7/18-20/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

I arrived at 11:55. It evidently had been raining earlier so things were a little damp, but the weather was clear and cool. After moving my gear in, I checked on Paul and found that the ground was plenty damp so I didn't turn on the irrigation valve.

After having my lunch and a nap, it started raining again. Fortunately, the eaves cover the staircase I am working on, so I ignored the rain and went to work. I built the structure for mounting the next tread in the scribing position, and after leveling the tread, I scribed it.

When I finished, I noticed that I had not mounted the tread quite right. I had forgotten to make the final adjustments to get the nose right up to the plumb bobs. It was back too far by a quarter or half of an inch. I re-aligned the tread, re-scribed the front of the marks and decided that I didn't need to re-do the entire thing. I took the gamble that it could be made to fit without too much problem.

The rain stopped about that time so I decided to see if there were some new ripe berries on the bushes. I got a big container and went down to the berry patch. I was amazed at how many there were. I filled the container in no time.

On Tuesday, right after breakfast, I went back down to the berry patch and started picking. I figured that if I didn't pick the berries now, they would go to waste. I could always get back to my staircase building. I spent all morning picking and filled three more big containers.

After lunch there was still some shade over the staircase so I cut the kerfs in the tread and stringers. I used the new reciprocating saw, the Skilsaw, and the vibrating saw and got the job done pretty quickly. Then I went in for a nap.

When I got up, I used the bulldog to cut all four notches. Then I tried the tread for fit. I was pleased that on that first try, it fit pretty well. It didn't need much more work. My earlier gamble had paid off.

During my nap, I had heard some distant thunder, and now I could see dark clouds approaching from the direction of the lake. There were occasional and increasingly loud booms of thunder and I thought I was in for a real storm.

I quit working on the staircase, got my camera out, and sat in Dave's Adirondack chair relaxing and waiting for the show. As it turned out, the clouds stalled, then receded, the sun came back out and nothing happened. I enjoyed my break anyway.

Next I went down to the truck to unload a huge load of branches I had brought with me from pruning a big apple tree in Seattle. I backed the truck up to the compost pile and found it easiest to unload the branches by hand a few at a time.

When the truck was unloaded and swept out, I got the weed whacker out and started cutting weeds. There were a lot of fairly tall weeds among the ferns and other weeds so I just kept whacking all the way to the driveway entrance. As I whacked them I was amazed at how many berry bushes there are. Having the big trees taken out gives the bushes and weeds more sunlight so they are really growing. Next year I plan to start controlling the weeds earlier and I should have a berry patch ten times as big as the one I picked this year. I'll have to get Ellen up there to pick all the berries.

On Wednesday morning I got the tread to fit perfectly. Then I drilled the lag screw holes, and sprayed the Board Defense on the tread and stringers. I finished at 10:00.

I figured that in an hour the wood would be dry enough to stain so I took a break for an hour and worked on the 5,000-piece jigsaw puzzle I am working on.

At 11:00 I went back outside, stained the stringers and tread bottom, lag screwed the tread in place, stained the top of the tread, and cleaned out my brush. Then I had my lunch and left for home at 12:50. It was a good week.