10/9-11/07 I went up to the property for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 1:00. The drive over was absolutely gorgeous. I deliberately didn't wear my sunglasses so that I could see the brilliant fall colors better. There was still quite a bit of snow on the high peaks and ridges so the scenery was extra beautiful.

After moving in and having lunch, I slid the stove over and onto the marble pad. I used a 1x2 as a lever to push the plastic-coated panel the stove was sitting on, and I stood on a shim with the thick end of the shim providing a fulcrum for the lever. That made it easy to move the stove without having to stoop over or exert much energy. The panel slid over the tops of short 2x4s until it reached the marble. Then I placed short pieces of 1x6 on the marble over which I slid the panel and stove until the stove was in the proper position. Then I slid the stove off the panel and onto the 1x6s and got the panel out of the way. Finally, I levered up each corner of the stove so I could remove the 1x6s. The end result was the stove sitting in its final place on the marble pad. It looks wonderful there.

Next, I mixed up a small batch of mortar (a half cup or so) and used it to fill three holes in the marble and one fairly large gap in one edge. The mortar blends nicely with the marble after it has turned white, so the whole pad will look pretty nice once it is cleaned up.

I made some six-mil Visqueen covers for the tops of the columns on the back deck and for the newel post on the front steps. The posts get wet during a rain even though they are under the eaves, and I don't want that water to start rotting them. Once the handrails are on top of them, they will be protected, but for now, those covers will do the job. A little chipmunk came around for peanuts while I was working outside.

On Wednesday I started out by carrying steel scaffold frames from the crawlspace, around the front of the building, up the front stairs, and into the cabin. While I was in the crawlspace getting the second frame, I heard a noise that sounded like a little animal in the crawlspace. The mousetrap down there hadn't sprung. I looked around and listened to see if I could identify the source of the noise. I heard it again and it sounded like it came from upstairs.

So I went upstairs and saw that one of the two mousetraps up there was missing. Once before, a mouse had dragged a trap over to the space between the floor and the bathroom wall. I made a hook from a piece of #9 wire and used it to probe the entire length of that space. I didn't find anything. When I finished, I heard the noise again and then saw the poor little mouse dragging the trap along the side of the shower stall. I picked the trap and mouse up, took them outside, and let the poor little guy out on a wood pile. He was obviously hurt, but not badly enough to keep him from scampering off. I really don't know how he survived that trap. It had caught him right across the neck.

Just as he started moving across the woodpile, Bert and Ernie showed up and I was afraid they would take after the mouse. But they showed no interest in him. They were all over me wanting dog biscuits. I walked them down to the trailer and got them each a couple of biscuits. The dogs are very well behaved and just sit there until I give them their treat. They make it real clear, though, that they would like another one after they finish eating one. After giving them each a second one, I went back to work.

The first order of business was to find out how that mouse got in. I searched the entire foundation and inspected every penetration looking for a hole. I found none. I walked around the building looking at the chinking to see if I could spot any holes. Then I went inside and inspected the gable wall in the loft, which has given me the most problems.

I found one space between the outside chinking and the log which was about six inches long but only about half the thickness of a pencil. I didn't see how a mouse could get through that, but there seemed to be a mouse trail in the insulation at that spot, so I decided to plug the hole just in case that was where he got in. I plugged it with a folded strip of aluminum which I jammed into the crack.

I kept looking and found a new mouse nest made of insulation in the East corner of the loft. It was hard to see from the inside whether there were any holes to the outside there, so I went outside and looked at the logs in that area. I saw a huge check in the bottom of one log that looked suspicious. I got the long ladder from inside and set it up against the outside wall. Then I got a flashlight so I could look deep into that check. With the light, I could see that the mortar was jammed deep into the crack and there was no possibility of a mouse getting in that way. I put the ladder back inside.

