Good Morning All. Clear and 40°, heading for 63° just like yesterday. Still have rain in tomorrow's forecast.
Another outdoor activity day today. I need to stack all of the firewood that I cut yesterday and probably cut some more. I haven't really made much of a dent in the pile of trees, but I now have a bit over a two week supply cut, half of it already stacked. I'm not moving as fast as I did 10 years ago though.
After further review, the garden just isn't dry enough to operate the tiller in yet. If I try it today, the soil would just clod up instead of forming a smooth seedbed like I want. It is perfect for digging by hand with a spading fork though, but I am past those days when it was practical. I don't need any additional aches! So I will instead run the push mower over parts of the leaf covered yard and shred and collect more leaves with the grass catcher.
Out in the train shed yesterday, I started another upgrade/finishing project. I have this kit from Smalltown USA of studio apartments.
I originally kitbashed it for my old layout as a background structure. It is primarily constructed with various styrene strips and sheets that had to be pieced together to make the walls. I have been filling a space on the current layout with it and I decided that it's time to complete it.
Yesterday I spray-painted the whole thing with white primer, as my experience is that unpainted white styrene eventually yellows with age even under artificial lighting. Not shown here is that I also painted the roof black. The next phase is to add the clear styrene glazing which I never did. Then I will hand paint the walls between the windows a color that I haven't decided on yet. I like the teal coloring shown in Smalltown's photo, but I don't think that I have a match for it in the paint department. After that, the hard part of finding interiors or appropriate curtains for all 12 of those window groups.
When completed along with ground scenery, it will occupy a space in "tenement row" next to another already completed structure.
This last photo was taken before I added several feet of fencing along the RR ROW.
Louis -
Are the flakes better than the powders?
I can't say for sure, it's just what I used. Normally for most recipes, I use fresh garlic, but for rubs the dried stuff works better, whether it's powder of flakes. I truly believe in eating garlic every day. I don't know if it is that or the beer, but I never get bitten by mosquitos, whereas my wife gets bitten any time that she goes outside without using "OFF".
The only time that I use the frying pan for pork chops is when I am using a recipe that calls for gravy. I grill outdoors with real charcoal 12 months a year.
Troy - Nice haul of RR stuff. You didn't specify what kind of quintet you were going to listen to. Not all music from a quintet is boring, depending on the instrumentation. String quintets can be really good if they are playing upbeat music instead of somber church stuff. I have also heard Dixieland horn quintets that are also really good.
Curt - Sorry to read about the cooler temperatures in your neighborhood. There is a much wider range here, it can be as cold as 0° or as hot as 113°. I have experienced both many times, although not in the same season. Historically the average is six days a year that the temperature doesn't get above freezing, last year it was 2. I lost count during the "Deep Freeze" of 2021. And of course this past summer of '23, we had many days above 110°, 16 I think.
Everybody have a wonderful Wednesday.
There is no real competition here at the moment, or until Verizon either wires in FIOS into the neighborhood, or upgrades our 5G service. So...
