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.