4/24-26/18 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped at Sky Nursery to get watering bags for the sequoia trees. I decided against using them because they run out of water in five hours. I was expecting something more on the order of several days. The problem is irrigating the trees when I am gone. But I talked to a plant expert at length about my bonsai sequoia trees and finally settled on buying a bag of fertilizer.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:10. I brought my gear up, hoisted the flag, had my lunch, and went right out and started burning brush on the sequoia trail. The wind was blowing out of the south and there was a lot of brush to clean up south of the fire pit. I got the ground all cleaned up in that area.

On Wednesday, the wind was blowing out of the south again but there was brush to the east and to the west of the fire, so I could still work out of the smoke. I was working in dense vine maple thickets but the leaves were not out yet, so it was fairly easy to see and work in there. But at one point, a small vine maple branch snapped toward me and hit me right on the lip, splitting it open. I had just that morning resumed taking Eliquis that I had stopped for four days because I had two wisdom teeth extracted. My lip started bleeding pretty bad and I was a little worried about it.

I went into the cabin to treat my lip and I was pleased that it had already stopped bleeding. I cleaned the wound up, put a Band-Aid on it, and went back out and resumed brush burning.

In a little while, the wind shifted and all the brush I wanted to get was in the smoke. So, I went up to the bluff and started a fire in that burn pile. The wind was favorable up there and I got a good start on the brush. When I went in for lunch, I took the time to neatly stack the ten big firewood rounds that were piled up at the foot of the back stairs. They had been stacked on top of snow, and when the snow melted, some of them rolled away—one of them almost down to the rock steps above the concrete staircase.

After lunch, I took a nap, and then went out and burned more brush in both piles as the wind shifted. I also irrigated the sequoia Paul by opening the valve on the hose.

On Thursday morning, Dave called first thing with the delightful news that he will be in town in a couple weeks. We agreed to meet for breakfast while he is in town. Since I was going home around noon, I decided against starting up either of the fires. Instead, I went down to the truck and got the bag of fertilizer I had bought.

I fertilized and watered all eleven sequoia trees. Since the irrigation hose going up the sequoia trail had been cut during the logging operation, I had to fill my buckets just past the privy and carry the water the rest of the way for all trees except Paul. Carrying those five-gallon buckets of water through the woods reminded me of the many times during my childhood that I carried five-gallon minnow buckets around—hard work, but good for me.

Next, I followed a suggestion given to me by Bill and set up a series of trellises in the blackberry patch just inside the hairpin turn. I used four or five wire tomato trellises and a half-dozen pieces of #4 rebar about five feet long with a six-inch 90° bend on one end. I drove the rebar into the ground and stretched a clothesline rope across the tops of the rebar. I had run the clothesline under the blackberry runners so that when I lifted and tightened the rope, the runners were lifted off the ground. The idea is that instead of lying flat on the ground, the bushes will be up in the air which should make it easier to pick the berries but should also allow more berries to develop. We'll see. While I was down there I also had a look at the rhubarb which is really growing fast. It's about a foot and a half tall already.

I had my lunch and was all packed up and ready to go when the doorbell rang. It was Marty Mauney, the DNR guy. He wanted to check on our progress, so he and I walked out and inspected the bluff cut. He didn't go up the sequoia trail. He reminded me that we need to start replanting to stay within the guidelines. I told him that I would get started on it right away.

After he left, I loaded my gear and left for home at 1:00.