6/15-17/10 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way up, the transmission in my truck started acting up. After going up a fairly steep grade, near Deception Falls, the transmission suddenly went into neutral. Since I was going 55 under cruise control, the engine immediately started racing until I hit the brake to disengage the cruise.

It went into D2 fine, so I could go 40 mph or so, but it wouldn’t stay in a higher gear for more than a few seconds without going back into neutral. These were the exact same symptoms I had experienced shortly after I bought the truck, and which the transmission place was unable to diagnose or fix. Fortunately the episodes have been few and far between.

I was eating an apple at the time, so I pulled over and stopped with the intent of calling Maddy’s as soon as I finished my apple. While I was sitting there, a tow truck pulled up and stopped in front of me. Together the tow truck guy and I checked my transmission fluid, which was full and smelling good, and we discussed my options. He suggested I go to a transmission specialist in Sultan. I agreed and turned around and drove back toward Sultan.

The transmission behaved perfectly normally right away. I imagined what I would tell the specialist in Sultan and that he would drive the truck and not experience any problem. Since these symptoms were intermittent and cleared up by themselves before, I decided that they would probably do so again. I decided against another “no trouble found” visit and I turned back around at my next opportunity. I continued my trip to Camp Serendipity. The transmission behaved perfectly all the way.

I arrived at 12:50 and was shortly visited by Ernie. Bert must have gotten distracted.

After moving in, I went into the woods and checked some of the sequoia trees. The weather was perfect. It was cool, all the new leaves were out, and there were almost no mosquitoes. All the wild rose bushes around the cabin were in bloom and they made the air smell so good. It was beautiful and pleasant to be in the woods. The sequoia trees, in particular Ellen, looked like they were thriving. Ellen is still looking anemic, but it looks noticeably better than last week.

I went to work stringing the wire for the future ceiling fan. I had recently wavered on the idea of installing a ceiling fan right away since the scaffolding was in place, but then I decided against it because it might get in the way of insulating the ceiling. Instead I decided to install a simple porcelain light fixture with a single bulb. That can be easily replaced with a fan later, and in the meantime, I will have another light in the living room.

I could reach quite a few rafters from the loft, so I punched out knockouts in these and strung the wire coming out of the phony log as far as I could reach through these rafters heading up toward the ridgepole.

Next, I used a couple ropes to tie the three-tier scaffold tower to the Grid B2 PSL and the Grid D2 guard-rail post in the loft in order to stabilize the tower. It’s a little unnerving to have the tower start to sway rhythmically in resonance while you are standing on the top platform. The ropes prevented that oscillation.

I used some planks and 2x4s to set up a platform from which I could comfortably work in order to install the fixture on the underside of the ridgepole at Grid C2.5. To make it even more comfortable, I wore my linesman belt and attached it to the top of the scaffold frame so that I could lean against the belt and work with both hands. I got started making the hole in the ridgepole by using a 6-inch hole saw. I did a little chiseling of the wood, but there was a big knot right about in the middle of the hole I wanted to make, so a chisel wasn’t all that effective.

During the process, I had to climb up and down the scaffold tower and the loft stairs dozens of times for dozens of reasons. In the process, I happened to see that a huge landslide had occurred across the valley on the slopes of Nason Ridge. At one point while I was running the drill, I thought I heard a downpour on the roof. But since I saw later that it hadn’t rained at all, I wondered if the sound I heard might have been the landslide. I think it probably was.

I got out the binoculars to look at the fresh slide and noticed a big pitch black object in the middle of it. All the rest of the rocks and dirt were essentially the same color and shade of tan, but this object was jet black. There was another, bigger, black object at the bottom of the slide where it entered the trees. I wondered if these might be bears, or even sasquatch, that had gotten caught and killed by the slide. Or maybe one or both was still alive and might crawl away after a while.

I got the camera out and took a series of zoom pictures hoping that the resolution would be better than I could get with my eyesight and binoculars. They weren’t much better as it turned out. I also got out the cheap 80 power telescope we keep at Camp Serendipity and it didn’t show any more detail. I kept looking at the object throughout the afternoon hoping that maybe the lighting or atmospheric conditions would get better, or that I might see some action by, or change in, the object. Nothing got any better or changed.

Before I went in for the night, I mixed another ounce of the high-powered liquid fertilized I had bought in a few gallons of water and carried it to the sequoia trees. I used most of it on Ellen, a little of it on Chuck, and the rest of it on Bill. Those three looked like they could use it the most.

On Wednesday I finished installing the light fixture in the ridgepole. I ended up grinding most of the knot out with a spade bit and then cleaning up the hole with hammer and chisel. Except for the knot and one small problem, the installation went smoothly. I had done enough of these by now that I knew what I was doing.

The small problem was that when I opened the box supposedly containing the porcelain fixture, I remembered that this fixture was incomplete. It was just the porcelain portion and the actual socket was missing. I decided to rob a fixture from down in the crawl space so that I could finish the job and take down the scaffold. I can replace the crawl space fixture later.

I kept looking at the black dot on the landslide periodically all day, but nothing changed and I didn’t learn anything new about it.

With the fixture installed, I started the heavy work of dismantling the scaffold tower. I decided I didn’t need any scaffolding in the loft anymore, so I lowered the very top frames and braces all the way down to the first floor and then carried them down to the crawl space. That was some pretty heavy lifting for an old man. I took a lunch break to recuperate.

While I was outside, I stopped to feed peanuts to a chipmunk several times.

After lunch and a nap, I went back to the heavy work of dismantling the rest of the scaffold tower and stowing the parts in the crawlspace. Then I moved on to the easier job of cleaning up the tools and mess that I had made. I got the loft all cleaned up and vacuumed, along with the staircase, before I quit for the day. I fed the chipmunk a few more times during the afternoon.

On Thursday morning it was cool in the cabin so I started a small fire in the stove to take the chill off. I finished cleaning up and vacuuming the first floor and got it looking presentable again.

Next I decided to check the bolts on the loft staircase. They all needed to be tightened a half turn or more, so I tightened them all up.

After thinking about my strategy for the next projects, I decided that I want to get the ceiling insulated as soon as possible. The wiring is now all done up there and the ventilation system is also done. Nothing prevents me from insulating now except that the wiring needs to be inspected.

Before I call for inspection, I want to get as much additional wiring done as I can do easily. Part of that will be the installation of the loft receptacles. I measured and recorded the distances between the boxes so that I can make the receptacle assemblies at home just like I did for all the other receptacles in the log walls. I also inventoried the parts that I have so I will know what additional parts and material I will need to buy.

When I closed up the cabin for the week, the chipmunk came by for more peanuts. While I was feeding him (or her), the flock of gray jays came by to join in. I can’t be sure but it seemed that the flock included only one of the two juveniles I had seen before. At least I never saw two juveniles at the same time. I hope one of them didn’t get nailed by a predator, but I guess that’s inevitable eventually. I left for home at 1:20. The transmission worked like a charm all the way home.