Good Morning All. Happy Mayday to everyone over in the EU. Partly cloudy and 65° here. The 82% humidity level feels good compared to the past few days! It felt like I was in Houston. Forecast is still calling for thunderstorms beginning tonight and lasting through Monday. There was a lot of lightning last night, but it was all 25 miles north in Oklahoma, radar showed storms stretching up to southern Kansas. It was quite noticeable during one bathroom break last night as the wind outflow from the storm through our north bedroom window was pretty significant.
Happy days are here again in our area, water pressure in our coop water supply has returned to normal after 4-5 weeks of reduced pressure. Several of their 28 wells were down for routine maintenance, several more were down for emergency repairs and there have been at least 5 water main breaks over that time frame. They have been catching hell on the local Facebook pages according to my wife. It hasn't really been causing any problems here, but it has been noticeable. Unfortunately they only have enough crews to work on a couple of wells at a time.
It was still too wet to mow yesterday, especially since the overnight dew lasted well into the afternoon. I spent time attacking the pile of trees that the neighbor left me, since some are under existing trees where the dew didn't occur. It looks like I cut another week's worth of firewood, but it's just laying on the ground right now since my garden cart is full of compost waiting to be spread on the garden. No rush for either right now.
Household chores will start the day today, then I will check the progress of the Green Peas in the garden.
Out in the train shed yesterday, I started a new structure build. It is the Walther's Merchant's Row III kit.
I already have one of these on the layout, but it was originally called a bank and was produced by a different company before Walther's acquired the tooling. I don't remember the original manufacturer from the 80's, but it might have been IHC or Revell???
I don't have a problem with some duplicate buildings, I knew that I already had this one when I bought the second; I will be using it on a different level in a different aisle and with a different wall facing the aisle.
I got all of the windows installed and 3 walls assembled.
While I can live with the yellow windows, I am going to paint the lintels and roof trim a light brown color.
I have also finally decided on where the next layout project will be. I have a large 16" x 48" area in the town of Charlottesville, nestled between two finished areas that I need to work on. I have a few tentative structures in place, which I may or may not use in the final plan.
Two pictures to show the whole area with the four already-built structures.
The first step though is to add an 8" high piece of backdrop across the window. Stay tuned for the progress on both the structure which will be included here and the new area addition. I'm figuring on at least 2, maybe 3 additional structures that I already have built as well as the MR III.
Guy - Tornadoes can be scary, but folks still build in areas where they occur. Tornado Alley roughly includes 16 states and even a bit of Southern Canada. So it hard to not build in those areas. But as I see it, there are weather issues no matter where you are located. Hurricanes along coastal areas, wildfires and landslides along the West Coast, earthquakes and volcanoes in the northwest, blizzards in much of the interior states, etc. It's just which one you are willing to put up with.
I doubt that I will upgrade the overall train room lighting. Everything looks fine in person, but the photos don't always look good.
Hughie - I really like Downtown Deco structures, but I would have a hard time with anything in N scale. I admire you for your working in N scale on the Bar Mills structures and think that you would do well with the Downtown Deco ones as well.
OK, enough banter for this morning. Everyone have a great day and be safe.