8/12-14/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

It was a hot 80 degrees when I arrived at 2:00. The power was off again, so I took the breaker box apart. Both 120v breakers were bad so I decided to cannibalize one to fix the other, since I only use one breaker anyway. The contact clips that connect to the bus bar had corroded, arced, and gotten hot. This damaged the Bakelite around the clips. I took the best of the two clips and cleaned the contact areas with my knife. Then I installed the clip on the best breaker the other way so that it engaged the other bus bar. That way it would be contacting the bar in a new position that hadn't been damaged. I took the other breaker out altogether so I could take it home and buy a replacement. When I put the breaker panel back together, power was restored. I had some lunch, unloaded 8 sacks of mortar mix and carried it into the building, and then picked a few berries.

On Tuesday, I chinked one seam and insulated three more seams. A couple of gray jays showed up, but they were pretty timid. Only one of them took a peanut from my hand. They took a few more that I laid out on top of the cement mixer cover.

After lunch, it was a hot 89 degrees. I nailed the three seams and chinked two of them. I had to mix the mortar extra soupy so it wouldn't set up on my mortar board. By the time I troweled it on, it had stiffened up so it was just right. I have gotten to the point where almost all my batches of mortar are just right regardless of the temperature. I have learned pretty much exactly how much water to use depending on the temperature.

On Wednesday, it was hot again. I chinked two more seams and picked a few more berries. I left for home at about 2:00.

8/19-21/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

I arrived at noon and it was a pleasant 74 degrees. The power was still on, so my temporary repair of the breaker had held. After moving in and having lunch, I installed a new breaker that I had bought. Then, since I was finished with the scaffolding for the wall I was working on, I decided to clean up the wall before I took the scaffold down. I used a stiff masonry brush to get the more stubborn mortar loose, and a whisk broom to clean all the dust and mortar drippings off the logs. The logs and mortar looked clean and bright when I finished. I am real happy with how the look of the building is turning out. It matches the dreams that I have had all these years.

While I was doing that, Earl stopped by for a visit and a look at what I had done. When I finished cleaning the wall, I dismantled the scaffold, put away all the frames, and laid the planks across the deck so I could work on the lower half of the wall directly from the deck. When I finished that, I went down to the berry patch and found that they were picked clean as a whistle. I couldn't find a single berry. I don't know if it was people or furry or feathered critters who got the last of them, but in any case, the berry season is over for that patch. I ended up getting enough for one or maybe two pies.

On Tuesday it was a perfect 60 degrees. Just right for working. I insulated and nailed 3 seams before lunch, and then chinked the 3 seams after lunch.

I keep looking for ways to make my mortar mixing more efficient as I go. One innovation was to fill my water container from a 5 gallon bucket rather than from the hose. Not only can I fill the container faster, but the hose water heats up a lot faster than the bucket of water because the hose is partly exposed to the sun. Cool water makes a big difference in the working time of the mortar.

Another innovation I planned to make is to make a mortar mix measuring can. I have been using a big coffee can and filling it twice per batch. That means that I have to lift the sack, dump the mix in the can, level off the top, and dump the can into the mixing box twice for each batch. I can cut that time nearly in half by having a measuring can that has twice the capacity. I decided I would make a can by cutting the bottom out of one coffee can and fastening it on top of another one. I will fasten the two cans together with wire which will also form two handles near the center. That way it should be easy to pick up and dump into the mixing box. If I keep improving my process like this, that last seam I chink should go lightning fast!

On Wednesday, I insulated two more seams, and in the process I was visited by two jays. It was good to see them again. I haven't seen them for a long time and I didn't know what happened to them. Only one of them had the nerve to land on my hand and take peanuts. The other one would fly over to me, but chicken out at the last second and fly away. I'll have to put peanuts back on my grocery list.

Before I left for home at 1:00, I nailed the two seams and chinked one of them.

8/28/02 I made a mortar measuring can exactly as I described in the previous entry.

8/29/02 I went up to the property for one afternoon on Thursday.

I stayed home Monday through Wednesday this week to recover from a strenuous hike to Windy Gap the weekend before and to prepare for a camping trip the next weekend. On my way up to the property on Thursday, I stopped at Nason Creek Campground and registered for campsite 58. I pitched the tent at the campsite, and then went on to the property.

