10/4-8/21 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 5 days: Monday through Friday.

The weather was sunny and warm when I arrived at 12:20. I brought my gear up in one trip and hoisted the flag. The cabin was warm enough, so I didn't start a fire. After lunch and a fairly long nap, I finished the afternoon by practicing the piano.

On Tuesday I lit a fire in the stove the first thing, practiced the piano, and then added one cardboard section to the wall interface that I have been working on. After lunch and a nap, I practiced the piano again and then added a second section to the same wall interface.

On Wednesday it was chilly again in the morning, so I built a fire. After practicing the piano, I finished installing the cardboard backing on the bath/utility wall interface. After lunch and a nap, I practiced the piano and then made a mud tray out of aluminum flashing for use in applying mud to the wall interface. It rained pretty much all day.

On Thursday morning after building another fire, I practiced the piano and then spent a considerable amount of time smoothing the lumps in the tub of spackle that I had bought. It must have been fairly old because the mud had settled so it was very thick and tough on the bottom and very runny on the top. I finished smoothing out all the lumps, but I was a little disappointed that the texture of the spackle was runnier than I thought it should be.

Next, I started work on the interface in the utility room. I masked the log wall and chinking to keep the mud off. My plan is to leave the masking tape on until after I've painted the wall. We'll see how that works out. Next, I applied the mud to the cardboard backing in the wall experimenting with different trowels and knives. The mud was runnier than I thought it should be and it actually flowed and dripped down the wall in the thick places. I'm not happy with how it behaved so I will look into changing materials for the next go around. When I finished from top to bottom, I cleaned the tools and the home-made mud tray in a bucket of warm water.

After lunch and another long nap, I went outside and winterized the irrigation hoses. For the second year in a row I forgot that by simply disconnecting the hose at the cabin and letting it drain, it would siphon out all the water that was in the bucket up by Brian and earmarked for Andrew . My plan was to give that bucket to Andrew as the final drink for the season. But just like last year the bucket was empty when I got up there. From now on I'll try to remember to go up and take the hose out of the bucket before I drain it.

While I was up there, I went over the hill and checked the spring. I was pleased to see that there was a good flow coming out of the overflow pipe. And I was surprised to see a huge log on the ground right above the springbox. Fortunately, it did not hit the spring box or damage anything, but it took me awhile to figure out where that big log came from. I couldn't find a stump. After ruling out a few possibilities I realized that the huge snag just above the springbox had broken about 30 feet in the air and the upper section had fallen straight down and then over to where I found it. The log is probably 14 inches in diameter, so it is a big one. It's really not in the way because I can climb over it where it crosses my path, but I'll probably cut a path through it anyway someday.

I brought all the buckets out of the woods for winter storage and on my way to the cabin I rolled a big fir butt round up to the woodshed and stored it.

On Friday morning the temperature was 24 degrees. I think that's the first hard freeze of the season. I built a fire in the wood stove and took a call from Robert who updated me on his activities. Then after practicing the piano, I scraped the high points off the first coat of mud that I had applied. I left for home at 1:00 o'clock happy with the slow but steady progress on the wall interface.