Construction Journal Entry Week of 10/2/16

10/4-6/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

The drive over the mountains was beautiful with all the fall color. I arrived at 11:55.

The temperature outside was 50° and it was 59° inside the cabin. I built a fire in the stove and then had my lunch and a nap. After opening the valve to water Paul and Brian, I went into the woods to check on all the sequoia trees. I discovered a big leak in the irrigation hose so I got the duct tape out and patched the leak. The trees all looked OK.

Next I got a couple sanders out and tried them on the newel post. The DeWalt orbital sander worked the best so I used it to sand the entire newel post. I also accidentally sanded a little skin off my left index finger.

When the sanding was done I gave the post a coat of TWP and went in for the night.

On Wednesday morning it was 33° outside but 65° inside. The thermostats inside were still all set to 55°. I started another fire in the stove before breakfast which warmed the place right up.

After breakfast I got a call from Dave who told me that he was in St. Louis heading for Florida with a truck full of his tools and other belongings. He was a little uncertain about his plans for driving into Florida in the face of Hurricane Matthew which was about to hit the coastline. I wished him luck and told him to stay safe. Fortunately, the hurricane mostly missed Miami.

Since I have hernia surgery scheduled for the next week, I figured I had better split a bunch of firewood for use later during my recovery. I probably won't feel like splitting wood for a couple weeks after the surgery.

I split all of the wood that was infested with ants so that I could burn that first. That made the splitting pretty easy. I also split up a couple big rounds of sound wood.

Next, I mounted the newly stained newel post into its mortise hole and drilled the holes for a 1/2 x 10-inch lag screw to fasten the post tenon to the joist. Then I went in for lunch and a nap.

I got a phone call from the hospital with last minute instructions for the hernia surgery for Friday. I also got a call from Earl who asked me if I might be available to help him with his emergency surgery at about the same time. He said that his cornea transplant was failing and he had to go to Seattle to get it fixed. Of course I felt bad that I couldn't help him but he said he would find someone else.

Next I went back out to the front porch and turned the big lag screw into the newel post. It was awkward and took a long time. I had drilled a half-inch hole through the newel post, but I drilled a 3/8-inch hole into the joist. That meant that the threads on the lag screw had to bite pretty deeply into the wood making it extra hard to turn the wrench.

In addition, the clearance between the porch deck and the staircase step allowed only one click of the ratchet handle per stroke. That meant 24 strokes of the handle just to turn the lag screw one turn.

It took so much pressure to turn the wrench handle that it was clear that I would hurt my hand if I didn't do something else. So I extended the wrench handle with a length of 3/4-inch EMT as a cheater. Then I proceeded to turn the screw all the way in, one click at a time. It took quite a while and I was glad to finally draw it up tight. Then I took some pictures of the completed post.

While I was working, the fire in the stove heated the place up enough to kick on the ceiling ventilation fan. Since the ventilation system was still in summer mode, that meant that the warm air was being vented outside. I went into the crawlspace and switched the vent valve to winter mode so that the warm air would be vented into the bedroom instead.

On Thursday morning, my groin felt sore, probably from the work I had done the day before. It probably wasn't too good for my hernia. I built a fire in the stove, had breakfast, and just relaxed working on the jigsaw puzzle until it was time to go home. I had gotten another call from the hospital with last minute instructions. They needed an EKG and in order to schedule it, I had to leave Camp Serendipity at 11:30 in order to get to the clinic by 2:00, which I did.



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