I arrived at 1:00 and was pleased to find that another tiny frog was living on the padlock on the gate. This little guy was even smaller than the one who lived there last year. His body was only about 5/8 of an inch long. I got him to go into the can which I put on top of the telephone pedestal so I wouldn't disturb him too much when I opened the gate.

After having lunch, I decided to sweep out the building so it wouldn't look too dirty when the family came to visit. We were going to camp with Bill's family. After sweeping, I moved the hose so it came through a front window rather than between logs in the wall where I had it before. I needed to get it out of there so I could chink there. After that, I insulated two seams.

By then, it was dinnertime so I had my dinner in the trailer, locked everything up, and went back to the campsite to sleep in the tent. I had to sleep there in order to hold the reservation.

On Friday morning, I drove back to Seattle, packed up the rest of the camping gear and drove back to the camp with Ellen, Andrew, and Quincy. Bill and his family met us at the camp later that afternoon.

On Saturday, we all went over to visit the property. All the kids stood and watched me take the can off the gate padlock to see if the frog was still there. Sure enough, he was there. The kids all got a kick out of seeing him.

Bill changed the locks on the crawl space door so they matched the lock on the front door. He couldn't change the trailer door lock because it was an unusual brand and he didn't know how to take it apart.

We took a walk on the trails up to the spring and were joined by Bert and Ernie. All the dogs, Quincy, Patch, and Lizzy, met Bert and Ernie and after a lot of sniffing and a little growling, they all got along pretty well. Before we left, though, Patch and Ernie got into it and hurt each other a little. After that scuffle, we closed things up and went to the Fire Station garage sale and then on to continue our camping. I didn't get much work done on the cabin this week, but I had a lot of fun anyway.

9/3-5/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped and talked to Mike to make sure Ernie hadn't been hurt in the scuffle. I was relieved to find out that he hadn't been hurt.

I arrived at 1:30 and there was no frog in the padlock cover. It was a nice cool 60 degrees and there were no mosquitos. Perfect for working. Bert and Ernie visited me while I moved in.

After having lunch, I insulated the last two seams in the southeast wall and I nailed the last four seams in the wall. After dinner, one jay visited the trailer and I went out and fed him some peanuts.

On Wednesday, I chinked two seams in the morning. Three jays showed up for peanuts during the work. Bert and Ernie also visited me again.

The chinking went a lot faster, partly because I wasn't working on scaffolding, but mostly because of improvements in my methods. My new full-capacity measuring can cut the time in half for measuring out the mortar mix. I did each of the steps of dumping mix into the can, leveling off the top, and dumping the can into the mixing box, only once instead of twice. I speeded up the measuring of the water by cutting a hole in a HydraFuel container exactly at the correct water line. Then, after I dumped the water in the mixing box, I dipped the container in a bucket of water to fill it, and then set it down in the bottom of another nearly empty bucket. Then, when I turned my attention to mixing the mortar, the water ran out the hole until it was at the proper depth, and the container was ready to dump into the next batch. I also dumped the entire batch onto my mortar board directly from the mixing box. This saved the time I used to spend ladling the mortar into a coffee can with a trowel, and then ladling the rest out of the mixing box and onto the mortar board. Much faster, plus I don't have to empty that coffee can onto my board while I am chinking. The whole batch is there from the start.

After lunch, I finished chinking the last three seams in the wall. It felt really good to get that wall done. I have now chinked half of the outside of the building. A little more, actually, because there are more windows in the walls I have left. But, then again, that front wall is going to be pretty hard to reach. During the afternoon, four jays came around for peanuts. One of them looks different from the others, which, except for their personalities, are indistinguishable to me. The different looking one is much darker and sort of has spots on his feathers. I call him Scruffy because that's the way he looks.

After dinner, about six jays came to the trailer for peanuts. I fed them all the ones I had shelled. These peanuts are roasted and unsalted. They seem to like them much better than the raw ones I tried to feed them. I am beginning to think that is why I didn't see any jays for so long. From now on, I'll stick to the roasted peanuts.

On Thursday morning, I worked on a strategy for reaching the southwest wall. I tried my 20 foot ladder and discovered it wouldn't be long enough to reach up to scaffolding at the peak. After thinking about a few alternatives, I decided to erect a steel scaffold tower up to the peak and then hang scaffold brackets from the walls on both sides of the tower. That way, the tower would provide a way for me to get up to the top.

