Heading back to the Bolt Hole in the morning

The travel trailer is all hooked up and ready to go get inspected in the morning. Should be no problem at all passing. All the lights work and the tires have plenty of tread on them. As soon as the guy is finished, I'll be hauling it back to the Bolt Hole to put in the barn until next summer.

Terry and I took the opportunity to clean out all the mouse mess inside and wash the utensils that got peed and pooped on. They all got packed away in zipped plastic bags to protect them against future invasions. We had absolutely nothing that could be eaten by mice in there so it's a bit of a surprise they even bothered.

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Speaking of tires...When I got the Tundra inspected I was told the tread on its tires were just barely above the legal limit and that I should consider getting some new ones. I stopped today at our local mechanic's and put a set of Cooper tires on order. They'll have them waiting for me on September 21 when I return from up north. I was thinking of waiting until spring but with the steepness of our road and the prospect of snow this winter, it's probably best to get them now. The original Goodyear tires on the truck have over 30K miles on them so I'm not too surprised that new ones are needed. The Cooper's have a 40K tread warranty on them so I should be ready for the next couple of years.

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As for the Bolt Hole....Mark called last night to give me a progress report. He and Jim have been rebuilding the "foundation" wall to enclose and support the porch. They've also put in posts to attach the ledger board on since the sill just wouldn't hold the lag screws when they tried to bolt it on. Whatever they've been doing, they've used a lot of cement and mortar. Last count was 27 bags! (He said he might be able to send me some pictures later tonight. If I get them I'll see if any are worth posting.)

They erected some sort of support under te living room wood burner and found that the log floor joists that looked to be pretty punky actually weren't that bad. Only the outer layer was soft which left a fairly solid core 4-5 inches in diameter.

They also hauled an old refrigerator, a gas stove, and an ancient Sub Zero freezer out of the attached woodshed and put them in the barn until we can haul them to the recycling center/dump. Doesn't sound like much except each piece was too big to go out the woodshed's exterior door and had to go through the kitchen and out the front door. Jim said he might be interested in the old gas stove for use in an outdoor picnic area at his place. I told him to go for it!

I've no idea what I will find when I get there tomorrow afternoon. But I know I'll be the one to rebuild the porch now that all the prep work is nearing completion. Having rebuilt the screened porch on my own a few years ago, this should be nearly a duplicate. Unless I change my mind as to how I want to lay out the joists, I should have all the materials I need on site.

Mark also had bad things to say about our repair to the north sill. Seems the piers we put in sank in the earth a bit. We may have to dig deeper to reach more solid earth at basement floor level and build a sturdier pier support or even put in a footer and a block wall. If we can, I'd like to stick with the piers until 2011 when we can tear down the woodshed and do the block wall before rebuilding the woodshed. Hauling block into the basement via the stairs would be a PITA job.

Oh, and those basement stairs need to be rebuilt too.

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Sounds like I'll be busy for the next week. With luck, Mark will have gotten a full time job and I'll be on my own. (He's a heck of a slave driver! ... Just kidding, Mark.)

I plan to be there until the 19th or 20th before returning to the Aerie.