-24/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way I stopped in to visit Uncle Charles. I beat him at a game of checkers but he kept me on my toes. There was a little snow mixed with rain going over the pass but the roads were clear. My new truck ran fine and had no trouble keeping up with the speed limit even though it had to downshift on the steeper parts. One nice thing is that the radio works almost all the way to the cabin. In the old truck, the radio conked out after the first 30 miles or so.

I turned off the road at the Lake Wenatchee Ranger Station so that I could drive by the tree Robert had been working on. I could see from the road that he had finished the job. The big log was lying down at the lake shore and the porch and deck were still intact. I'm sorry that I missed the opportunity to make a video of this last stage.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:50 and was able to barge through the muddy driveway in 2wd. The snow is all melted away from the driveway, but it is pretty muddy. There is still about a foot of snow on the ground where it hasn't been plowed.

I started out by unloading a lot of tree debris from the Seattle windstorm and threw it onto the compost pile. I left the truck parked up near the hairpin turn and carried a tripod and a shovel, both of which I had fixed at home, up over the snow on the upper roadway to the cabin. I could walk on the snow, but it wasn't easy. So on my next trip with my bag and the cooler, I walked over to the concrete stairs and went up to the cabin that way.

After moving my gear in, I raised the flag, set the clocks to daylight time, had my lunch, and then built a fire in the stove. Then I went up to check on the giant sequoia named Paul. The lower part of it looked like it was yellowing and not too healthy so I got some Vigoro and sprinkled it around the tree. Then I shoveled a bunch of snow up above the tree to water it. I hope it perks up.

Back at the cabin, I went into the crawlspace and removed the Styrofoam blocks that were plugging up the vent openings. I think there is no longer a risk of the pipes freezing down there this season.

Next I got the Bulldog out and used it to start cutting the notches in the front stoop base logs.

On Wednesday I called Robert after breakfast to let him know that I had seen that the tree job was done and that I was sorry that I had missed videoing the work. He said that was OK and that he was happy with the videos I had already taken. He said that he still planned to finish the job at Camp Serendipity and that he was getting the necessary machinery put together.

I got the chainsaw out and after a considerable amount of struggle I got it started. I bucked five rounds from the big log below the privy and rolled them down to the cabin and stacked them. Then I bucked up a smaller Doug fir that had fallen down the hill. I also cut up a bunch of limbs that were in a pile up toward the drain field.

I went to get the wheelbarrow to haul the smaller firewood down to the cabin but the tire was flat. I took the wheelbarrow down to the truck and got out the electric tire pump. After pumping up the tire, I took the wheelbarrow back up the hill and loaded it with firewood. I made a video of the process showing how I used my home-made firewood picker-upper. I hauled two wheelbarrow loads of firewood down to the cabin.

After stacking the firewood, I went back to work chiseling the notches for the front stoop. After having lunch and a nap, I felt completely wiped out. I guess the two weeks that had elapsed since I had done this much work had taken its toll in atrophy. I thought that maybe my blood sugar was low, so I measured it. I was surprised that it was 162. I had expected it to be down in double digits. I was at a loss to explain why I was so fatigued. I didn't do much more hard work the rest of the day.

On Thursday morning I started out by vacuuming the first floor of the cabin. Then I went out and did some more chiseling of the notches with the Bulldog. The step was now pretty close to fitting properly but still needed more work. Before I left for home, I split one of the big firewood rounds and stacked the wood. I left for home at 12:20 happy to be back to work in the mountains and happy to be driving a new truck.



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