Good Morning All. Clear and 45° on this fine morning.
I'll begin my day today changing 10 of 11 clocks this morning, only one changes itself. At least all of the electronic stuff like computers and phones change themselves. Ironically the only one that I don't have to change is a cheapo radio/CD player under the overhead kitchen cabinet. Even the iPod out in the train shed knows when to change. I don't care which time we use, I just dislike changing all of the damn clocks!
I hadn't seen my 80 year old neighbor in about a month, except occasionally driving by. So I walked up the road (about 3/10 mile uphill) to visit him yesterday. It turns out that he broke his hip in a fall while bringing groceries up his steps earlier in October. It turned out that a hip replacement would work out better for him than a body cast, since he lives alone up there. He's able to get around OK, albeit slowly, and his son comes by every two days to take care of the goats. His son is going to build a home up there; the slab was poured last spring, but he hasn't bought any lumber yet to proceed. Jimmy and I had a good chuckle as we watched another neighbor and his wife tend to their cattle herd. Against advice offered by both of us, they and his dad purchased 9 cows and a bull. All but one of the cows is a "breeder", essentially too old to slaughter for meat. The advice that we both offered was to point out that in our area, four acres of pasture
plus hay is needed for every cow. They have 17 acres that they can use counting his dad's adjoining property. I have offered to lease them part of my land that isn't ideal for me to grow hay on, if they put up a fence. But that is only an additional five acres.
Thanks for the likes regarding yesterday's progress report on the freight car build;
Christian, Rick, OB Ken, Karl, Hughie, Patrick, Joe, Troy, Tom O, James, Tom.
Sunday Special this morning Flo. Extra bacon with those poached eggs and grits.
Mostly finished up the P2K covered hopper kit yesterday. I installed the Details Associates grab irons on the roofwalk.
Here's that B end shot that I didn't have earlier.
I do still have to paint those grab irons and change the car number as I already have one with this number.
There are about 70 parts to this kit all together. Picking another number will be easy, as ATSF had 1500 of these cars in this order. After changing the number, it will get a coating of dull coat and then some weathering. This represents the original paint scheme from 1966, so it will be heavier weathering.
Mikey - The scenery guy at the club certainly has a good eye for scenery. He did a nice job on both the barrel factory and boat landing.
Curt - No problem with HOA quorums here, as I am the only member!
The neighbors don't even know that it exists.
Terry - Auto Nation is probably a very good thing as far as your benefits are concerned. Mine improved every time our ownership changed as bigger companies became the owners.
Patrick - I have been amazed at the amount of plastic in engine compartments on newer cars. I grew up with cars where the only plastic was the distributor cap, which I can't even find on our Accura RDX.
Hughie - Despite being N scale, you're doing a great job on Jefferies. I could probably actually work on an N scale structure, I just don't want to.
Troy - Best wishes and positive thoughts for your MIL. Regarding the DFW airport, it's much closer to me than
Hughie, but they won't let me in without a ticket to somewhere. Flight pattern from there to Vegas does not pass over my house. Have a safe journey.
Steve J -
Am I the only one who buys hobby stuff for projects that don't get done - - - for a while?
You're not alone. I bought lots of stuff while I was still working and building the train shed, and just stashed it. But that wasn't all, the freight car that I am currently working on was purchased sometime in the late 90's. I still have about two dozen freight cars and another two dozen structures on the shelf. That hasn't stopped me from purchasing additional structures since retiring in 2015 though.
Everybody have a great day. Stay safe.
