12/21-24/20 I went up to Camp Serendipity for four days: Monday through Thursday.

There was some new snow on the road East of the pass, but the roads were good and the trip was beautiful. I arrived at 11:30. The driveway had not been plowed and the snow was about 10 inches deep but very wet and heavy. I tried barging the truck in and got it off the main road, but I got stuck tight. I could tell it was going to be a huge amount of work to be able to drive the truck any further or even to get it back out, so I decided to leave it parked right where it was and dig it out later before I left for home. I didn't know if the snow was going to warm up and shrink, or whether there would be new deep snow, or whether Josh would come around and plow the driveway. I decided I would just deal with whatever situation came up later.

I carried my gear up the stairs in two trips and didn't have to shovel the steps off. After building a fire, having my lunch and a nap, I practiced on the piano. It had started to rain, and it continued to rain the rest of the day.

When I fixed my dinner I discovered that the overhead lights had quit working above the stove. It's always something.

On Tuesday morning I started out practicing the piano, then Robert called and caught me up on his situation. While listening to the radio, I cut two casing legs to length. Then after lunch and a nap I split some firewood and dragged two loads of firewood rounds down from the woodshed.

On Wednesday I practiced the piano, listened to the radio, had my lunch and a nap and then went down and moved the truck. I just wanted to see how hard it was going to be to move the truck later. The snow was frozen so hard that I couldn't even make a dent in it with the aluminum scoop shovel. So, I got a square nose shovel out and used it to chip the snow away from behind all four tires. Then I was able to drive the truck backwards into the same ruts that I had made coming into the driveway. After proving that I could move the truck, I drove it back to where it had been parked and left it there.

I went out on the front porch and used a Skilsaw to rip, and a hand planer to fashion, the two casing legs. I think they will be beautiful.

On Thursday morning I wanted to clean the place up, so I started on the front porch. The tarp had caught most of the chips from making the casing legs, but there were a lot of chips and sawdust on the deck outside the tarp. I wanted to move the tarp but that big 200-pound block of wood was sitting on it. I decided to lift it up with the crane so I could remove the tarp and in the process, I wanted to flip the block of wood over. So, I adjusted the choker rope around the block so that I could do that. While the block was lifted up and hanging from the crane hook, I removed the tarp, collected the chips, swept the porch deck, and dumped the sawdust residue over the end of the porch.

Then I lowered the block of wood, flipping it in the process, and set it on the deck. I spread the tarp back out but this time over the top of the block and replaced the sawhorses so that I could continue working on casings.

With the front porch nicely cleaned up. I went inside and vacuumed and dusted to make the place presentable in case Ellen comes up with me on my next visit. I packed up and left for home at 1:00 ready to celebrate Christmas.