I hauled out two steel scaffold frames and the cross braces and was just starting to set them up when it dawned on me that this would provide access through the front windows unless I boarded them up. I also realized that I would have to leave the tower up over the winter. After thinking about it some more, I didn't like that idea, so I put the frames and braces back.

Instead, I decided to install two tiers of hanging scaffolds at the top. That way, I could reach the top one from the second one. The second one is even with the sills of the top windows, so I can get up on it from a ladder on the inside. There is still a scaffold at the peak on the inside of that wall, and I did a lot of thinking about whether, and when, to take it down. For a while it looked like it would interfere with the scaffold on the outside. I also thought I could hang the outside scaffolds on the same bolts, but then I realized that the bolts went through a seam that I needed to chink. The inside scaffold will definitely have to come down before I chink.

In the meantime, the inside scaffold was useful in erecting the lower of the two scaffolds. I lifted two scaffold brackets, two planks, and a 2x4 hand rail up through the window using a rope that went up over the inside scaffold plank. I finished installing one section of that scaffold in between Grid B3 and C3. Standing on that scaffold, it still wasn't exactly clear to me how I was going to get up onto the scaffold above that. If I only installed one plank up above, I could fit a ladder in, but I would rather have two planks up there to work on. I'll have to think about it some more, and when I install that scaffold, some new and better ideas might occur to me.

While I was out on that scaffold, looking up, and thinking, I made a disappointing discovery. I could see that the mice had finally gotten into the insulation above the southwest wall! When I get the scaffolding up so I can get up there, I will have to find how they got in, and do something like I did on the other wall to get them out. It was very disheartening to discover that they had gotten in there. It proves that aluminum window screen is definitely not mouse proof. I should have used both 1/4 inch hardware cloth for the mice and also window screen for the ants. Oh well, it's too late now. I left for home at 1:30 feeling good about the chinking, bad about the mice, and uncertain about how I was going to get access to that wall.

9/10-12/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:45, it was a pleasant 68 degrees, and there was no frog on the padlock. Things were dry but there was evidence of a big rain not too long ago. The water from the roof had broken through the diversion trough that usually sent it over the cliff, and it had run down the roadway to the door of the trailer. It eroded a fair sized ditch, but nothing that I had to repair. I was still able to drive the pickup up to the building with no problem. After moving in and having lunch, I unloaded six sacks of mortar mix and brought it into the building.

The next project was to dismantle the old scaffold still up at the peak on the inside of the southwest wall. I rigged a bridle of 3/4 inch rope over the B and D purlins with a shackle in the middle. Then I ran a rope through the shackle and tied it to the center of the 11 foot plank in the center of the scaffold. I tightened this rope and snubbed it off at the bottom around the loft support column to take the weight of the plank. Then, from ladders, I went up and removed the joist hanger nails from the Z-brackets holding up the plank. Finally, by gently relaxing the snubbing around the loft column, I slowly lowered the plank to the floor. It's nice having gravity work for me like that rather than against me.

During this work, Scruffy visited me quite a few times for peanuts. After I went in for dinner, he came to the trailer a few more times for more.

On Wednesday, I lowered the plank and bracket from the west end of the old scaffold using some of the same rigging from the day before. During this work, I was visited by four jays, including my friend Scruffy. The other birds seem to pick on Scruffy so I try to give him special treatment.

I did some measurement and discovered that the plank I had just lowered from the old scaffold would reach from the bracket on the outside to the projecting end of a wall log at the west corner. I rigged two ropes up, hanging from pulleys in the hooks on the grid A and grid B purlins. I fastened one rope to each end of the plank I had just lowered and set the plank on the window ledge ready to raise it up into place on the outside.

Just as I started raising the plank, Russ Christensen, the building inspector stopped by. He was pleased to see that I was still making progress, but he told me that I should renew my building permit because they were going to change the rules. They were going to start charging $1100 per year to renew, and were going to try to force people to finish their projects within 18 months. He said he had argued on behalf of builders like me but he thought the rule change was going to happen anyway. If they do start charging me that much, I will have to give some serious thought to having a contractor finish up the job. Even though I don't like that idea, there are aspects of it that are appealing. We'll see what happens.

