4/25-27/17 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I left early in order to be there before our scheduled meeting with the DNR guys at noon. I arrived at 10:30 and discovered that they were already there and almost had their pickup stuck in my muddy driveway. They backed out and parked across the road and I drove through the mud and parked at the hairpin turn.

When they came up to the cabin, they explained that they had forgotten about the time change and thought it was still set for 10:30. I called Robert right away and told him that the DNR guys were already there and that we would start without him.

We talked for a while in the cabin and then went outside to look at the trees. About that time, Robert drove up and the four of us went into the woods and discussed the plans for our logging activity. We need to replace some of the tags that had come down in the two or three years since we put them out. We also learned that the creek is wide enough that it requires a 75-foot buffer rather than a 50-foot buffer. We learned what trees we could take and which ones we had to leave as a result. Marty said he would send me an email with the contact of the person who can get us a permit to burn the slash. We also discussed reforestation and it is on me to get 30 western redcedar seedlings.

When they all left at about 1:30, I split some firewood, built a fire in the stove, had my lunch, and my usual nap. When I got up, I took the wheelbarrow down to the truck and hauled a pickup-load of yard waste and stacked it on the compost pile. While I was down there, I checked on the rhubarb and saw that the snow was gone and the plants were starting to sprout.

Back in the cabin, I discovered a shrew in the trap in the bedroom. I threw it out and reset the trap.

On Wednesday after breakfast, I went to work on the rails using Rasputin and a scraper. That is tedious work for my old arms and shoulders but I kept at it. I pretty much finished the job and then went down and split some more firewood.

After lunch and a nap, I made the mortise hole in the Grid F.5,2 newel post using a 4" hole saw, a hammer and a chisel. To make the back of the hole flat, I rubbed a pencil all over one face of a small scrap of 2x4 and then rubbed the 2x4 against the back of the hole to show me where it was high. Then I would chisel off the darkened spots and rub the 2x4 in the hole again and repeat the process.

When I finished making the mortise hole, I started making the tenon on the butt end of the bigger of the two rails. I used the 4" hole saw to make a shallow groove as a guide. Then I used a hammer and chisel to roughly form the tenon. I tapered the end of the tenon down to meet the hole saw groove. Before I quit for the night, I split some more firewood.

On Thursday morning, I went back to work on the tenon. I rubbed a pencil point around the inside rim of the mortise hole to mark where the tenon would bind up when I tried sticking the tenon into the hole. I could see by the pencil smudges on the tenon where it was binding. Then using Rasputin, I rasped off the smudge marks and tried the tenon again.

Little by little the tenon went deeper and deeper into the hole as I rasped the high spots off until finally the tenon seated snugly all the way into the mortise hole. I was very happy with the fit.

Next I studied the rail interface with the Grid F3 column and changed my plans. First of all, I was a little dismayed that the rail was barely long enough. The small end was broken and there was barely enough wood to fasten it to the projecting wall log. It would be better if it were longer. Secondly, the groove that needed to be cut into the column would have to be unacceptably deep.

To solve both problems, I decided to cut the rail in two and fasten the two ends into the column using two mortise and tenon joints. That would set the joint deep into the column and it would give me another six inches or so of length to the rail. I decided to use a 1 1/2" hole saw to make the mortise holes. The diameter of the rail at that point is 1 3/4" so it won't have to taper much to make the tenons. Cutting the holes will be a little tricky so I decided to put it off until next week.

I checked on the rhubarb again and found that the buds were a little bigger. Then I hooked the water discharge hose back up to the copper pipe. I had disconnected it last winter because it had frozen solid. Then I went over to the pile of dirt that Josh had scraped up when he had plowed the snow. I could see that it is going to take quite a bit of work with a spade to spread the dirt back out.

I left for home at 12:40 happy to have made a little more progress and to have spent another enjoyable three days in the woods.