Good Morning All. 36° and cloudy with light showers in the vicinity. There is .15" in the gauge this morning after .45" yesterday. Of course it rained mainly while I was making the 50 mile round trip for groceries/beer. Went without Internet for a while yesterday due to tree limbs crashing down power lines, don't know the connection but that's what the ISP told my wife. Our DSL is all underground wiring. I did see quite a few downed branches and trees while I was out and of course my yard is a disaster under that one tree. It was interesting being out in the yard yesterday afternoon (but not under any trees), when melting ice cascaded down through the branches gaining volume as it went. The noise was sometimes quite loud. Meanwhile the whole place is mushy as the cold water is rather slow about running off. I checked my pond and it did indeed fill up Wednesday.
Out in the train shed, I only ran trains and filled up the new yard with trains running in and out to test all track possibilities both forward and reverse with various engine sets. All turnouts seem to be working well in both directions so it appears that I can safely install the ground throws next week. Of course I don't have enough, (didn't think that I did anyway), which means it's time to plan another trip to the LHS for goodies. The last time that I went, I had some Evergreen styrene stuff on my list, but I don't remember why I had it there, so it's just resided on a shelf since then! I'll remember some day. Took a small break to assemble a very old (I've had it since the 80's at least) two-bay covered hopper kit from Roundhouse. I had been priming and painting the metal underframe for a few days now to break the monotony of track installation.
Johnny - Lucky you in that Mother Nature has spared you from the brunt of these weather front(s). They seem to be coming in N from the Gulf and swirling about around here and then moving ENE just south of your location. Regarding power outages, there have been two off/on ones here that screw with all of the electronic devices (clocks, desktop etc), but several major ones north of here closer to the Oklahoma side of the county. The city of Gainesville TX where my wife works had some major areas without power. She didn't bother going in to work yesterday since their office didn't have power until after 1500.
Chet -
Toot has been posting around,
Louis is probably resting from work and moving. The cynical fellow that I miss is
Beady. Haven't seen a post from him since Labor Day or so. Despite some of his unorthodox views, I really enjoyed his sense of humor and the interaction with him.
Joe - Yeah! The cleanup is going to have to wait until things dry up for a bit. It will be a little worse once those branches that are caught up in the higher parts of the tree decide to come down, hopefully without my help getting up there. I really need to invest in one of those chainsaws on a pole some day. Nice looking parlor car.
Sherrel -
I am sending buckets! Please fill them and return?
Would you like that shaken or stirred? No fish in the pond, it dries up nearly every year as I only made it 8.5' deep. But I'll start to see various species of birds like egrets, herons, ducks and geese in about two weeks. I can view them from the two windows on the north side of the train shed without disturbing them. There will be a number of turtles as well, I have no clue where they go when it is dry.
Karl - I am not into steam, but that is one fine looking locomotive you scored there.
Curt - No pictures yet, especially after you made fun of the last one.
For a change, the camera was in the house and I didn't get one before I filled it up with freight cars.
Paul - Now's the time to paint that track. I use a rattle can of Model Master's Light Earth for track and ties, then go back and touch up a few random ties with some shades of brown and gray. In the era that I model, ATSF replaced all ties at the same time so there usually wasn't much variance in color. I spray about 2-3 feet at a time and immediately wipe off the rail tops with a paper towel before the paint dries.
Everybody have a great day.
Willie