Construction Journal Entry Week of 9/6/15

9/8-10/15 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped in and barely beat Uncle Charles in a game of checkers. I arrived at Camp Serendipity at 12:15. It was a cool, still, bright, and beautiful day. After moving my stuff in and having lunch, I had just lain down for a nap when Earl knocked on the door. We went on a grand tour of the place and had a nice conversation.

I showed him the log that was part of the tree that had crashed through the cabin roof and told him of my plans to harvest it. I had planned to pull it down in the direction of the porch and he suggested that it would be better to pull it in the other direction toward the privy.

After looking the situation over and considering all the plusses and minuses, I had to agree that he was right. I thanked him for the advice. Earl has a friend named Clayton who is interested in finding some dead Doug Fir logs. Earl asked me if I would be willing to give Clayton permission to take that log. I told him I would have to check with Robert since he is still engaged in logging the property.

Earl and I went into the woods and inspected most of the giant sequoia trees. Then we went up to the spring, and then down to the site of the last of the water line plumbing activity. I was impressed at how he is still able to climb around in the woods. Even though he is a little unsteady, he has pretty good control of his Parkinson's.

On Wednesday morning I called Robert and told him about Clayton's desire to harvest the log. He told me that he wanted to do it but that if Clayton wanted to buy the log after it was taken out, he could. He also told me that he planned to come to Camp Serendipity this week.

After breakfast, I brought a bunch of tools up on the high rock and began working on pulling the big log out. It was hanging down over the edge of the cliff with the top sticking up nearly to the cabin roof. Thinking that if I offloaded some of the weight from the butt end, the center of gravity might move up high enough so that the log would begin to tip down a little.

To make sure it didn't slip back down over the cliff, I rigged up a come-along chained to the butt end of the log and anchored to a big stump at the top of the cliff. Then I used a spud to remove as much bark as I could reach from the butt end of the log that was hanging over the cliff.

I didn't realize how big that log was. I measured it later and found that it is 51 feet long and 16 inches in diameter at the butt end. Removing the bark didn't do a thing. The log was effectively unmovable.

Next, I used a big crosscut saw and sawed off all the limbs I could reach on the butt end of the log. They were what prevented the log from moving. After they were all removed, I could move the log with the come-along, but only to roll it slightly. I couldn't pull it up the hill much at all.

Then I got a long 1/4" cable and choked it near the top of the log. Next, I took the cable into the tangle of down trees, contorted maple trunks, and smaller new and old brush. It is almost impossible to walk through there toward the privy. So I went in as far as I could and threw the cable in as far as I could.

Then, going in from the privy side, I was able to grab the cable and pull it the rest of the way out. It reached just about 8 feet short of the woodshed, but at least I could get ahold of it. I anchored a come-along with a chain around the big firewood log Robert had felled for me on the other side of the privy, and then fastened the hook end to the cable coming out of the woods using another long chain. Using the two connected chains, I took as much slack out of the rigging as I could by hand. Then I started cranking on the come-along to pull the top of the log toward the privy.

When the rigging was fairly tight. I went back up on the high rock to see what was happening. The top of the log had moved, but the center of it needed to slide up on top of the trunk of a tall tree that had been knocked over when the tree fell and hit my roof. I attached a third come-along between the base of the big log and fairly high on the skinny trunk which the log needed to slide over.

I could alternately gain about 5 clicks on each of the come-alongs up on the high rock which caused the log to begin sliding up the trunk of the other tree and the butt to inch its way up toward the cliff edge. The butt also began moving toward a rock outcropping on the cliff edge about 4 or 5 feet away.

When the tension on the two come-alongs got pretty high, I went back down to the front porch, down the stairs, up the upper roadway to the privy and the come-along up there. After taking what slack out that I could by hand, I cranked on that come-along until the tension was pretty high again.

Then back down the roadway to the porch and up onto the high rock again to advance the come-alongs up there again. Back and forth I went. I did not count the number of trips I made but it was a lot.

After lunch, when I resumed the work, I called Byron to see whether he could come over. I figured I could save a lot of time if he would work the come-along at the privy and I could stay on the high rock and work those come-alongs. He showed up right away and we did exactly that.

We moved the log far enough so that the butt was wedged up against the rock cliff and the log had skidded up the smaller trunk to where they were almost parallel. By that time I was exhausted and called it quits for the day.

On the way out, I walked with Byron and told him a few stories about the cabin, in particular about how Ellen had helped me carry all thirty-one 40-foot steel roof panels from down in the parking area all the way up onto the roof in one afternoon. Byron took a picture of the cabin after that story.

I tried calling Earl several times in the evening but his line was always busy.

On Thursday morning, I called Earl and gave him my OK to have him and Clayton visit Camp Serendipity when I am not there so that they could get an idea of how difficult it would be to get that log out.

Just a minute or two after we hung up, Robert called. We discussed Clayton's desire to harvest the log. He told me that it would be best to have him (Robert) take the log out and Clayton could buy it after that if he wanted it. He also told me that he planned to be over this morning.

I had my breakfast, got on my work clothes, and had just gone outside when Robert drove up. I presented him with a jar of wild blackberry jam Ellen had made.

We went up to look at the log and my progress in moving it. He told me that he and his new helper, Rob, would finish the job. That was a relief because moving it any farther than it already was would be very dangerous and require greater skill than I have.

We had a nice visit before he left at about 9:30.

Except for the come-alongs and chains still attached to the butt of the log, I picked up and put away all the other tools I had gotten out for the log-moving project. I also left the 1/4" cable attached and strung through the bushes. Then I took a spade down to the creek and resumed backfilling the water line trench. I made pretty good progress and almost finished the third spoil pile of dirt on the left side of the trench. It was great fun and the working conditions were perfect.

Next week I will either continue backfilling or begin working on cleaning out the crawlspace, or a little of both, depending on the weather and my mood. I left for home at 1:15 feeling very good about the progress.



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