2/19-21/19 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped and visited with Earl for a while. Then I proceeded on to Camp Serendipity and arrived at 2:00. There had been no new snow to speak of, so I carried my gear up the steps which were still clear. I hoisted the flag, built a fire in the stove, and had my lunch and my usual nap. When I got up, I spent the rest of the afternoon sanding and smoothing the bigger of the two knuckle notches on the back staircase.

On Wednesday morning there was about 3 inches of new snow that had fallen during the night. I went back to work sanding the knuckle notch before I stopped for lunch and a nap.

When I got up, I began working in earnest on the loft railing system. The objective was to cut the bottom rails to length using the lumber I had bought a couple weeks ago. Before I did any cutting, I went over the calculations and measurements again to make sure they were right.

I found a couple errors. First, I discovered that I hadn't bought enough lumber. My calculations had a clear sentence at the top saying that all the 2x4 requirements needed to be doubled to account for the top and bottom rails, which were to be identical. I had forgotten to double the numbers. I'll have to bring up more lumber next week.

Next, I went up to the loft with a tape and, with my kneepads on, carefully made the measurements a second, and even a third, time. I discovered some minor errors doing this and I discovered that I had over-estimated the length of one of the 2x4s. One of the 12-footers didn't need to be so long, and a 10-footer would work. So, when I put the new order together, I made that change.

Now having confidence that my numbers were correct, I went out on the porch and proceeded to set up a saw shop. I planned to use a Skilsaw so I made a big basket from a tarp to catch the sawdust. And instead of using sawhorses, I stood 3 concrete blocks up in the basket to use as sawhorses. That would keep the saw a little lower and keep more of the sawdust inside the basket.

With the saw shop set up, I got my saw, my tape and square, my respirator, and my ear muffs and proceeded to mark and cut the seven lower rail pieces. Then I put the concrete blocks away, gathered the sawdust up in the tarp, dumped it over the loft edge, put the tools away and quit for the night.

On Thursday morning Dave called first thing and we talked over his visit to the cabin next week. I am really looking forward to that.

After breakfast I split another week's worth of firewood, brought a bunch of it up to the back porch, and then spent the rest of the morning vacuuming and straightening up the first floor. It needed it.

I left for home at 12:10 eagerly looking forward to Dave's visit next week.