11/21-23/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

It was 36°, wet, but not raining when I arrived at 12:42. After hoisting the flag and bringing a load of wood inside for a fire, I saw that there was another mouse in the trap behind the stove. The carcass was pretty stiff so I'd say it had been there for a couple days. I dumped the body outside and reset the trap. None of the other traps were disturbed so I don't have any clues about how the critter got inside.

After building a fire, having my lunch and my usual nap, I went outside to split more wood. Just as I peeked out the back door, I saw a grouse on the edge of the cliff below the stairs. She (or he) seemed to be unable to decide whether to freeze or take off or go down over the cliff. So she just took a few tentative steps while I watched her. Eventually she went down over the cliff and I tried not disturb her after that.

I split some firewood and then took the wheelbarrow down to the truck to unload another load of yard waste onto the compost pile.

While I was in the shower later, Paula called asking for help with a math question. I was able to answer her question while standing in the shower with the water turned off.

On Tuesday morning, my groin hurt when I first got up. It seems to get a little better as the day goes on. After breakfast, I split a lot of wood and then had my lunch and a nap.

Since there was snow in the forecast, I wanted to harvest as much firewood from the woods as I could before it snowed too much. I gassed and oiled the chainsaw, sharpened the chain, cleaned the filter, and when I tried to start it up the starter rope would not retract. Like Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something."

I dismantled the starter rope mechanism and tried to figure out the problem. It seemed to me that the rope needed one more turn around the pulley, so I wrapped on an extra turn and put it back together. That worked like a charm and I started the saw right up.

I bucked up the log that I had first intended to use as an upper newel post on the front staircase. Then I took the saw and the wheelbarrow into the woods and bucked up another 10 feet or so of the big Doug fir log. The diameter is up over 16 inches so it was all I could do to get two rounds in the wheelbarrow at a time. I hauled all the rounds to the cabin and stacked them.

On Wednesday morning, I woke up at 3:00 and couldn't go back to sleep. So, I gave up and got up at 5:00 and got a fire going in the wood stove. It had snowed a little overnight so there was a skiff of snow on the ground. The temperature was about 28° and there was a light drizzle when I got up.

I was pretty sore, my groin hurt, and didn't feel much like working so I just relaxed and vacuumed the loft stairs and the first floor. I left for home at 12:30. There is evidently something wrong with my hernia surgery so I have decided to go back to the doctor to get it checked out to see what's wrong.