After Russ left, I finished raising the plank into position. The sun was hot and was blazing directly on the plank. When I went up to remove the rigging, I felt tired, weak, and hot, and I didn't feel comfortable on that plank. It is about 25 feet off the ground and from up there, you look down over the edge of the cliff which goes down another 22 feet, so it seems pretty high. It's always a little unnerving to me to get on a scaffold plank like that before the handrail is in place. Maybe Russ' news had demoralized me, or maybe I hadn't gotten enough sleep, but I decided to quit working for the day at 4:30. I just didn't feel like installing the handrail in that hot sun. I fed the jays a bunch more peanuts, and went up and checked on the spring before I went in for the night. Even though I felt emotionally drained for some reason, it felt very good and relaxing just to sit and talk to Scruffy as he took peanuts out of my hand. The weather was perfect, the setting is beautiful, the project is all I could hope for, and it just felt good to sit there and enjoy it all. It is clear that I am not going to finish chinking before it starts freezing, so I rationalized that it was OK to goof off every once in a while and put the work off until tomorrow.

On Thursday morning, I took some pictures of the walls now that the chinking was dry and nice and white. I also fed Scruffy a bunch more peanuts, fixed the drainage ditch, and replaced four burnt out light bulbs in the crawl space. Then I went up and installed the handrail on the west end of the scaffold. It is amazing how much difference it makes in how it feels to walk on that plank. It is the same plank that seemed scary before, but with the handrail, it is like walking on a floor in an ordinary room with a great view. With that done, I locked up, had lunch, and left for home at 1:30.

9/13/02 Sent a check for $44.50 to the building department and a letter requesting an extension to my building permit.

9/17-19/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I stopped in and had a nice visit with Marilyn in Skykomish on the way up. I arrived at 1:30. There was no frog on the gate padlock. After moving in and having lunch, I discovered that a lizard had fallen to the bottom of the privy hole and couldn't get out. I fastened a HydraFuel container to a long 1x2 and fished him out. I rinsed him off with water and set him in the sun. He sat there for quite a while but finally took off. I think he will be okay.

I moved the nine sacks of mortar mix into the bedroom closet, near where I mix the mortar, because it was in the way of putting ladders up to reach the inside scaffold on the south corner. I rigged up a couple ropes and pulleys to remove the scaffold. I lowered the bracket to the window, and swung the bracket to the outside and installed it out there. All during the work, I was visited by three jays, one of whom was Scruffy. They also visited my trailer for peanuts during my dinner.

On Wednesday, Dianne from the building department called and told me that she was returning my check and letter because my permit was already good until 2003. I asked for a contact so I could write and express my opinion on why they should not stiffen the requirements and cost of a building permit. She didn't have a contact so she had me talk to Russ Christensen. He didn't know either, but he said maybe I could find it in the government listings in the phone book.

I went to work and lowered the big plank to the upper window level, rigged another rope to pull it out the window and onto the scaffold in front of the windows. Then I re-rigged to suspend the plank so it would reach over to an end stub of a log wall on the south corner. Finally, I installed the handrail to the grid E purlin. I now had a scaffold that reached entirely across the front of the building.

I went down to the trailer for a drink of water feeling pretty good about getting the scaffold done. On the way back up, I saw Larry coming up the driveway. He told me that he had been laid up for 8 weeks after breaking six ribs and injuring his pelvis by falling off a horse. I knew I hadn't seen him for that long, but I had no idea he was hurt. He still wasn't moving as fast as he usually does, but he said he is feeling almost back to normal. He checked out my work, but he didn't climb up on the high scaffolds. He invited me to go to his house in the evening to get some jars and look at some pictures. We both fed the jays while we were talking, and I was glad he got to meet Scruffy.

After he left, I installed three scaffold brackets for the level above the scaffold I had just built. Then I put four planks up on the brackets. The problem was, I didn't have a way to get from the one scaffold up to the next one. I knew this was going to be a problem, and I had several solutions in mind, but now was the time to figure out which one would work.

I tried a short aluminum ladder with a rung missing near the top, but I couldn't easily squeeze my body through the space in the ladder and I figured that even if I could, it would be too awkward and dangerous to use it. Next, I tried the chain ladder, but it was even more awkward and dangerous. I thought about using one of the ladders I had made for the scaffolds when I built the walls, but I wouldn't be able to get around to the end of it to climb up on it.

I finally decided to design and build a special ladder for the purpose. I got the ladder finished just in time to take a shower and go over to Larry and Roberta's. After a nice visit, I came back, had my dinner, and went to bed.

