Running Bear's June 2020 Coffee Shop


Status
Not open for further replies.
Morning all,

Yesterday it was 95* and today it's supposed to be 96* . Tired of the heat already. It does look like I need to fire up the sprinkler system as the heat and fescue really don't get along. On a slightly different topic, Grandpa failed to mention the youngest granddaughter turned 1 yesterday. She had a good day according to her mom.

On the train side: I managed about a half hour last night and completed the connection of the 2nd controller.........And......



























I can run 2 trains on 2 blocks in 2 different directions at 2 different speeds at the same time!!!!!!!! I spent way too much time overthinking this.
 
Good Morning All. 73° and clear. Expecting upper 90's for the next week or so, then maybe mid-90's for a couple of days. No chances of rain in the forecast right now. A week and a half ago, I pumped 1500 gallons of rainwater out of the pool, today I have to add about 750 gallons.:( That on top of irrigating the garden yesterday. Water company is making a profit this week.
Another weekly grocery/beer trek today, should be a short sweet one this week, as the abbreviated visit from the grandsons left us with a bit of an oversupply.
The landscape here changed yesterday. This was the wheat field next door earlier in the day.
06-04-20 008.JPG

06-04-20 009.JPG

Then about 6:00, two 24'combines and an 18-wheeler grain truck showed up.
06-04-20 011.JPG

Took them less than an hour and a half to do 80 acres. Thankfully there was no wind yesterday evening, so there isn't 80 acres of chaff in the pool and on everything else.:) The 18-wheeler made two trips to the mill so the harvest was good.

While I'm on the subject of wheat, how about a whole wheat English Muffin and a big old stack of sausage patties for me this morning Flo.

Thanks for yesterday's reactions and comments; Guy, Jerome, Sherrel, Louis, Chet, Phil, Chad, Karl, Patrick, James, Curt, Bob, Garry.

I finished up ballasting the passing siding for the CUP yesterday. I also started to lay some ground cover along the main line ROW.
06-04-20 003.JPG

From this angle, it looks a little sloppy, I will have to check that out.
I also started a small structure made from DPM wall components for use along the narrow strip between the main line and the layout edge.
06-04-20 001.JPG

It is intended to be the local liquor store. I looked around the layout and realized that only three of my other towns had liquor stores, so this will help quench the thirst of my townspeople.
I added a sidewalk to the pizzeria and staged a few other structures along the layout edge. These will also face the off-layout street mentioned a few days ago.
06-04-20 004.JPG

More progress reports coming up.

Guy - Nice scenes of Lovett yesterday.
Louis -
I need to do a better job of keeping up with the edging.
Edging? What's that? LOL:cool::cool::cool:
By the way, that house that we lived in in New Orleans that I pictured yesterday, had just over four feet of water in it in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Greg -
The train room is in the rear.
And I thought your trainroom was in the basement with the Packer room.

Everybody have a great day.
 
Morning Shop Dwellers! For some reason (my age is showing I guess) the warmer temps seem to sap my energy level a shocking level from prior years? Yesterday's high of 96 was only a warning of what is to come - and I really felt it. Today is supposed to be back in the mid 80's range.

I managed to get the RV stuff cleaned out of the vehicle yesterday and now the garage is full again. I Had to take it in to the shop for some warranty work and another recall notice which I had received a while back. MOH followed me to the shop where I had to leave it and later on the way back we stopped to fill up the CRV with 12 gallons worth - a shock to the system after trying to keep fuel in the RV - I thought the tank was blocked - LOL!

Hi there FLO -- Ask Mel to make me a BLT on sourdough this morning .. pile on a double helping of bacon; I wouldn't even mind a quartered avocado on the side, please? Maybe a large coke with it - I am craving some carbonation this morning.

Making a coffee run at the moment - WARNING - I will return!
 
we were supposed to have a lady come out between 2-3 pm for a quote on gutters. It's now 3:18 with no phone call. That is something that really pisses me off.
CURT, She must be practicing to be a doctor - I no longer worry if I am a little tardy for the appointments!

I met Kate, didn't realize that she was that wild!!!
WILLIE, That woman didn't let any grass grow between her toes... the airline was her "escape" from the reality of being a single parent of THREE girls under the age of 10. I wish we could relive those days again!

Sherrel, there are those who would argue that was money well spent!

BBob, Very little do I regret - I am like LOUIS in the post below, I had a good time!

Wild women and whiskey... you have to love them both and the memories are priceless, the ones I can remember.
AH HA, LOUIS - Therein lies the problem. Memories are starting to fade, and that is a disappointment!

