10/29-31/18 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

My schedule moved up a day this week so I could be home for Halloween. I visited with Earl for a short while on the way up. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:20 and found that Robert and Roger were already working but were taking a lunch break.

I brought my gear up to the cabin, Hoisted the flag, had a quick lunch and a short nap, and then went out to work. We went up on the bluff to look at the trees and decided on a work plan. Robert and Roger went down to Little Yosemite where they skidded trees, limbed and bucked them, stacked the logs, and hauled away the brush. I went to work on my back porch railing.

All the rail parts were fabricated and were ready to assemble. I was in the process of seating all the balusters in the lower rail with the tops just sticking up, when the whole thing tipped over, with the lower rail pivoting in its mortise/tenon joints.

Just then Robert and Roger came to help me. They tipped the balusters up again. Fortunately none of them had fallen out, which wouldn't have been a big problem if they had. Then the two of them helped me with the tricky part—getting all the balusters seated in the top rail.

We started at the Grid A1 end. Roger held the other end of the rail up high while Robert and I seated the first four or five balusters. Then we inserted the end of the rail in the mortise hole just an inch or so. Then we seated more and more balusters as Roger gradually lowered his end of the rail. The problem was that you don't really know the sequence because as you try to seat what you think is the next baluster, you have to lift the rail a little which lets some other baluster or balusters pop out somewhere else. It takes a little doing and some hammering to get them all in even with three guys. But it was still much easier than doing it by myself, which I usually do.

Robert and Roger left shortly after the railing was completed, and I took a couple pictures of the new railing.

On Tuesday morning I overslept, but I hustled through breakfast and was out to work at 8:00. I picked up some brush and got some firewood stacked before Robert and Roger arrived at 8:30.

I helped the loggers stack brush down in Little Yosemite while Roger limbed trees and Robert loaded brush into his dump truck and hauled it away.

Then the loggers went up on the bluff and felled two big Doug firs. Both of them were leaning the wrong way so Robert used a 10-ton jack on each of them to get them to fall into the Little Yosemite valley. I took pictures and videos of the process. They left at 2:30. I had my lunch and then vacuumed the first floor of the cabin.

On Wednesday morning, it was raining. I started out by stacking some firewood. Then Robert and Roger showed up at 8:30 and put on their rain gear. We stacked and hauled away more brush and then Robert felled the spar tree.

Before he did, he climbed 50 feet up the tree to retrieve the two blocks that were still up there holding the cables used by the jammer. Once those were lowered to the ground, the tree was felled so that it was across the driveway and into the Little Yosemite valley.

Robert bucked the tree and moved the logs out of the way so that I could get my truck out. I packed up and left for home at 1:20.