10/18/94 The Chelan-Douglas County Health Department issued us a permit for an on-site sewage disposal system.

10/26-28/94 I went up to the property for three days: Wednesday through Friday. I brought a carbon-monoxide detector with me and was pleased that it never did go off in the trailer. The device is not supposed to get too cold, so I plan to take it with me when I go back and forth to the property.

It rained pretty hard all day Wednesday. The rain guage had three and a half inches of water in it when I got there. I emptied it and it rained another 1.4 inches by Thursday morning. I unloaded and stacked a load of old fence boards I had brought from Seattle.

On Thursday, it rained lightly most of the day and by Friday morning there was another .6 inches in the guage. I spent the day, and part of Friday, excavating some more of the foundation trench and building up the upper roadway.

The propane tanks were nearly empty so I took them home to fill them.

11/10-12/94 I went up to the property for three days: Thursday through Saturday. There had been a couple feet of heavy wet snow the week before and there was still 10 to 12 inches on the ground. I had to put chains on the pickup to get up my driveway to the trailer.

I spent Thursday afternoon clearing trees and branches from the trail going up to the spring and also from off the water hose. I had planned to take up the hose just before the first snowfall, but I was too late. I went over to talk to Mike and Shirley Tutino and also met Mike McComas while I was there. Mike and Shirley told me that during the heavy snowfall they could hear loud continual snapping and cracking coming from the woods as trees and branches were being broken by the snow.

That night, I heard gnawing sounds again, but this time they sounded like they were coming from outside the trailer up in the snow shelter. I thought that if I quietly opened the ceiling vent all the way and shined a flashlight up there I might be able to see who was gnawing. I did, and it worked. I don't know exactly what it was but it looked about the size of a gray city squirrel. The face was a little broader and looked sort of like a possum face. The tail was six or eight inches long but only about an inch or inch and a half wide - not fluffy like a squirrel. He didn't seem to mind the light and just kept on grawing, scratching fleas and climbing around at the very peak of the shelter for two or three minutes. Then he climbed out where I couldn't see him any more. I didn't think squirrels were nocturnal so I don't know what this guy was.

On Friday, I unloaded and stacked some more old fence boards that I had brought up. I cleared a lot more fallen trees and branches from the trails, and I coiled up the water hose and stored it under the trailer. I also spent a lot of time sawing on the saw log.

On Saturday I spent most of the morning sawing on the saw log mixed in with cleaning up the trailer and getting ready to go home. On the way home, I stopped in and visited with Bob and Marilyn in their new home in Skykomish.

11/16-18/94 I went up to the property for three days: Wednesday through Friday.

After seeing so many trees and branches down from the snow last week, I got to thinking about how to deal with the firewood situation. Since we plan to use a wood stove in the cabin, all this wood is potential fuel and it would be good to start storing it properly. In addition, the harvesting of logs will produce a lot of additional firewood. After thinking about it, it occurred to me that the old tree house would make an ideal woodshed.

I had taken it apart piece by piece and all the pieces were already up at the property. All it would take would be to build some kind of foundation and then nail the pieces back together. I had already chosen a site that is near the building site but out of the way of where I will be handling logs or of other construction activities.

I spent Wednesday afternoon retrieving all the treehouse parts from the various board piles, carrying them up to the woodshed site, and then clearing the site.2w (Felix just typed the '2w' for me). On Thursday, I built the foundation, using rocks and a couple cedar logs, and I nailed down the floor joists. On Friday I got all the big rafters up. I think in one more day I can finish putting on the roof and I will be done.

I also unloaded and stacked a load of fence boards on this trip. When I left, the propane tanks were just under half full.

11/21-23/94 I went up to the property for 3 days: Monday through Wednesday.

There was about a foot of snow on the ground, but with a little shoveling, I was able to get the pickup parked up at the trailer without putting on the chains.

On Monday, I put up the rest of the rafters on the woodshed and tacked the roof panels up in case it snowed at night. It didn't.

On Tuesday I dismantled the porch on the trailer snowshed to retrieve a roof panel I needed for the woodshed. I then nailed the bird blocks in place. I almost decided not to put them in but they do help keep the roof panels from sagging and also since they are painted, the building shows more of the original paint job. Next I nailed on all the roof panels which took most of the rest of the day. When it started getting dark, I hurried down to the trailer, got a flashlight, scrounged some boards, designed a new snowshed porch and built it in the dark. It didn't come out exactly straight, but I was sort of proud of it anyway - doing it in the dark in 10 degree temperature. I wanted to get it on because snow was forcast for that night.

