Construction Journal Entry Week of 9/17/06

9/19-21/06 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 1:50. There was no frog in the gate can. It was 56 degrees and wet but it wasn't raining. There were lots of jays to greet me and beg for peanuts as soon as I got there. There was no evidence of mice in the cabin. All the peanuts were still on the floor. There were three or four chipmunks in the upper roadway busily digging through the wood chips. I couldn't figure out what they found so interesting in the chips. I tried to offer them some peanuts but they were too shy or for some other reason were disinterested. I noticed that the birdseed in the feeder I had hung up was down about a quarter but I didn't see any birds around it.

I went to work and wired up the refrigerator receptacle circuit. I wired a plug to the end of the Romex cable feeding the circuit. This cable will eventually be connected to the service panel, but for now, I ran the cable down into the crawlspace and plugged it in to the temporary power strip down there. That way it will be powered up whenever I power that strip on. I'll temporarily plug the other receptacle circuits into the refrigerator outlet. That outlet is only a few feet away from where the main breaker panel will be so the cables plugged in to the refrigerator outlet will be nearly ready to wire into the breaker panel.

On Wednesday morning I overslept. It felt good but I felt a little guilty. Up at the cabin I saw that the birdseed in the feeder was now half gone. Then I saw a Steller's Jay on the feeder having a good time getting the seeds out. The feeder was supposed to prevent birds that big from getting at the seeds, but either the thing didn't work, or this jay figured out how to outsmart it. While I watched him peck away, I saw that he was spilling birdseed all over the ground under the feeder. Then it dawned on me that that was what the chipmunks had been going for.

I spent the day wiring up receptacle outlets. I finished all of them in the first floor log walls except for one GFI receptacle. I was short one.. I'll bring one up next week and install it. I also need to get a couple of plugs so I can temporarily energize the receptacle circuits.

I was happy to notice that during the night there was no more gnawing in the trailer ceiling. I think the ant spray I squirted up there either killed them or it convinced them to move out.

On Thursday morning I fed the gray jays and then went to work and trimmed the right hand loft window. That was another job I could do without going over Dr. Goldman's 10 lb. weight-lifting restriction. The tube of glue I used was mostly used up and the glue was getting pretty thick. I was able to make it work with some difficulty, but I threw the rest of the tube away because I knew it wouldn't last until I needed it again.

I left for home at 12:45.



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