6/12-14/18 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived just about exactly at noon, brought some of my gear up to the cabin, hoisted the flag, and discovered that I had caught a mouse in the crawl space. The second trap was still set but the bait was gone. I can only hope that someday I will figure out how they get in.

Then I brought the wheelbarrow down to the truck and used it to bring the rest of my gear and some tools up to the cabin. Since it was a little chilly in the cabin, I started a fire in the wood stove and then had my lunch and a nap.

When I got up, I reset both mouse traps in the crawl space. Then I went up to the bluff and checked on the cedar trees. Instead of putting on bug juice, I put on gloves and a bug hat to see how that would work. I didn't plan to work up a sweat, which is what makes the bug hat unworkable.

The cedars were all doing great. Then I flipped the valve to irrigate Brian and I brought a bucket of water each to Andrew and to Earl. I also had Cindy with me, so I used it to clear some brush away from the trail. There were a ton of mosquitoes and the bug hat worked great. I got a lot of bites right through my shirt, though.

On Wednesday I built another fire in the wood stove before breakfast and then I went out and transplanted cedar tree #12 by moving it from the sequoia trail to a spot just above the trail where there was a leak in the irrigation hose. That way it will get irrigated each time I irrigate Brian.

Next, I went inside the cabin and set up the cots for Marilyn and Janet to use when they come up on Friday. Then I went out on the porch and finished drawknifing the new porch rail I am working on.

Just as I finished that, Robert and Tim showed up. I invited them in out of the mosquitoes and they updated me on the logging plans. Robert is going to arrange to have Mike dump a load of 6" rocks at the muddy entrance of the driveway and he will smooth them out with the dozer blade on the skidder. He is also going to fell the cottonwood trees at the edge of the parking area and use the logs as a base for the jammer. Then he will bring the jammer up and set it up. That work may begin next week.

After they left, I had my lunch and a nice nap. When I got up, Marilyn called to remind me to stop in on the way back and pick up a bicycle to give to Janet. Then I went out on the porch and scraped and sanded the rail so that it was ready to treat and stain. I started the treatment by spraying and soaking it with plain water. The insecticide works best if the wood is soaked an hour before being treated. That way, the insecticide gets sucked into the wood as deep as the water penetrated, which is deeper than the insecticide solution would have penetrated into dry wood.

With the log soaked, I went in for my shower and dinner. When I finished, I mixed up a batch of Board Defense and sprayed it on the rail.

On Thursday morning, Dave called after breakfast and we had another great conversation. After we hung up, I went out and watered Brian and Andrew. I saw that the leak in the hose that was watering cedar #12 was leaking too much. It was almost stopping the flow to Brian. So, I got the duct tape out and taped up the leak to slow it down. That struck just the right balance.

Then I went back to the front porch and stained the rail. It will be dry and workable in a couple weeks when I get the time to begin installing the rail between the Grid G1 and G2 PSLs. I had an early lunch and left for home at 12:30, happy to finally be making some slow, but sure, progress on the railing project.

6/15/18 Ellen, Marilyn, Janet and I spent Friday night in the cabin at Camp Serendipity.

We spent the weekend in Stehekin so in order to be able to catch the 8:00 AM boat in Chelan, we spent Friday night at Camp Serendipity and left early on Sunday morning.

We had dinner at the Squirrel Tree on Friday and then proceeded on to Camp Serendipity. We arrived at about 8:00 and carried our overnight gear up to the cabin as quickly as possible so that we wouldn't arouse too many mosquitoes. They were pretty thick.

I turned on the fan at the front door before we went in and that kept most of the mosquitoes out. A few of them got in anyway, but they weren't much of a problem.

Janet and Marilyn slept on the two cots I had set up and they both said they slept well. Ellen and I slept in the bedroom. We got up at 5:00, had a fairly quick breakfast, packed our gear back out, and left for Chelan around 6:00 AM, right on schedule. We then went on to have a great weekend in Stehekin.