1/8-10/13 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

On the way, I stopped and visited with Uncle Charles and then proceeded over the pass. There was snow and ice on the road so the going was slow. I followed a snowplow for quite a ways and I stayed in 4wd all the way from Skykomish.

Just before I got to Camp Serendipity, I saw a tractor coming down the road toward me so I stopped and it was Mike. He had just come from scooping out my driveway so my timing was perfect. I talked to him about the down trees and I told him that I had bucked the big log into a couple of 10-foot pieces. He said he might be able to move them but it would be better if I could cut them in half. We agreed that if I could cut them I would, and if not, he would try to move the big pieces, but in any case if it wasn't easy to clear the trees away, we would just leave them until spring. In any case he would always keep enough space clear for me to park my truck. That took quite a bit of pressure off of me. I didn't want to waste a lot of time this winter clearing up that mess.

After I parked, I made a walkable trail from the truck to the concrete staircase. Then I shoveled about a foot of snow off of the staircase and then carried my gear up to the cabin. From there, I went down to turn on the water, but I made the mistake of postholing rather than using the snowshoes, which were down in the truck. It would have saved time to go get the snowshoes and then go turn on the water, but you win a few and you lose a few.

Next I had my lunch and built a fire in the wood stove. From the window I could see that there was an extremely heavy snow load on top of the privy roof and also on top of the concrete mixer. I went down to the truck and got my snowshoes and made a trail to the mixer and the privy. Then I got a ladder and my scoop shovel and shoveled off the mixer and the privy. There was 3 or 4 feet of heavy, icy snow on both of them, so it was a fairly strenuous job to shovel them off. I went in for the night feeling that I had done enough work for the day.

During the night I felt like I was coming down with a cold. I took a couple doses of Zicam.

On Wednesday morning, I had the start of a sore throat so I took some more Zicam. After breakfast, I went out and shoveled off the back stoop and the back steps. Then I got the chainsaw, the gas, and the bar oil out and went out to gas the saw up. About that time it started raining and I changed my plans. I didn't want to be bucking up logs in the rain so I put the saw and gas back.

I decided instead to finally get back to work on my scaffolding. The deck of the 2-tier tower had accumulated a huge pile of snow on it so I set a ladder up against the tower and from that I cleared quite a bit of snow off of the planks. Then I climbed up onto the tower deck and cleared the rest of the snow off. I wanted those planks to begin drying off.

Next I climbed up on the 3-tier tower and began the process of decking over the second span of the hanging scaffold. I started with a 16-foot 2x4 which I pulled up with a rope and then stretched across the 4x4 supports while standing on the deck of the first span. Then I slid a shorter 2x4 across the long one so that it was also supported by the two 4x4s. And then I did the same thing with a 2x10. Both the 2x10 and the 2x4 had been on the deck of the 3-tier tower and it was a little awkward figuring out how to get them up on the hanging scaffold deck, but I figured out a pretty good way that I will use for the rest of the planks.

I counted the planks that I have available for decking the two middle spans. I have six, so that makes three for each span which will work very nicely. The fourth span will use the new 10-foot 4x4s that I brought up last week so I have all the pieces I need to span the complete scaffold.

By the time I stopped for lunch, the sun had come out and it had stopped raining. The planks I had cleared were drying nicely in the sun. I got a load of firewood laid in the wood stove but I didn't light it, and then I had my lunch. After lunch, I took some more Zicam and took a nap.

After I got up, I moved the six planks and the 4 4x4s over to the second level of the 3-tier tower. That will stage them for getting them up on the hanging scaffold deck when I am ready for them.

Since it was still sunny, I gassed up the saw and went down to buck logs. I started with two 10-inch or so logs that were at the entrance of the driveway and were in the way of making the parking place wider. I bucked 4 or 5 feet of those up to where they came out of a big snowbank. That will significantly help widen the driveway parking space.

I cut a few other small trees and branches to clear what I could reach easily, but I decided against trying to cut the big log again. It was buried under a lot of new snow and I just didn't feel like working that hard. Instead I quit early, lit the fire in the wood stove, took a shower, and spent some time making a video in the loft.

On Thursday morning, it felt like my cold had settled deep in my chest and I decided not to work outside at all. I did a little more work on my video and then left for home at 11:00. I didn't get a lot accomplished this week, but at least I am back to work on the scaffolding.