5/10-12/16 I went up to Camp Serendipity for 3 days: Tuesday through Thursday.

I arrived at 11:41 and took a picture of the rhubarb plants. After moving my gear into the cabin, I hoisted the flag and then started a small fire in the stove. The temperature inside the cabin was 58° so the fire made it nice and cozy.

After lunch and a nap, I watered the giant sequoia trees Brian and Paul and then did some work on the geometry of making the notches in the tread and stringers. I decided that instead of notching the stringers in a plane parallel to the axis of the stringer, I would slant the plane down toward the back so that the notch in the tread came out exactly the correct tread width from the tread nose. I could easily establish the two points closest to the tread nose on both the stringer and the tread, and it was easy to establish the two back points on the tread, but I couldn't figure out how to establish the two back points on the stringer. I went in for the night without figuring it out.

On Wednesday I started out by making some drawings and figuring out a method for locating the back stringer notch points. The method was to first establish the three points on the tread. Then using a big caliper (the one I call The Weapon, because that's what the kid who sold it to me at a garage sale had called it) I measured the distances between each pair of points. Using those measurements, I drew a triangle on a piece of cardboard with those lengths as sides and cut it out.

I went outside to try out my method. Before I started work I turned on the valve to water Brian and Paul. Then I turned my attention to the tread and stringers.

The long side of the cardboard triangle corresponded to a line on the surface of the tread from the nose to the notch. The point opposite that line corresponded to the arbitrarily chosen point on the lower part of the stringer. By positioning the cardboard triangle against the stringer so that the lower point was right on the arbitrarily chosen point on the stringer, and also so that the top of the triangle was level (using a small bubble level), the back corner of the triangle was located and marked on the stringer.

From that marked point, a straight line was drawn to the arbitrarily chosen point, and a vertical arc was drawn up over the top of the stringer from that point, scribing by sighting across two plumb bobs hanging in the nose position for the next tread up. That provided all the lines I needed for cutting the stringers. I was happy to have figured it out.

To begin cutting the stringer notches, it made sense to cut those big vertical crosscuts first. And the easiest way to do that was to use the chainsaw. So I got the saw out and proceeded to try to start it.

It just wouldn't start, or even kick over at all. I worked on pulling that cord until I over-stressed my already sore right shoulder to the point I had to quit. I tried a couple other saws but with the limited access, nothing worked very well.

I resorted to a circular saw which I realized was pretty dangerous. I was cutting on a slanted round piece of wood so there was nothing to run the saw platform on. That meant that any twist would cause a kickback. So I just kept my body parts out of the way and kept my hand and the saw as steady as I could.

The saw couldn't reach as deep as I needed, but I did cut down quite a ways so that I at least had a start. What I really needed was the reciprocating saw, which I had used for other notches, but all my blades for that saw were so dull that they smoked instead of cut. I had put new blades on my shopping list but I hadn't bought them yet.

By lunchtime, my shoulders and the rest of my body were super stiff and sore. I quit for lunch and did some back and shoulder stretching exercises. After lunch and a nap, I went into the woods and spread 20 gallons of wood chips on the trail between Brian and Andrew.

In the process I saw that Brian was not getting much water from the hose and Paul was getting too much. So I experimented by partly closing the valve to Paul until I got about an equal amount of water flowing to each tree. It took several trips into the woods and to the valve to get it just right.

Also in my travels through the woods, I found a big fairly fresh King Boletus mushroom which I harvested and ate later as part of my dinner. Before I quit for the night, I used the Bosch Bulldog chisel to begin cutting the notches in the stringers and tread.

On Thursday morning, my body didn't feel much like doing any hard work so I took the occasion to finally label and load up four metal storage bins that I had made and that had been lying around for months. I also updated the two copies of the inventory lists that I keep with the new bins and their contents.

Then I went outside, turned on Brian and Paul's valve, and carried another 20 gallons of wood chips into the woods. I spread the chips from Andrew up the hill to the top. Then I carried 5 gallons of water up to Andrew and watered it. It had looked a little dry.

Next, I finally went back to work on the tread and stringers. I tried the fit for the first time and saw where it needed work. After some chiseling, I tried the fit again and it fit a lot better. After a little more chiseling, I quit for the week a little disappointed that I didn't get a complete tread installed this week. I left for home at 1:00 expecting to do better next week.