On Wednesday morning there was about four new inches of snow on the ground - and of course also on top of my new porch roof. I spent the morning putting a floor on the woodshed using fence boards. Then I unloaded the pickup load of fence boards and stacked them.

I had left the heater in the trailer on day and night on this trip because it was so cold out, so when I got ready to leave, the propane tanks were empty. I took them home to refill them.

On this trip, I began to have second thoughts about using trees from our property to build the cabin. I just don't like the idea of destroying them and the habitat they provide. Even though the cost of logs has been skyrocketing lately, once the money has been spent, after a few years we won't miss it. But if we cut down all those trees, I think we would miss them for many years to come. Also Ellen doesn't like the danger involved in me harvesting our own trees. I guess this means I will have to start doing some serious log shopping.

11/28-12/1/94 I went up to the property for four days: Monday through Thursday. I had to put chains on to get up to Stevens Pass and I left them on all the way to the property. I shoveled the center of the entire driveway up to the trailer so I wouldn't high center, and then I was able to get the pickup up to the trailer. After I unloaded the propane tanks, fence boards, suitcase and gear, and the battery, I parked the pickup back down at the end of the driveway so I wouldn't get stuck if it snowed a lot more.

There was snow and ice frozen into the hinge on the awning of the trailer and I had to get a bucket of water out of the creek and use it to melt the ice before I was able to raise the awning. I had to do this the week before and I could see that if I kept doing that, it would damage the hinge. I decided to build a porch roof on the snowshed that would cover this awning and also the propane tanks. I spent a couple hours building this on Monday using a full sheet of 5/8ths plywood that had been part of the treehouse floor. I also brought the chainsaw up to a tree that had fallen across the trail and cut a chunk out of the trunk to clear the trail.

It snowed all Monday afternoon and Monday night. On Tuesday morning, there was about 6 inches of new snow on the ground.

I called Mike Tutino and he answered a bunch of questions for me. He said that the composite wood I-beams he used for rafters and joists were either called BCI (for Boise Cascade I-beams), or TJM which are made by Weyerhauser. They are a little different; one is made of glued chips and the other uses plywood laminate. He said I can get the specs for the beams either from the manufacturer or maybe from a lumberyard.

He said Marson and Marson in Leavenworth is the only building supply in that area. Their prices are a little high, but they are convenient. They will price competitively, however, if you have them bid a large quantity of material. He also bought material from Campbells in Wenatchee, and he said that Lumberman's "on the coast" will deliver to Lake Wenatchee for free if the order exceeds $500 or a small fee if not. The metal roofing is called Delta Rib and is available at Eagle or Home Depot.

He told me that Bruce Williams in the Building Department is helpful to work with. When I told Mike that we had decided to buy logs instead of cutting our own trees, he recommended the Light Logging Co. and said to call either Grant Gibbs, 548-5185, or Nyal Avery, 548-6713. They logged his property and were good to deal with. He also said that Phil and Jeannie who own the property next to them were going to have some trees taken out. He said he would tell them to call me to see if I might want some of the logs. He also said that the price of logs was way down because when the price went up so high, a lot of people cut a lot of trees to cash in and they depressed the market. That was good news to me, especially after just having decided to buy our logs.

I spent the whole day in the trailer working on the building plans and calling on the telephone. I called Marson and Marson and they said they would send specs on BCI and TJM. I called Bruce Williams and he said he would send a kit of instructions and rules for submitting building plans.

The temperature had risen and it rained pretty much all day and all night.

On Wednesday, it was still raining and I stayed in and worked on the plans until the battery went dead at about two o'clock. I took the battery back down to the pickup and let it idle for about a half hour to recharge it while I worked on the plans using the light from the windows. It was pretty dim and I wasn't too productive. I went back to the pickup and drove it back to the trailer. I kept getting stuck and had to do some shoveling to get it up there. Then I left the battery in the pickup and hooked the trailer wires to it and let the pickup idle until about four o'clock. This way I had light to work in again.

On Thursday, it stopped raining and I decided to saw instead of draw. During the times I rested between sawing episodes, I did the chores of getting ready to leave. I didn't quite finish sawing all the way through the log, but I made a lot of progress. The propane tanks were just a little above half when I left, so I didn't take them home. It was pretty snowy going over the pass but I didn't need to put chains on. I stopped in and visited Bob for a little while in Skykomish on the way home.

12/3/94 Received a package of instructions and guidelines from the Chelan County building department. From this, I got a much clearer picture of what I needed to prepare in order to submit an application for a building permit.

12/4/94 Received the specs on BCI and TJM from Marson and Marson.