On Thursday morning, I made a sturdy base to secure the bottom of the ladder to the plank. Then I installed the handrails on the top scaffold. It felt good to finally have access to the top of the wall after wondering for a long time about how I was going to do it. Of course, the jays were constantly there helping me and celebrating my success.

With all the scaffolding in place, I was able to inspect the entire length of the screen above the wall looking for a hole the mice used to get in to the insulation. I couldn't see any way they could possibly have gotten through that screen. There were no holes at all. The only thing I can figure is that they got in through the ends. I'll have to use a ladder to get up and inspect the ends.

The next thing that worried me was cleaning out the slot that receives the ceiling boards. On the other gable, I spent a lot of time chiseling it out and rasping down the log ends. I wasn't sure how much work this gable was going to be. I was pleased to find that only one log end needed any rasping, and that one not very much. My home-made chisel worked super to clean out the beads of caulking from the slot so in a short time, the slots were ready for the temporary ceiling boards. I jammed them in so they are ready for mortar.

Next, I cut out Styrofoam plugs for the gap on both sides of the ridgepole. I used two one-inch thicknesses. I am now ready to insulate the cracks, nail them, and chink them. Everything is easily accessible now so that should go pretty fast as long as the weather stays warm. It's a good feeling to get past a job that is so uncertain and move on to one that I know exactly how to do. I took some pictures of the scaffolding and I tried to get a picture of Scruffy, but after one flash, he got camera shy. My little buddy, the pine squirrel, was watching the picture taking, so I took a picture of him too. I left for home at 1:30 feeling pretty good.

9/24-26/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at noon. It was a beautiful 60 degrees with the fall colors starting to come out. There was no frog in the gate lock. After moving in and having lunch, I insulated the top seven and nailed the top six seams on the southwest gable peak. During the work, I was constantly visited by four jays, including Scruffy. He still looks different from the others, but he looks a lot better than he used to. They all visited me at the trailer during dinner too.

On Wednesday, I chinked the top six seams and removed the top scaffold. I'm glad to be done with that scaffold because it was so awkward to get up on it and back down again. The jays were all over me during this work too. They are running me out of peanuts.

Shirley stopped by with the address number sign I bought from the fire department. I was supposed to have stopped in at the station to pick it up, but I forgot. Shirley came in and took a look at my work. She hadn't seen it since before the floors were in. Bert and Ernie were with her and this was the first time I was able to pet Ernie for any length of time. Bert was being petted by Shirley so he allowed Ernie to get some attention to me. It must be rough being second dog.

On Thursday morning I got a flashlight and binoculars and tried to see where the mice had entered the ceiling. I couldn't see at all on the west corner because of the strong light from the sky, but on the south corner, I could see that the screen was pulled away from the rafter a little. I suppose a mouse could get through there, and since that was the only possible entry I could see, I got the 20 foot ladder, set it up on the deck, and went up and stapled the screen tight to the rafter. If that is their only hole, and some of them are still in there, I will have dried up mouse corpses in there forever. I guess that's better than having a thriving colony in there.

I heard the sheep bells in the valley so I walked over to see if Pepe was the sheepherder. I knew that Jacinto was back in Peru and that Pepe had taken over a few years ago, but I haven't seen either one for a long time. I found the new sheepherder and met him. His name is Eladio and he speaks English a little better than Jacinto, which isn't saying much. He had to draw numbers on the ground to tell me how many sheep he had -- 1,130. He told me that Pepe was in Wyoming and Jacinto was still in Peru. I recognized four of the dogs from before and they are getting very old. Eladio told me that one of the sheep dogs I recognized was completely useless. But there are a couple young pups that are taking over the work. The big, huge, dog, Leroy, that keeps the sheep safe from cougars and bears, was the same dog but he was looking very old.

Before I left for home, I insulated the next six seams. I left for home at 1:30.

10/1-3/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 12:15. It was a beautiful 50-degree fall day but there was evidence that it had recently rained. After moving in and having lunch, I went to work nailing the seams I had insulated last week. The three jays came around for handouts during the whole process.

At one point two sheepherders came by and I invited them up to see the project. Their names are Ferere and Dante and they are both from Peru. Neither of them spoke enough English for us to do much communicating. They seemed to enjoy the visit, though, and they both seemed to get a kick out of feeding the birds out of their hands.

