8/14-17/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 4 days: Tuesday through Friday.

On the way, I stopped at Bill Odger's to deliver some stovepipes for him to take over to Priscilla's cabin. I met a friend of his there and chatted with the two of them for quite a while. Then I proceeded on and visited with Claude McVey.

I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 1:45 and was pleased to be greeted by Bert. Ernie was not with him. It has been a long time since I have seen either dog so I figured the family had been on an extended vacation.

After carrying my gear up to the cabin and giving Bert his hugs and biscuits, I had my lunch and a nice nap. When I got up and started putting my work clothes on, I got a call from Ellen telling me that our house had been burglarized. Nothing had been taken except for some things of Andrew's. I told her I would pack back up and leave for home immediately.

I called Barb Williams and told her that I would not be able to be at their place tomorrow for dinner. We rescheduled for the next week. I left for home at 4:30.

Nothing in the house had been damaged, so there was nothing to repair. I called the insurance company and got a claim started.

On Wednesday, the claims adjuster called first thing in the morning and the claim process was finished by the time we hung up. Since there was no reason for me to stay home, I packed back up and headed back to Camp Serendipity.

I arrived at 1:50 in 85º heat and was not greeted by any dogs. I think it's too hot for them. I had my lunch but didn't feel like napping. Too many things on my mind.

Since it had been so hot I figured watering the giant sequoia trees was a high priority. So I went into the woods and did that.

Then I went to work on the porch ceiling and installed three of the last eight courses of ceiling boards between Grids E and F at the Grid 3 end under the eaves. It was hot work. It was 85º on the porch but a relatively cool 75º inside. I'll be glad when the hot weather is over.

On Thursday, I slept in. I had trouble going to sleep, but once I did, I sure conked out. I was a little disappointed that I had missed out on some of the cool morning hours, but I went out to work anyway. I nailed up two more courses of boards and reached a point where the scaffolding had to be raised in order to go any higher.

I reconfigured the scaffold deck and then hoisted four concrete blocks and my riser up on top to give me the additional height I needed. With the scaffolding raised, I could reach up and uninstall the sheet metal rodent valve at the Grid E3 corner. I could also get up high enough to see behind the Grid E purlin where I discovered that the rodents had chewed a hole in the screen just above the rodent valve. They hadn't been deterred at all by the valve. With that disappointing discovery, I took a break for lunch.

After lunch, I nailed up the rest of the full courses of boards between Grid E and F. Then I ripped, stained, screened, and installed the top vent boards over the porch leaving only the one under the eave to go. It was 90º on the porch so I took many water breaks and tried to cool off inside.

The good news was that there were no mosquitoes. So I was able to work in just a T-shirt and keep a little cooler as a result. That was nice.

I worked pretty late and got very tired, but I was happy with the progress.

On Friday morning I finished the entire ceiling between Grid E and F. I plugged up the hole that had bypassed the rodent valve the best I could by jamming hardware cloth over it.

Finally I put away the tools, swept the porch off good, had my lunch and left for home at 12:30. All the scaffolding, including the tower, can be completely dismantled now. After that, I will move my operation to the eaves over the Grid 1 wall. This is a major and welcome milestone.