11/11-13/14 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

After dropping something off with Priscilla and then visiting with Uncle Charles, I proceeded on over the pass and arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:45. I was immediately greeted by Ernie who was eager to get his hugs and biscuits. The temperature was about 25º so there was a nice ice sculpture where the water discharge hose was spraying. I left it spraying almost the same amount to make sure it didn't freeze up but still provide me with enough pressure up at the cabin.

I wanted to get started burning brush right away so I carried only my bag up, changed into my work clothes, hoisted the flag, and went out and started a fire in the upper burn site. Once it was going, I brought in some wood and started a fire in the wood stove inside the cabin. The temperature inside was 60º but I wanted to relieve the electric heaters and heat with wood instead. All the thermostats were set at 55º and I just left them set there.

Next I had my lunch, went outside and stoked the fire with more brush, and then went back inside for a nap.

Back outside, I tried to unthaw the hose which had frozen up. I placed it in the sun, which was shining brightly but very low over the mountains. I made some progress, getting some drips out the end of the hose, but eventually the cold temperature won the day and the hose remained frozen solid. It was still open at the joint near the porch, so I was able to drain the first section and winterize the spigot in the crawl space. In order to have some water on hand to stop a runaway fire, I filled two 5-gallon buckets and set them near the fire site. I also had a shovel out there.

I got my chainsaw out and "diced up" some of the bigger branches that were in the brush piles. Then I stoked the fire with this bigger wood so that I would have coals that would last overnight.

On Wednesday morning, the temperature was down to 18º. I was able to dig hot coals out of the ash pile in the fire ring and easily revived the fire. I stoked it up again with more brush and got it going good again before lunch and a nap.

Back outside, I kept burning brush and ended up clearing away almost all of the brush uphill of the trail leading off from the front porch to the fire pit. It was beautiful. The ridge of rock extending over from the High Rock was exposed like never before. Now you could walk on a natural trail right on the ridge. I decided to name this the Serendipity Crest Trail. It has great potential once a little more work is put in to develop it.

I was so tired and sore from the work that I was sure it was about dinner time, so I quit a little after the sun went down. But inside, I learned that it was only 3:30. So instead of stopping for the day, I split a half-dozen rounds of firewood. I was burning through the wood that Dave had split so I figured that I'd better add to the stack.

On Thursday morning, the temperature was 15º and I went back outside and revived the fire. The upper brush piles were now gone and there were only two, fairly sizeable, brush piles between the trail and the upper roadway. I got most of the first of these burned up. I didn't burn any wood bigger than an inch or so in diameter because I wanted the fire to be completely burned down before I left for home. I stacked the bigger wood on a rock near the fire pit to be burned later.

I quit burning at about 10:30 and went in intending to do some cleaning up in the cabin. I was working on getting a fire going in the wood stove when the county assessor knocked on the door.

His name is John Ross and he said he had been the last assessor to evaluate the property. This is the first time, however, that I had been there when the assessor showed up. I invited him in out of the 15º cold. It was 71º inside but John said that it felt like it was 85 because of the contrast.

He asked me a lot of questions about the cabin and corrected some bad information previous assessors had assumed, since they hadn't talked to me. As a result, he told me that he was going to reduce the assessed valuation. That was good news because it will lower my taxes a little.

By the time he left, I didn't have any time left to clean up the cabin, so that will just have to wait. I left for home at 1:10 feeling happy about spending time in the solitude of the cabin and even getting a little work done.