10/2-4/12 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I visited with Uncle Charles on the way up and arrived at 2:00. As I expected, there were no mice in any of the traps. Hooray again. After lunch and a nap, I installed four of the five screw eyes in the top of the Grid A log wall that will support the new scaffold system there. I could reach the first three using a ladder set up on the back porch. I reached the fourth by using the section of the hanging scaffolding that was still attached to that wall left over from when I installed the range vent hood on the outside of the wall. There weren't any planks on that section, but I laid five or six 2x4s across the brackets to make a platform and I used that to reach the screw eye location.

Next, I hung the first of the horizontal 4x4s using the first screw eye at Grid A1 by placing a lag screw into the wall in the usual way. I was disappointed that it was four to six inches lower than I wanted. I seemed to have miscalculated the lengths of the rebar S-hooks somehow. I also learned from using that old hanging scaffold that I could have used that scaffold system after all. I would have had to reach a little to drive in the nails at the very ends of the rafters, and I would have had to use a riser to reach the top, but it would have worked.

I was a little discouraged and went in for the night wondering whether to use the old scaffold system or what to do about the new system.

On Wednesday morning it was 27º outside and my water system acted as if there might be some ice in part of the line. I went down to the creek and cracked the valve open a little to let a little water flow. I have decided to stop closing the valve all the way from now on until next spring and put up with the reduced water pressure that results. It isn't reduced all that much but I'll just have to remember to do it.

I was a little chilly when I got back so I built a small fire in the wood stove. That warmed the place up quickly.

Bert showed up by himself so I treated him to a few hugs and biscuits. It was a beautiful sunny day with only a little smoke in the air. I had called the fire dept and learned that the Sears Creek fire was still burning slowly near the top of the ridge. I didn't want to take up the guy's time so I didn't probe for any more details. It sounds like it is under control and will stay that way until the rains come in a couple weeks.

After a little investigation, I discovered the reason for the scaffold problem. Instead of screwing the first three screw eyes in the cap log, I had put them in the next log below the cap log. That was because the cap log's top is at the Grid 1 end and the butt of the log below it has an extra large diameter. So standing on the porch looking up, you can only see that second log. And that is where I placed the screw eyes.

Down at the Grid 3 end of the wall, the butts and tops of the logs are reversed so there the cap log is the bigger of the two, and that is where the screw eyes go.

To fix the problem, I decided to use the new scaffolding, since the parts were already built, but to shorten the three S-hooks that would hang from the second log. Lengthening the hooks would have been hard, but shortening them was no problem. The hard part was figuring out exactly by how much to shorten them. I couldn't find my drawing instruments so I used a yardstick as a scale and a sheet of paper as a triangle, and figured out that I needed to shorten them by 4.5 inches. Using Dr. Dick's handy rebar cutter/bender made that job a cinch.

I removed the lag screw I had placed at Grid A1 for the first 4x4 and installed it higher to accommodate the shorter S-hook. Now the 4x4 was in a more reasonable position. I finished hanging all five 4x4s after first installing the 5th screw eye in the cap log at Grid A3. I reached that one from the platform on the 3-tier steel scaffold tower and reaching over with my left hand.

A chipmunk and a pair of Canadian jays visited me for peanuts all during the work. I have decided to switch from calling the birds gray jays, which I have done up until now, to calling them Canadian jays. They have several names that they go by, including Whiskey Jack, and Camp Robber, but I have decided to call them Canadian jays for a couple reasons. First, because that is what my sister-in-law, Marilyn, calls them and second, since their Latin name is Perisoreus canadensis, it seems that Canadian jay, or Canada jay, by which they are also known, is more proper.

After lunch and a nap, I installed the scaffold deck on the Grid A2.5 to A3 span. Since this span is a little longer than the others, I used four 10-foot 4x4s and the same pieces of OSB and plywood I had used on the Grid A1 to B1 span under the gable eaves.

The first thing I did was to lift a 16-foot 2x4 and a 10-foot 2x4 up to the high scaffold tower platform. I use those to start laying planks across the spans. Starting with the 16-footer, I work it across the span and by the time I am holding the center of the 2x4, one end is already on the second scaffold support which is about 8 feet away. Then I slide it another 8 feet and it reaches the third support.

When that is in place, I use it to slide the shorter 2x4 on top of it, and when the far end is over the far support I roll it off so it is directly on both supports. I use these two 2x4s to slide and place the 2x8 planks, or the long 4x4s that I use to form or support the decks between the supports.

It was somewhat of a chore getting the parts for the first span up and in place. First I made four bridles of light rope and tied one around each of the four 10-foot 4x4s which I had propped up at the base of the scaffold tower. Then from up on the platform at the top, I lowered a heavy rope with a rebar hook at the end of it. One at a time, I maneuvered the rope so that the hook engaged a loop in one of the bridles, and then I lifted the 4x4 up the 20 feet to the top of the scaffold tower where I retrieved it and placed it in the span.

I successfully did three 4x4s this way, but I knocked the bridle off the last one so I had to climb back down the scaffold tower to get it. While I was down there, I also prepared the sheets of plywood and OSB by tying rope bridles to them through holes I had drilled in them. Then back up on the high scaffold, I successfully hooked each part and pulled it up and placed it in the new scaffold span. The sheet of OSB was the last and most difficult. Not only was it heavy, but it was very awkward to manipulate between the braces on the steel scaffold, the diagonal rebar S-hook on the new scaffold, and the log ends sticking out of the cabin wall. But by taking it slowly, paying attention at all times to where the center of gravity of that sheet was, I got it slid over and in its place on the scaffold deck.

