9/19-21/17 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 11:45. The temperature outside was 49° and it had evidently rained quite a bit recently. On the way up to the cabin, I found a dead grouse with its head gone. The body was cool but soft so it couldn't have been there very long. I don't think I scared away its killer so it is a mystery to me why it was left like that.

Inside the cabin, two of my peanuts were gone, none of the mousetraps was sprung, and there was poop all over. The turds were tiny, though, so I am sure it was a shrew and not a mouse. It reminds me of when I finally evicted the packrats by plugging up their last hole only to have the mice start getting in through smaller holes. I suspect that I have now finally closed up the last mouse hole and so now the shrews are taking over. That will take a new strategy. The first thing that occurred to me was to finish installing the baseboards so they can't come up from the crawlspace. I don't see how I can keep them out of there. I'll have to give it some more thought.

The temperature inside the cabin was 60° so I built a small fire in the stove which warmed the place up right away. I hoisted the flag, had my lunch, and took a nap. When I got up, I split and stacked four big rounds of firewood. Then I used a power planer to plane down the dowels in the new planks that I had fastened down to extend the porch deck.

Next, I marked the inside ends of the front stair treads for trimming. These were much easier than the outside ends had been, partly because there were fewer of them that needed trimming, and partly because I could go at them head-on with the skilsaw. I got them all done before I quit for the day.

Robert called and invited me to join him for dinner tomorrow at the Headwaters Pub. I said I would love to. I did a little fruitless mouse-hole hunting before I went in for the night. Bill called and gave me a detailed update on the accident he had had. I am really happy he came out of it as well as he did.

During the night, it rained cats and dogs and it was still raining on Wednesday morning. The temperature outside was 31° when I got up at 6:00. There was snow on top of Nason Ridge for the first time this season. Summer is about over. I started another fire in the stove.

There was more evidence that a shrew, or shrews, had been in the cabin during the night. After breakfast, I chamfered the curved edges of the treads that I had trimmed and I scraped the lower newel post. I don't think I had ever stained the newel post and it was gray with UV damage. It's a beautiful post, however, when it is all cleaned up.

After lunch and a nap, I got a call from Robert. He had stopped work early and asked me to meet him at the Headwaters Pub at 3:00, which I did. We had a nice dinner which he paid for, and then I drove back to Camp Serendipity.

It was still early so I had time to finish chamfering all the treads and spray Board Defense on all newly cut and exposed wood on the treads, stringers, and the new planks. I wanted it to dry overnight so I could stain it in the morning.

Then before I had my shower, I vacuumed the first floor, primarily to remove the shrew poop.

On Thursday morning, there was new evidence of a shrew in the cabin. Ellen had done some research on shrews and we learned that they are solitary critters, so there is probably only one that comes in. She also learned that they are dangerous in spite of their small size because they have a venomous bite and they can get very aggressive if cornered. I'm glad I learned that. I'll be careful.

After breakfast, I stained the two new porch planks, the lower newel post, all the cut and chamfered tread ends, and the lower three treads which had been there long enough to need a new coat of stain. I left for home at 1:00 happy with the progress but wondering what to do about the shrew.