On Wednesday I started out by preparing the ceiling groove. There were only two logs that needed rasping, and they didn't need too much. So after a few minutes with Rasputin, they were ready. I also used my home-made chisel to clean up some blobs and burs of caulk.

I cut two ceiling boards long enough to tuck into the grooves the whole length of the gable that I had left to do. I will just leave these boards there until I install the real boards under the eaves. That way, I think there is less chance that animals can get into cavities in the mortar made by the insulation.

With the preparation completed, I chinked 5 seams. I was visited by six jays rather than my usual three, so the word must have spread.

Down by the old log rack, I spotted a huge King Boletas mushroom, but it was already full of bugs. Then I scouted around and found eight or ten more. Unfortunately, all of them were buggy except for a little over half of the stalk of one of them. I ate that part raw and it was delicious. I kicked myself for not checking for mushrooms when I arrived the day before. I knew it had recently rained, and I knew that the mushrooms come out right after the rain, but I didn't think to check. My mistake and my loss.

On Thursday morning, it rained lightly. I chinked two more seams, and of course, fed the jays in the process. I also installed the pegs in the three scaffold bolt holes for the upper scaffold. I left for home at 2:00.

10/8-10/02 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over was gorgeous. The fall colors are about at their peak. I arrived at 12:30. I had come down with a bad cold early in the week and I was feeling pretty sick but I figured I could rest as well or better at the property than I could at home. I found a note in the gate lock from Shawnee saying that she and a friend had visited when I started my foundation and that she would like a tour again. She left a number for me to call.

Then, when I opened the trailer door, there was a note from Howard Hutchings saying that he had stopped by for a visit. I guess people must be out driving around looking at leaves and just happened to be in the neighborhood.

After moving in and having lunch, I drove the pickup up to the building and unloaded six sacks of mortar mix. I found another note in the front door from Howard saying it was just in case I had missed the other one. In small letters at the bottom it said "PS By the way, I am very impressed". I got a kick out of that.

Next, I got Mother Sow out and cut a few sections from a pine log down at the log pile. The heartwood was nice and clear and I have always had my eye on it for carving stock. I decided to make some blanks for the Cub Scouts so that they can carve neckerchief slides out of them. I split the blocks into roughly 2x2 inch square cross section and then I drilled an 11/16 inch hole in each end. That way they could carve a slide from each end and still have a good handle to hang on to. I made about a dozen of them and loaded them into the pickup.

Then I went up and caulked the cracks around the window frames and then with a trowel, a stiff masonry brush, and a whisk broom, I cleaned the loose mortar from the wall I had chinked and cleaned the logs up. I also stained a small spot I had missed on the wall because it had been covered up by a 2x4 holding up the inside scaffold, which was now dismantled. All the while, I fed the jays who kept coming around.

I went to bed early, at about 7:45, and had a pretty miserable night. No headache, fortunately, but a lot of coughing and a bad sore throat.

On Wednesday I was pretty sick, but I went out to work anyway. I just moved slower than usual. The weather was absolutely beautiful but somehow I didn't seem to appreciate it like I normally would. I installed three scaffold brackets for then next level down. When I finished that, Bill Tutino (Dick's brother) and Shirley came by with Bert and Ernie. Bill was very interested in the project and he got a real kick out of feeding the birds out of his hands. I was surprised that they still landed on us with Bert and Ernie right there.

After lunch I took a little nap and was awakened by Ferere whistling outside. I went out and tried to talk to him. He definitely had something he wanted to tell me but he didn't know enough English. He wrote down a man's name and a telephone number and he gave me enough clues that I am sure that three sheep from his flock were missing and that if I see them, I should call that number. The rest of the sheep have been loaded up and taken away to their winter quarters. I think I got Ferere to understand that I would call if I saw the sheep.

I installed the planks and handrails on the lower scaffold brackets. Then I dismantled the higher scaffold, working pretty slowly the whole time. Then I cut some insulation strips and before I quit for the day, I insulated three and a half seams.

I was still sick on Thursday morning. I went up and insulated two more rows before Larry stopped by with two friends. One of them, Gordon, had seen the place before but it was just after the roof had been put on. They seemed impressed with the building. They also got a kick out of feeding the birds. By the time they left, it was time for lunch. I left for home at 1:30.

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