Good Morning Everyone. Clear and 76° to start August in North Central Texas. Still have a cool front approaching with a large area of rain also coming from over the Far North Texas Panhandle. Hope that it makes it here before petering out. While it might hit 94° later today, the high is going to hover around the low 90's until next Saturday. We're fortunate here in that we've seen very little smoke and haze from the Left Coast fires. Prayers for anyone out there who might be impacted. Hopefully it will rain here today and put a damper on potential grassfires; conditions are just about right except there is no real wind to speak of.
We had a nice visit from my granddaughter and her parents yesterday, I grilled burgers for all. My daughter made a dessert where she coated bananas in chocolate and put them in the freezer for a while. They were tasty, but not something that I will ever make for us.
Why not have Mel make me a couple of giant breakfast burritos this morning Francine. Spicy salsa and a tall OJ on the side.
Thanks to all who liked the photos yesterday;
Christian, Tom O, Steve J, Karl, Rick, Gary S, Boris, Guy, Garry, Jaz, Chad, Ken, Sherrel.
The only time spent out in the train shed yesterday, was with my granddaughter. I let her run a train on the lower level from staging at one end to staging at the other end. She was excited as usual. She is extremely disappointed that she can't see or run trains on the upper level yet, my boosters are only 5" tall, just enough for me to work on most areas.
I don't remember which pictures that I posted last month, so I'll post some random pictures from over ten years ago. I'll start with a couple from my last layout before I dismantled and moved to the train shed.
Here's one non-railroad one that I took while out for a walk one evening.
That owl was just as surprised as I was to see each other as I rounded a bend. It's standing on a rotted hay bale with a rodent between it's feet, which was left there when it flew away before I could get a second shot.
Here's a shot of the train shed while under construction.
The opening to the left is for the adjacent storage room. Here's an interior view of the train room itself.
Guy - Haven't figured out yet who or what is eating the grasshoppers besides the large yellow/black spiders, but their numbers are going down. For a while I chewed them up with the mower, but I have only mowed once in the last week. By the way, I have counted at least a dozen of those spiders close to the house. They are tidy and don't put their webs in places that I would normally walk; unlike the brownish-yellow ones who string a new web every night after I knock them down in the morning.
1970 Mustang across tracks huh? Sounds like you know it firsthand.
Tom O - That was great that the contractor lent you the magnetic things. We once had an assistant manager who ran one of those things through the plant after work and then reprimanded the departments where he found too many screws on the floor! Eventually he stopped when he realized that employees from one department were taking screws from their work stations and tossing them in other departments! He had come to me with a large handful from one area, and I had to point out that the department that he collected them from didn't use that type of fastener! I also made him sort them out and return them to production and figure out who used what in the plant. We used close to a million screws a week during times of full production. I had to have two primary and one secondary supplier.
Terry - I sure hope that things turn out as you hope that they will with the doggie. One of our previous granddogs went through the same symptoms before....
Hughie - I like the looks of the Old Dominion Broom Co. I have had enough eye exercise assembling them in HO, even with Optivisors. N scale must really be a tough workout.
Ken - Wall is looking good. I use black construction paper behind windows. I don't remember whether I got it at Michael's or Hobby Lobby. Probably available at Wally World too, but I avoid that place at all costs.
Steve (Dakota) - I'm sure that you're glad to have found Little Joe.
Today, August 1st, is Respect for Parents Day. What a shame! When I was growing up, that was every day of your life.
Everyone have a great day.