5/29-31/18 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped in and had a great lunch with Marilyn. Then I proceeded on to visit with Earl. I found him scrambling to get ready to leave. He told me that in two days he was going to leave for Utah to be with Dana and to have his eye surgery down there. I wished him well and left right away so that he could get back to his preparations.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:30 and since I had already had my lunch, I decided to skip my nap and go right to work. I wanted to get started on the brush burning right away since the burning season will be closing soon. My plan was to burn more brush on the bluff and to wheel firewood down and store it.

Since I already had a winter's worth of firewood stacked under the eaves of the cabin, I decided to clean out and re-organize the woodshed and begin storing firewood in there. The main job was to take the sheet metal roofing panels off the floor of the woodshed and stack them, standing up, in a corner so they would be out of the way.

I didn't get the whole job done, but I exposed enough clean floor surface to begin stacking firewood rounds. I'm not sure whether it's more efficient to stack firewood in rounds or after it is split, but since I split the wood just before I burn it, I stack the rounds. I wanted to spend the minimal amount of time on firewood at this point and concentrate on getting the brush burned.

With the woodshed ready, I went up and checked on all the cedar trees. They are all doing fine and are getting just the right amount of water. Then I went to turn on the water for the fire hose and in the process, the hose coupler, which had been leaking badly, just broke off in my hand. Fortunately, I had brought a new supply of hose fittings, so I installed a new female fitting on the hose and hooked it back up.

Then, I used the hose to soak the ground all around the fire pit on the bluff. And then got a fire started in the pit. I spent most of the rest of the afternoon burning brush and hauling firewood down to the woodshed with each trip down to the cabin for a drink or whatever.

About 4:30 I soaked the ground good and quit putting fuel on the fire. Then I got a small Western redcedar tree from the truck that I had brought with me and chose a site where I wanted to plant it. There was one leak in the hose just down from Paul which seemed to be the perfect site. I dug a hole there and transplanted the cedar which I designated as #11.

On Wednesday, it was cool in the morning, so I decided to start a small fire in the wood stove before breakfast. That warmed the place up nicely from about 62° to a comfortable 70°.

After breakfast I went back up on the bluff, re-kindled the fire, wetted down the ground and continued burning brush and wheeling firewood down to the woodshed. At 11:30, I went down to the truck and unloaded a bunch of yard waste I had brought with me and stacked it onto the compost pile.

Then I got out the new battery powered weed trimmer we had bought and tried it out. It worked great. I took it into the rhubarb patch that was completely overgrown by plants that overshadowed the rhubarb. In no time I had all that vegetation cleared down to the bare ground and left the rhubarb free to the sun. I also realized that all that vegetation had been the habitat of zillions of mosquitoes that came out of it in clouds as I was whacking.

With the rhubarb freed, I went to work on the roadway. I dug out a few thistles by the roots, and then I used the new trimmer to clear the weeds from the roadway. I did the right half of the roadway from the hairpin turn up to the cabin and a little past. At that point the battery died, and I switched to the second battery. I didn't know it at the time, but the second battery was not charged. So, I thought there was a problem with the machine. I suspected an overheating problem, so I set the machine in the shade while I went in for lunch and a nap.

When I got up, the cooled-off trimmer still didn't work, so I went up on the bluff and resumed burning brush and wheeling firewood for the rest of the day. I was disappointed that I didn't get all the brush burned, but I got most of it. I was afraid that the burning season was going to close soon.

On Thursday morning, Robert called to check in and he told me that burning was definitely ending the next day, June 1. That means that any work I do on the brush piles for the rest of the summer can only be organizing it for burning during the winter. I'll probably make piles and cover them with tarps, but the pressure will be off.

After breakfast, Dave called, and we had another great conversation. The batteries for the trimmer had charged overnight, and I was happy that the thing worked fine when I tried it. It only needed to have a charged battery to work.

I resumed whacking the weeds on the right side of the roadway all the way to the privy. Then I turned around and did the other side on my way back down the roadway to the head of the concrete staircase. Then I trimmed the brush and weeds from both sides of that path and along the sides of the concrete staircase. Then I continued in front of the cabin and just got that done when the second battery ran out. We had bought the smallest (and weakest) trimmer wondering whether it would be adequate for our use. I learned that it doesn't have enough power to do our entire roadway, but then again, I don't ever have to do the entire thing all at once. In fact, I was ready to quit when the batteries did. I decided that I really like that machine. At 78 years old, it's time for me to switch off the old golf-club type of weed whacker I had been using.

Next, I got Cindy and used it to lop off the brush along the roadway that was too big for the trimmer to cut. That pretty much took care of the morning. As a final act before I packed up to leave, I went up on the bluff to take care of the fire pit. As I approached, I heard a noise and caught just a fleeting glimpse of at least one deer. If I had been more observant and on the ball, I might have seen them before they took off. Anyway, it was fun to know I have company.

I used the 15 gallons of water I had standing around in three buckets and completely drowned the fire pit. The fire had burned down pretty much to nothing but ashes, but it was still hot deep down inside. It cooled down immediately when it was drowned.

I made one last trip around inspecting the irrigation of all 11 cedar trees and then had my lunch, packed up, and left for home at 1:00, looking forward to a change in work plans next week. I took my smoky work clothes home with me; I'll wash the pants but I'll discard the shirt that is laced with burn holes from the embers.