12/7-9/94 I went up to the property for three days: Wednesday through Friday. It was snowing pretty hard when I went over the pass but I didn't have to put chains on. There was about a foot and a half of new snow on the ground and the deep ruts I had made the week before were frozen solid so I didn't even try to get the pickup up to the trailer. I didn't have much stuff with me so it only took two trips to carry everything to the trailer, including the battery.

It had stopped snowing and was 25 degrees and sunny, so after I got my water from the spring, I did some sawing on the saw log. I think I maybe did too much because my arms started hurting. I decided to skip sawing the next day and let them rest.

I spent most of the three days working on the building plans. I called Bruce Williams and asked him to send me the Washington State Energy Code Compliance forms. He said he didn't send them because they depended on the type of heating system is to be used and he didn't know what we planned. We talked about it a while and he said we couldn't use wood heat exclusively because it wouldn't protect the plumbing. He said that electric baseboard heating is the most common choice, but he recommended a heat pump as the most energy efficient choice.

When I asked about a stone foundation laid in mortar, he said one of them hasn't been built in Chelan County for 50 years. He said I could do it but that it would have to be designed by a professional engineer.

When I asked about laying the foundation directly on the bedrock, he said that that was OK but that it had to be backfilled to at least 18 inches for at least 10 feet out from the building. He said that the frost line in that area is 18 inches.

I spent most of the time designing the foundation and floor system, now that I had the specs on the joists, and also the staircase to the loft. The staircase turned out to be a tougher design problem than I had anticipated because of the requirements on landings, risers, treads, and headroom, and the beams and walls I had to avoid.

The temperature stayed between 25 and 15 degrees, and by the time I left, there was about one foot of new snow on the ground. The propane tanks were empty so I took them home.

12/10/94 Ellen and I discussed the foundation options and we decided to make a standard poured concrete foundation with a rock facing for several reasons: 1) it would eliminate any doubt as to the strength or longevity of the foundation, 2) it would eliminate the need for an engineered design, and 3) it would alleviate my concern that I don't have enough rocks for both the foundation and the masonry stove.

After thinking about it, I decided to build the footing forms myself and have it poured from a concrete truck. Later on we could decide whether to have a contractor build the foundation walls or whether I could do that myself. Still later, I would lay up the rock facing.

In the meantime, I will have to get all those rocks out of the middle of the building site. I think I will use the bigger ones to build up the upper roadway retaining wall so I can backfill the southwest side the required 18 inches, and the smaller rocks I will pile to the west of the building site. It looks like I have my work cut out for this winter.

12/12-13/94 I went up to the property for two days: Monday and Tuesday. There was about 6 inches of new wet snow on the ground since last week making a total of about two to three feet of snow on the ground in most places. I spent most of the day working on the building plans.

Tuesday morning Doyle Burke called in response to my message to him about engineering a rock foundation. He recommended a rock veneer over a poured concrete foundation. He also said it would make sense for me to rent forms and erect them myself. He also said I should be able to get a variance for the 18 inch backfill against the foundation since it will be directly on bedrock, and that the footings don't have to be as wide as those on dirt.

Larry Markegard called me and we had a nice chat. We talked about his health situation, his place in Zeona, building houses out of gumbo adobe, and the possibility of his coming to visit in the Fall.

I walked over to Phil and Jeannie's place to see if they were there and to look at their trees. They weren't there and the trees may be useful to me, depending on which ones they want to cut down. On the way back I talked to Mike Tutino. He convinced me that I should rent forms and build the foundation myself. He told me lots of timesaving tricks in erecting the forms, wiring the rebar, and such. He also told me about a prefabricated roof system that incorporates everything between the roofing material and the ceiling including the rafters. He said his dad has information about it.

Ellen had some trouble with the car so I cut my trip short and went home Tuesday evening.

12/19-21/94 I went up to the property for three days: Monday through Wednesday.

There was a lot of new snow on the ground so it took a long time to dig out a parking place and to break the trails to the trailer, spring, and privy. It snowed 5 more inches on Monday, rained all day Tuesday, and the sun came out on Wednesday. The temperature stayed at about 30 degrees day and night. I worked on the building plans most of the time. I noticed that trees number 31 and 32 are broken off halfway up. I think it happened during the first heavy snow. The propane tanks were about half full when I left.

12/30/94 I built a spreadsheet itemizing all the logs needed to build the cabin. It's filename is LOGREQ (in sequence by use) and LOGREQX (in sequence by size). It shows that we need about 3100 lineal feet of 10 inch diameter logs.

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