Then I climbed up the corner of the building to the top to have a closer look at the logs where they joined in the corner. Sure enough, there was a check in the bottom of one log which, if it went all the way through to the inside, might be big enough to admit a mouse. It was almost as wide as a pencil is thick. I went back inside and stuck my knife blade in that crack to see if it went all the way through. As far as I could tell, it did, so I was pretty sure that this was the culprit. I got some hardware cloth, made two plugs, and jammed them into the crack, one on the outside, and one on the inside. I know the mice can't get through there now, so we'll see what happens next. I suppose that as the logs continue to shrink and check, some more cracks might open up to let in more mice. I guess I will always have to have traps set and leave a tell-tale peanut on the floor.

I went back to work setting up scaffolding, and by lunch time, I had a two tier tower erected over the stove. After lunch and a nap, I finished setting up a three tier tower which gave me access to the chimney in the roof.

The chimney has three sheetmetal screws around the bottom, so I used them each in turn to hold a string with a plumb bob which nearly reached the floor. The chimney is not directly above the stove, so I need to know exactly how far out of plumb it is. I made careful measurements of how far the string was from reference points on the stove in each of the three positions. I also made measurements of the stove and its stove pipe connection so that I could make an accurate drawing of the relationship of the stove and the chimney. I also measured the distance from the stove top to the chimney, which is some nineteen and a half feet. With the chimney and the stack, that makes about 25 feet, which should give me a huge amount of draw. There will have to be a good tight damper to keep the stove from overheating. With the measurements made, I should be able to buy the exact stovepipe components that will be needed. I would like to have a jog in the pipe up near the ceiling so that most of the stack will be exactly plumb from the stove up. I think it would look tacky to have the stovepipe out of plumb when I took such pains to make sure that all the rest of the vertical members in the house are plumb.

When I finished that, I still had some time to work so I decided to do a chore that I had been putting off since November 27, 2001. On that day, I discovered that a huge Ponderosa Pine tree had broken and fallen in my drain field. The top of the tree had come straight down and embedded itself in the ground. I could see that several feet of it had been driven into the dirt and I had been concerned ever since that the thing might have broken one of the drain field pipes underground. I have been meaning to dig it up so I could find out whether it hit a pipe or not. As the years have gone by, the evidence showing exactly where the top of the tree went into the ground has been disappearing. It looked to me like one more winter and I would lose track of where to dig.

This was the perfect time to dig the thing up and learn once and for all whether or not I had a broken pipe under there. I got my spade out and proceeded to dig a three foot deep hole, following the decayed trunk of the top of that tree as it went down through two feet of dirt and a one-foot thick layer of rocks on which the drain field pipes were laid. After digging out all the wood, I satisfied myself that it hadn't hit any pipes and that there was no problem. I replaced all the rocks, using a screen to clean them back up, and then I covered the hole back up feeling good about getting that checked off my list and better yet, knowing that I didn't have a plumbing problem to fix down there.

On Thursday morning, I was happy to see no evidence of mice in the cabin. I got the chainsaw out and made a newel post for the back staircase from the remnant of one of the stringer logs. I placed it in its CB66 and was very pleased at how nice and snug it fit. I didn't drill the bolt holes. I'll do that later when I do the same for the stringers which are still not bolted in. I was a little dismayed at how hard it was to start the chainsaw. After a lot of work pulling the cord, it finally did start and worked fine after that. But since it just came out of the shop, I think there must be some adjustment that is a little off. I'm not sure how to figure out exactly what to do about it.

Next, I measured to figure out how long the lag screws need to be to fasten the tops of the stringers to the beam. I'll put the lag screws on my shopping list for next time. I did some cleaning up in the cabin, put some tools away, fed the gray jays a few times, had lunch, and left for home at 1:30. Just before I left, I surprised a grouse by the compost pile. We both stood still for a moment, about 20 feet from each other, and then she slowly puffed out her neck feathers a few times and then ambled off into the brush. It was neat to see her up close like that.