8/28-30/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I stopped to visit Claude McVey on the way up and arrived at Camp Serendipity at about 1:00. The first thing I noticed was that there was a tiny little frog in the can covering the gate lock. It has been many years since I have found a frog in there and I was happy to see the little guy. He was not much bigger than my thumbnail.

After unlocking the gate and gently transporting the frog over to the telephone pedestal, the next thing I noticed was that the two concrete blocks making up the counterbalance on the end of my gate log were on the ground. Without the counterbalance I couldn't lift the gate log off its post.

When I went to put the concrete blocks back on, I discovered that the heavy plastic electric insulator I had used to bind the two blocks together was missing. That thing was a piece of junk I got from somewhere and I couldn't imagine it being of any use or interest to anyone. Yet it was gone. I looked all over the ground near the end of the gate and it just was not there.

In the place of the plastic insulator, I used the rope for lifting the gate to bind the two blocks together so they would stay up on the end of the log. I then proceeded to open the gate and park.

As soon as I entered the cabin I saw that there was a dead mouse in each of the two traps, one on the first floor and the other in the loft. I dumped the carcasses outside and realized that the urgency of getting those ceiling boards all up has gone up a notch or two. They are not only in the gable rafters but now they are somehow getting inside the cabin too.

After lunch and a nap, I went to work on my scaffolding. To support the deck between Grid A0 and B1, I used four 10 foot 4x4s. Rather than setting up a ladder at that end, which would have been difficult because of the cliff, I installed the 4x4s by taking them up and over the scaffolding I had already installed and lowered them down onto the 4x4 brackets using ropes. That went fairly well but took a while. Then I carried up a few pieces of plywood and OSB to use as the decking on the scaffold.

On Wednesday I started out by going into the woods and watering all the giant sequoia trees. Then I went back to work on the scaffolding.

To brace it against swaying and to make the entire scaffold secure, I screwed the planks to the 4x4 brackets and I screwed the plywood and OSB sheets to the planks or 4x4 stringers that they rested on. Then to fasten the 4x4 stringers to the 4x4 brackets between Grid A and B I used four hurricane ties. The whole structure turned out to be very steady and strong. I wondered whether or not I had overdone it, but I figured it is better to be safe than sorry.

With the scaffolding completed, I set about removing the old contaminated insulation and kicking the rodents out of their cozy home. Using a utility knife, I cut the screen that was supposed to keep the critters out and then reached in and pulled out the insulation. I had a plastic garbage bag underneath so that the rodent droppings and other debris went into the bag. There was a huge amount of shells from some sort of small seeds that came out with the droppings.

It was sort of a surprise that all the droppings were from mice. Evidently the packrats had never gotten into that space. That tells me that whatever hole the mice used to get in was too small for packrats. In my experience, packrats and mice do not share living quarters. The packrats drive the mice out.

Removing the insulation was a messy job, but not as bad as my worst imagination. I wore long sleeves, gloves, a hat, and a respirator and I stuffed the insulation into the garbage bag as I pulled it out from between the rafters. I was happy to see that most of the mess was in the center of the bottom layer of insulation. The top layer was still clean and the edges of the insulation that were up against the wood rafters were also pretty clean. Not much wood, if any, was soaked in mice urine from what I could tell.

I started pulling insulation out from between Grid D1 and E1, but as I neared the end of that, the insulation began sliding down from the Grid D1-C1 section. So I removed most of the insulation from between Grid E1 to C1 before I stopped for lunch.

From that experience it is clear to me that I need a complete sturdy scaffold platform under the eaves in order to do the job. I had toyed with the idea of renting a cherry picker to do the job on the front of the building instead of erecting a scaffold system. Now I could see that that approach was out of the question. The only question now is how I am going to set up a scaffold system on that side of the building. On this side I have the cliff right there to help. On the other side I will be working 25 feet in the air with big glass windows below me. It will be a different problem.

After lunch and a nap, I finished removing and bagging all the contaminated insulation from the Grid 1 wall. It filled four big trash bags. Then with a whisk broom I swept out the cavity on top of the wall between the rafters. It seemed to be pretty clean.

Next I used the battery-powered sprayer that came with the big bottle of Nature's Miracle and sprayed the complete inside of the cavity soaking all the wood with the deodorizing enzyme. It made a noticeable difference in the odor almost right away. I think it is going to work well.

Since the ceiling is insulated to within an inch or so of the log gable wall, I have decided not to replace the insulation I just took out because I don't think it is needed. If I did replace it, I would have a hard time preventing the mice from moving right back into the new insulation. I would have to nail up all the ceiling boards on that wall at once to keep them out. I'm not sure I will be able to do that.

With the spraying done, I got some hardware cloth and screened all the openings in the birdblocks between Grid A1 and A0. That is required because once I get all the ceiling boards installed between Grid A1 and E1, birds and mice could just go through the holes in the birdblocks and set up housekeeping between the rafters and above the ceiling boards.

I am now finally ready to begin nailing on the ceiling boards on that section of the eaves. The eaves on that side are 75 inches wide so I can get 2 1/2 ceiling boards out of each 16 footer. I counted and found that I have ten 16 footers stained. That will only do half of the job.

I stacked those ten boards up against the scaffolding so I can get them up on top and then I pulled the first two of them up and laid them on the top scaffold platform. I have decided to set my saw shop up on the scaffolding and cut the pieces right up there. That should save me a lot of time climbing up and down the scaffolding.

In the evening, at about 11:00, I heard a loud commotion and got up to discover a mouse that had gotten caught by the trap in the loft. The little buggers still have a way into the building and they are into the insulation on the inside. That is bad news.

After dumping the dead mouse outside, resetting the trap and going back to bed, I lie awake imagining that the mice had infested my entire ceiling. During the night I would occasionally hear a rustling that sounded like a mouse turning over in his sleep in the insulation over my head. I would cringe at the thought.

But I got some relief from that thought when I got up once to investigate and saw that the rustling was caused by a moth fluttering up against the Visqueen under the insulation. Maybe the mouse invasion isn't as extensive as I had feared. Moths I can tolerate.

On Thursday morning I started out by setting an extension ladder up on the back porch and going up to the top of the Grid A wall to see if I could find where the mice were getting in. I found nothing for sure, but I did plug up a couple of cracks that might have been the entry points. I don't think that will do any good, but at this point I am clutching at straws.

I spent the rest of the morning staining twelve boards. After lunch, I packed up and left for home at 1:00.