Now that I think of it, I may have had too much fun in my life. No wonder I have trouble cutting the grass. I believe it is true what they say about married men live longer.
Maybe it just seems longer - ;):D
 
ALAN - I continue to marvel at your COSF project. I was not fam with the full Diaphragms, having only seen the ones just covering the doorways.

GARRY - Very nice photo of the GN train.

Say, GREG - looks like you have room at the Gregmore for me to park - and the pups have a big yard to run in?
We will be right up as soon as I can find my tick spray?
 
Goot Morning, Everyone!
Wholly wind-swept world, it's only 4F this morning; so cool I would like a larger cup of hot coffee to get the shivers out of my bones. I suppose this means I'll have to plug in the workshop heater if I want to get Varathane on a gazebo bench. Varathane requires 55F to start curing properly.

Thank you for the likes on my Lovett post of yesterday.
Willie - I suppose we will be seeing that field again, in our morning cereal.

Lovett was just one small mining town among the string of small mining towns that were once existing along the coal branch. Back in the day of horse-n-wagon, there was a mining town roughly every 5 miles or so. Today, there are only remnants of the existence of most of the villages; Lovett, Sterco, Mercoal, Mountain Park, and Cadomin, and others.
One can find a lot of neat antique items up in there. Each village once had a graveyard, but, most of those were dug up and the remains moved else-where, so they could access the little bit of coal underneath them. There's no such thing as a final resting place if there's money under you.

Before I go, I'll leave a couple of more photos of local history.
A Cessna, on a Grande Prairie to Edmonton mercy flight, went down in the forest near Whitecourt, in the 1950's. They didn't find the lost aircraft for a couple of years.
The last time I saw the battered remains of that aircraft in the forest, was 2018. For these last, many years, the site was used as a training aid for downed aircraft spotting. The crash site was also well maintained by surviving family members, and family member ashes were spread there as they passed away. The area is so difficult to access, that the memorial was brought in during winter on snow machine, and properly set in the summer.
MercyFltMkr19 (1).jpg

MercyFltMkr19.jpg

I took the photos on a 2019 visit to the site. That's when I found out the Alberta government had removed and disposed of the aircraft remains so they could log the surrounding area without damaging logging equipment on metal aircraft parts.
Like I said, there is no such thing as a final resting place, if money is involved.

Have a great day everyone!
 
RAY (toot) Those are nice photos of the Montana countryside. I bet CHAD and ME could find some land around there?

4th day of the month and after paying bills, I need to find a Mission to dine at; maybe I had too good of a time?
 
Good morning gang,

Flo, my dear, lets start with a western omelette, bacon on the side. No no avocado for me, breakfast is not the time for green food. (if you can call avocado food)

Kind of a funk around work today. Yesterday they gathered us all around the premise of a free lunch, to tell us the mom & pop dealership we work for is going to be sold to a large corporate chain. There goes the neighborhood. Frankly, I don't give a rodent's posterior as long as they don't screw with us, which they claimed they wont. I've only got 8 years left before the big R, I can ride out the storm. My co-worker is further away from that point in her life. At the meeting she looked like a person who fell out onto the Martian landscape in the movie "Total Recall"
arnold01.jpg


No sense going crazy, it wont help anyway.
 
Guy: Your logging towns sound a lot the oil boom towns we had here in Kansas in the early to mid-1900's. Between 1915 and about 1960 there were a dozen or so pop-up towns around the area I live, most are long gone with nothing more that a few concrete foundations and old sidewalks along now gravel roads.

Willie: Every town needs either a liquor store or bar. As I traveled around Kansas years ago, if the town was big enough for a post office and\or school it has either one or both.
 
Good morning gang,

Flo, my dear, lets start with a western omelette, bacon on the side. No no avocado for me, breakfast is not the time for green food. (if you can call avocado food)

Kind of a funk around work today. Yesterday they gathered us all around the premise of a free lunch, to tell us the mom & pop dealership we work for is going to be sold to a large corporate chain. There goes the neighborhood. Frankly, I don't give a rodent's posterior as long as they don't screw with us, which they claimed they wont. I've only got 8 years left before the big R, I can ride out the storm. My co-worker is further away from that point in her life. At the meeting she looked like a person who fell out onto the Martian landscape in the movie "Total Recall"
arnold01.jpg


No sense going crazy, it wont help anyway.

I had a couple of jobs over the years that the companies were sold. Not fun during the change over. It does pay to have a backup plan though, even with 8 years left before retirement. It is often harder to get a new job when you're over 50. I wouldn't have thought the bias was actually there until I had the experience.
 
