Good Afternoon Everyone.....partly cloudy and mild here in Southeastern Wisconsin. It's been a great November so far especially when compared to last year when we had 7 inches of snow for Halloween and then 13 inches of snow during November.
I've been away from the layout more than I intended to be and also been away from the Forum dealing with personal business that's been extremely time consuming and then add that to health appointments playing catch up. Yesterday, I had a appointment at the hospital and the testing took from 12:30 PM to almost 4:00 PM and that takes care of the entire day after adding in travel time. One of my Doctors called this morning and I checked out OK with the testing even in-spite of having some major underlying conditions.
The other news....Chet (Montanan) knows that I am fond of Dachshunds and we been considering finding a new dog for quite some time. Well, Chet found a breeder in Iowa that has a female, long hair black/tan mini Doxie puppy that we purchased and will pick her up in January. I miss our Katie who passed away several years ago and she was a great companion and loved to travel to the cabin. The cabin being located in the woods is perfect for a dog, especially a hunter like the Dachshund and she will be company for me since I'm at the cabin usually alone about half the time I'm up there.
The puppy will need some training before I let her go off leash especially up at the cabin with all the smells of the animals there, but even here at home we have five squirrels who daily visit our bird feeders and sometimes up to five whitetail deer are seen at the feeders and the deer stop vehicle traffic on the road while people watch them feed.
I'll set tomorrow aside for Model Railroading. Lots of things to do on the railroad in and the layout room.
I been enjoying everyone's photos and their new purchases in RPO Thread. I hope to have some photographs posted on the Forum real soon.
I been reading a lot about John Allen lately and in a recent e-mail from Model Railroader the e-mail summed up John's modeling efforts and that John started with a layout smaller than a 4X8, but the photographs he took made the layout seem larger than it was in real life and then he advanced to the 24 foot by 32 foot basement sized layout that we all know.
Those who have been lucky enough to have seen or operated on John's layout, you must agree that experience was impressive to say the least.
To those John Allen fans who maybe interested, the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA) is having a fund raising members only auction of some items found in John Allen's basement which been in storage since the fire in 1973. The auction is a silent auction for NMRA members and most of the items are damaged from the fire. I've seen John's #34 locomotive in person safely kept in a case at Kalmbach Publishing's office in Waukesha, Wisconsin.
So much for my news.....
Greg
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