1/15-17/13 I went up to Camp Serendipity for three days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I skipped visiting Uncle Charles because I was still feeling sick and didn't want to spread my cold. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 11:30. There had been no new snow since I was there last week so I didn't need to do any shoveling in order to park or walk. The snow was frozen pretty firm so I was able to easily walk up to the cabin. After moving my gear in, I had lunch and a nap.

When I got up, I went to work up on the high scaffold and screwed down a plank. In my enthusiasm, I drove a screw in too deep and couldn't get it back out. I climbed down off the scaffolding and went looking for a crowbar to help me get the screw out.

While I was looking for the crowbar I noticed that the ceiling boards on the porch had swelled in one area and buckled pretty badly. A pair of boards had buckled and opened up a gap of about an inch away from the fascia board. That was a disturbing development.

The boards between Grid F1 and G1 up against the Grid G purlin had opened up a gap that mice could get into. Evidently the boards had been installed dry and now that they contained more moisture they had swollen and buckled. That is a real problem. I don't know how to fix it but one thing is for sure: I need to keep the mice out of that gap because now they can crawl right in between the end two rafters

I got two bar clamps and some pieces of wood and clamped them from the top of the fascia to the piece that I placed under the ceiling boards. I was able to squeeze the boards back up against the rafter. It still left them buckled like the bottom of a Viking ship for about 5 feet away and I don't know how to fix that yet. At least I had the gap closed up so mice can't get in. I'll have to deal with the problem later. It's always something.

I went back to work on the scaffold and removed the stuck screw. Then I installed planks on the second span between Grid B3 and C3. Progress is slow but at least the scaffold is gradually taking shape.

On Wednesday morning it was 13° outside. After breakfast I moved and staged a number of planks so that I could get them up onto the high scaffold. Then I went up on top and spanned the third span between Grid C3 and D3.

I didn't feel well up on the high scaffold so I came down and split a bunch of firewood to get ready for this weekend. Ellen is planning to come up this weekend for an outing so I want to have the wood handy. I stacked a bunch of the split wood on the back porch. Then I went inside to do some work where it was warm.

I updated the bin inventory for the cabinet in the crawlspace to reflect the new bins that I had made, the numbers I had assigned to them, and the parts that I put in them. Then I took all the bins back down to the crawlspace and put them in the cabinet. My head was stuffy so I took some cold medicine.

On Thursday morning I built a fire in the wood stove and spent some time just sitting in front of the stove thinking about risers for the scaffolding. It looks to me like the scaffolding right at the peak is too low to allow me to reach high enough without a riser. And getting a riser up on that high scaffold is going to be a problem. I thought about a few solutions but nothing seemed like it would work very well. I'll have to give it a lot more thought.

It was 16° outside and I didn't want to work outside anymore. I did some reading and relaxing until it was time for lunch. I left for home at 12:30 after taking some more cold medicine and some nasal spray. I made it home safely without my ears plugging up.