Good Morning All. Clear and 45° on the plains of North Central Texas. Should be enjoying 80° later today. Won't dip back into the 40's until next Friday if the weather geeks are correct.
No issues yesterday with the weekly grocery trek, I managed without my wife's assistance. Once again, I noted slowly rising prices or shrinking of container sizes on many things that I purchase. I'd rather pay the rising prices because the shrinking container sizes screws with some recipes that I've followed for years. Gasoline around the area seems to have stabilized this week at $3.35/gal at most all places. The President says that there is no inflation(???), but prices are still higher than 3.5 years ago and I don't foresee them coming down any time ever.
My good news is that even though the overall Stock Market didn't recover as much yesterday as it lost in the bloodbath Wednesday, my particular blend of ETF's actually more than recovered with a gain of $170. I'll take that any day! Looking back over time, I wish that I was more active in managing my retirement accounts
before retiring! I could have retired much earlier. Futures this morning don't look so hot, but a lot can and does happen before closing.
I'm not sure of today's level of outdoor activity yet, yes parts of the yard need mowing, but much of the ground is still too soft to support the mower without leaving tread marks. Possibly in the area next to my hay field in the higher areas. The south and east are more firm, but I mowed them Sunday and Monday before the rain. After spending the whole day yesterday inside, the granddog has been out all morning since sunup. He hasn't wandered more than 50' from the house in all of the times that I checked on him. So many new to him smells! I'm grilling a steak tonight, so he gets some bonus fat for supper.
I did get back to some project work out in the train shed yesterday. I am continuing my quarterly cleaning on the second quadrant of the lower level. All of the main line and the two passing sidings have been inspected for loose parts, rubbed with the Woodland Scenics Tidy Track cleaner with the non-abrasive pads and I went over it all with the hand-held vacuum yesterday. I'll move cars off the spurs and do the same today on all of them. Probably won't finish that until tomorrow since there are 12 of them in total. I'll be getting off my feet occasionally by preparing and painting more of those "forgotten" detail parts over on the workbench. Got to get them out of the way before I start bringing structures over for cleaning, repairing (if needed) and adding additional details to a few.
I don't have any new pictures to post yet, so how about a repeat of some older ones that some might not have seen yet.
Here's a pair of Dash9-44CW's traversing the upper deck in April 2020.
Tom O - I never have to be concerned about the non-existent snow removal equipment here!
Terry - We're still not seeing many electric automobiles here in Texas. My SIL is beginning to have regrets about getting his. Much of it has to do with him only having a level 1 charger in his garage. Overnight charging only gets him about 35%, making it impractical for every day usage without visiting a charging station occasionally. Since his is not a Tesla, there aren't many options nearby. Purchasing an adapter or upgrading to a level 2 is not on his mind since it's just a three year lease.
Mac - Those stop signs on the rail spurs are priceless!
Today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day, so enjoy.
Everyone have a fabulous Friday.