The pair of Canadian jays visited me quite often on the high scaffold platform. The more timid of the two finally got up the nerve to take peanuts from my hand, and after a little practice, was as bold as the other bird and no longer hesitated. It's great to be working outside and have this companionship again.

I was pleased with this first scaffold section, although I still needed to secure it. Sitting on the edge of it, my feet reached down to the 2x4 deck on the old hanging scaffold span between Grid A2 and A2.5. After mulling it over for a while, I decided to use those same 2x4s for the new deck simply by picking them up off the old deck. But at the moment, I felt too tired and shaky to do any more work up on the high scaffolds. My body gave me the distinct message that that would be dangerous so I climbed down off the tower and took a break.

Rather than go back on the scaffolds, I went to work and moved a bunch more plywood and OSB sheets from the high rock where they were stored after removal from the Grid 1 scaffold, to the back porch where they can be lifted up for use on the new scaffold. To move them, I rolled them along the cliff by setting a corner somewhere in a rock ledge, rolling the sheet forward so that the next corner rested on another ledge, and continuing in this way all the way to the back porch. When I built the cabin structure, I had walked along this cliff hundreds, probably thousands, of times, so I was very familiar with every foothold in the ledges. It was like old times. Once all the sheets were on the back porch, I drilled holes in those that didn't already have them so that I could attach the rope bridles to them.

Then winding down, and tackling an even less demanding job, I painted swatches of white paint on the ends of a bunch of storage bins for my storage cabinet. I had made several new bins out of sheet aluminum and there were several original bins that didn't have labels because the label brackets had been broken off of them. My plan was to write the bin numbers on these swatches with a sharpie after the paint was dry.

Finally I went in for my shower in time to be ready to listen to the first presidential debate on the radio. I built a crackling cozy fire in the stove which I watched while I listened to the debate. I don't have TV up there but I suspect those flames were as pleasant to watch as the debate.

On Thursday morning it was 26º outside. After breakfast I went down to the crawl space and plugged the vent openings with blocks of Styrofoam. I don't want any of my plumbing freezing down there.

Then I put on my respirator mask and went outside and completely cleaned out the drainage channel behind the cabin. It was the perfect time to do it because with the long dry spell we have had, all the debris was dust dry. It was easy to sweep up.

When I had cleaned out the mouse mess in the rafters above that gable wall, I tried to catch all the debris in garbage bags. I did that fairly well, but there was still a bunch of mouse poop and seed husks that fell into the drainage channel. It was important to get that cleaned out as well as the leaves and other debris that had collected over the summer.

The cleaning operation meant that I did a lot more walking on those granite cliff ledges with which I had gotten so familiar. When the cleaning job was done, the next thing I wanted to do before I left for home was to test the plumbing I had installed to route the water from the Grid D1 to E1 section of the channel around the building and down to Rosy, the rosebush, at Grid F3.

I set up an empty 5-gallon bucket under the end of the pipe sticking out near Rosy, and then filled a second bucket with 5 gallons of water. I carried the water around and set it on the end of the porch bench and climbed up on a ledge in the cliff at Grid E1. Standing there, I lifted the bucket of water and maneuvered it around the projecting wall log ends so that it was over the drainage channel.

Rather than pour the water from such a height, I wanted to go lower so that I wouldn't splash water against the sides of the cliff. The plan was to measure how much of these 5 gallons would end up in Rosy's bucket so I wanted all the water to start in the bottom of the channel.

When I tried to move forward, I found that I was stuck between the rock cliff and a wall log. I knew that my body had fit between there many times before, but now it dimly dawned on me that I didn't fit because I had a cream cheese container with peanuts in my left pants pocket, and that bulge was enough to hold me back.

I forced myself through anyway and in a very short split second, I found myself pitching forward headlong toward the bottom of that drainage channel some 7 or 8 feet below me. My feet stayed pretty much where they were, but my head was going straight down toward the rocks and concrete.

My fall was broken, or at least slowed by my hands, elbows, knees and right arm banging into a succession of ledges in the rock and by the bucket which was directly under my torso. The water splashed up and drenched me and I finally came to a stop when my forehead smashed into the concrete floor at the bottom of the channel.

Thankfully the blow to my head was not very hard so I knew that that part was not serious. I was also pretty sure that nothing had been broken, but when I stood up and checked myself, I saw that my right ring finger had been dislocated and was now sticking out at about 80º toward my little finger. Having had nearly this same experience once before on a Boy Scout hike, I instantly knew what to do. I grabbed that finger with my left hand and pulled it straight. It worked fine after that and I could tell that nothing was broken.

Feeling very stupid and shaken, I went in, cleaned my wounds, put a band-aid on one bleeding cut on my arm, took my wet shirt off and sat in the sun drying my pants legs while I ate my lunch. I reminisced about the scout hike where I had fallen in nearly the same way. Instead of a bucket of water though, I had fallen into a mountain stream. Instead of a granite cliff and a concrete channel, I had fallen among big boulders in the creek bed. Instead of having a bucket of water pulling me off balance, I had a heavy pack. Instead of dislocating my right ring finger, I had dislocated my left little finger. Instead of 80º that one had stuck out 90º. Instead of knowing what to do, I had had to rely on a handy nurse who had watched me fall to instruct me how to straighten the bent finger. Instead of my head hitting concrete, my head came to a stop with my forehead about an inch from a big boulder. Otherwise, the two experiences were about the same.

After my lunch, and my assessment that I was OK to drive home, I packed up and left at 12:50, very happy to be alive and ambulatory and also pleased with my progress on the scaffolding.