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.