The company I was working for in 2016 (I had only been there about 10 months) got bought by a bigger company. Luckily there were very few personnel changes (none in my group), they gave us all some restricted stock units (not Porsche buying numbers, but like a good bonus worth for the next 3 years), and our project scope changed and got a lot bigger. And we get better raises and some additional stock units each year. For us it has actually been very good. Not all corp takeovers are like that. I've known some that really killed the bought business.

Karl -- good luck with this change. Let's hope it allows things to get better, not worse.
 
Kind of a funk around work today. Yesterday they gathered us all around the premise of a free lunch, to tell us the mom & pop dealership we work for is going to be sold to a large corporate chain. There goes the neighborhood. Frankly, I don't give a rodent's posterior as long as they don't screw with us, which they claimed they wont.

They always say that. It's always a lie. Similar lies: "I'll only put it in this far" "I'll pull out." "The check is in the mail." Good luck Karl! I went through four owners in my previous gig to this one. Same speech four times, same lies. I hope you don't need one, but have a Plan B!
 
Last edited:
Good morning. A nice sunny day here. In the 80's and sunny yesterday and it looks like an instant replay for today. Still busy working out in the yard. Finally got all of the lower branches of trees cut down and piled up for the trash truck could pick them up yesterday. Now that everything (almost) I went down to the hot springs to get some swimming exercise in after the yard work.

Hoping that the model railroad club will open soon. We never got to have our swap meet/train show due to the virus and the museum is still closed but expected to open up June 13th. Sure would like to get over there and run some trains.

Willie
- I sure with I had some more room like you have to build more structures. Looking good.

Alan
- Those UP brass cars are looking fine.

Ray
- It would be nice to have AmTrak back on the southern tier across Montana but they've been talking about this for years. Montana's largest cities are along the old NP route. Billings, Bozeman, Butte, Helena and Missoula. Here in the Bozeman area we have 2 ski areas close by. Like the MRL photos.

Greg - I had 2 beers with that lunch. Gave us a sample of a new porter they're thinking of carrying plus my normal favorite.

Louis
- Nice photos. Like that B&O A and B unit. Sharp.

Garry - Great photo with the GN power.

One quick photo and I'm out of here

87145225_2478797825666454_3752262624411123712_n.jpg


Later
 
Ken, I had a package marked as “in transit to the next facility” for a full week, until it finally showed up at my door, without any further updates.

Some USPS facilities have been crippled by Covid-19. Too many workers are using leave time all at once.
As I write this I'm waiting on a new computer. Alexa says it's delivered, (not), Amazon says today, UPS says tomorrow. Ordered 10 days ago and only showed up on "tracking" today.
 
Good Afternoon all. Another warm one in H-Town. We've had some rain and wind which knocked down quite a few limbs. So yard work took front and center.
As I stated earlier I'm waiting for a new laptop. T is one has a f w ke s sticking.
I did manage an hour yesterday to run some trains. QUESTION, do you guys to try and run your locos from time to time or let them just sit.
Odd Coupling
Odd coupling.jpg
 
Afternoon All,

Started out the day cutting legs from 8' lengths. Of course when I was ready to start painting it started to rain. I moved things into the garage and painted everything. Unfortunately that meant I had to paint each one separately (34) instead of doing them in batches in the driveway. After they dried I carried them upstairs and tomorrow I'll attach the adjustable feet.

Sherrel- I have seen the buildings. I will probably get a couple of them but it will be after the track is down.

Hughie- Nice layout shot.

Alan- Got it and it makes sense. Beautiful job on the cars.

Garry- Happy Birthday to your granddaughter. Nice layout shot.

Patrick- Happy Birthday to your granddaughter also.

Willie- Nice looking buildings.

Karl- Sorry to hear about your changes at work. I hope it works out for you.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Good night America, how are ya? Back in Illinois and I’m having a blast right now........getting ready for my colonoscopy in the morning! Had to go to the hospital last Sunday to have a Covid-19 test before my adventure tomorrow. Got a call this afternoon and they said I passed and I didn’t even study! They also made sure I knew what all I had to do for the prep.

All the talk and pictures of food is making me HUNGRY!! Enough all ready!😄 Doing this on my IPhone, not really as bad as I thought it would be. Just that the pictures are pretty small compared to what I’m used to. Oh oh, got to run!
BBob- isn’t that prep sooooo much fun(especially when you make regular food for YBH’s supper)?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.



Back
Top