10/7-11/24 I went up to Camp Serendipity for five days: Monday through Friday.

I had a dentist's appointment in the morning, so I was a little late in arriving. I arrived at 12:15 and brought my gear up in one trip. After hoisting the flag, I had my lunch and a nap. Then I walked to the grave.

I was struck immediately by the huge amount of poop on the road. It was evidently sheep poop and the traffic had smashed it down but it was all over the road for the entire mile. I had to pay attention to not step in it.

On Tuesday morning the temperature outside was 31 degrees. I built a nice fire in the stove to take the chill off the cabin. After practicing the piano, I walked to the grave. After lunch and a nap, I went outside and put away my masonry tools and equipment and the 1 1/2 sacks of mortar mix I had left, to keep them from being buried in snow. Then I bagged up all the old mortar sacks and staged them to go to the garbage. Next, I went looking for steel straps in the crawl space that I could use to make six more Z-brackets. I had no trouble finding the straps and I brought them to the workbench. Then I went upstairs and practiced the piano. Sometime later, Dean and his dog, River, came to the door, and after I had invited them in, he gave me a jar of Saskatoon Berry jam.

On Wednesday after practicing the piano, I walked to the grave. Then I had my lunch and a nap. After practicing the piano I went outside and made six Z-brackets, and then plugged the vent openings in the crawl space with Styrofoam as I do each year to prevent freezing my plumbing.

On Thursday morning the temperature outside was 30 degrees when I got up and I built another nice fire in the stove. After breakfast, and practicing the piano, I walked to the grave. Since hurricane Milton had made landfall during the night, I called John on my cell phone on the off chance that he was able to talk. The phone rang with no answer, and I left a message. But a few seconds later John called me, and we had a nice chat for the duration of my walk. It's nice getting cell service on that stretch of road. The good news is that John came through the hurricane with no damage to himself or his house, but two big trees on his property were uprooted and tipped over. They caused some damage to the neighbor's property.

While I was talking to John, a nice 3-point buck walked across the road in front of me and then ran up the mountainside to my left. That was fun.

After lunch, Bill called wondering whether I had heard from Dave. I had not. We had a nice chat. Bill happened to be hunting elk at the time. After a nap, I went outside and began raising the scaffolds. I used the two skyhooks to raise the deck high enough so that I could insert 2 brackets under it and then secure them with diagonal braces. Those were brackets numbers two and three out of a total of 5, so I have two more to go.

On Friday morning the temperature outside was 25 degrees and I built a nice cozy fire in the stove. After practicing the piano, I walked to the grave. On the way I saw Frank Scoggins working in his garage, so I talked with him for a while before I proceeded on. I also saw that the Smiths were home, but they were working with some machinery, so I didn't stop. On my return I did stop and chat with Connie and Clint Smith and they told me about their plans for harvesting the firewood from the big trees they had had cut down last week. They also told me that they had walked over and inspected my masonry work, which surprised me and pleased me.

When I got back to the cabin, I had my lunch and then packed up to go home. I left at 1:15 on a beautiful fall day with the fall foliage at about the peak for the season.