Running Bear's September 2022 Coffee Shop


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Lawn mowed...will probably still be mowing until Thanksgiving. Started to bust up the garden space for next year, like busting concrete. 9'x9' space was dormant this year, but trying to figure out why it is so clay pack. It was topsoil I created a number of years ago with a dump truck load of mulch, sandy loam, peat moss and cotton hulls. Thought it was mixed pretty well. I suspect I got into the clay soil underneath at some point. May need to revisit the mix next spring.
 
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Look, it's a whatsit!

IMG_20220814_152224383_HDR~2.jpg
 
To break up clay soil, you can add 2-3 inches of organic material for every 6 inches of depth you want to improve upon. It takes a while for it to take effect, as the organism continue to do their things to the organic material, which somehow adds particulates to the soil that "break up" the clay.

Leaf litter, bark, sawdust (not from treated lumber) and grass clipping are all excellent. Perhaps you just need a little more soil augmentation. If you can get some cow manure, try adding that and tilling it in. When I was a kid, my Father had a HUGE garden. Every Fall, after we harvested the last plants, we would take a few large trash cans out to a local dairy farm and fill up our trash cans with manure. We would dump it on the garden, along with the whole summer's worth of grass clippings we piled up into a compost pile. Then till it under and wait for Spring until you till it again before planting.
 
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I am back! Meanwhile my wallet is a smoking hot mess 🔥 I can't sit down on it....🤣😂

Sooo the damages are......................no really I did good! I got some very constructive stuff for the layout. A couple more buildings, building materials as I mentioned I was looking for and some more detail items. Believe it or not I only bought one boxcar. Got couple of vehicles and thanks to Willie for the inspiration, I found one of the Scene Masters BBQ stand and Taco stand by Walthers. They had several different one and different combos. I like this one as I like both BBQ and tacos Pretty cool! The store still had a lot of stuff left.... a great deal of stuff really. I think I have more than enough projects now for the next couple years 😂 I know I had great savings between yesterday and today at 50% off it's hard to pass that up. If he goes down more I will be buying more materials I think we shall see. I even got tools and and Xuron cutters etc. Good deals.

Here is my ticket tape that shows my train therapy shopping spree. I will post later tonight my loot once again on the RPO thread. Ya'll have a good afternoon.

Total tally $620.98.......50% off.....$310.49 plus tax $24.84........$335.33 paid!

20220930_132232.jpg
 
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Alcomotive said:
Good morning peeps!

Back in the office again today with an ulterior motive muuuuha ha ha ha ha....my evil halloween laugh 😈 No really I have to go back to JPs Hobby shop at lunch time soooo yep that's the plan. I hope to get a lot of construction materials from Evergreen and Plastruct products etc. Maybe a few more buildings? Paints and figures or other layout details. Willie's layout inspires me to pay attention to those small details that help make the layout come to life. I will head over there @ 11:45 they open right at 12 pm.

I spent my evening last night going through the loot I obtained from the LHS and the deliveries I received from ebay and FB market place. I am waiting on an order from Yankeedabbler. I bought a bunch of cars they had a burn sale on which is still going on. I got some old Bev-Bel cars for 10 bucks each which I think are great for filler cars. All new in the box old stock. A little weathering and you are god to go! I also got one of those cool gadgets for speed matching your locomotives the Accutrack II model train speedometer. This will help me through JMRI to get my speed matching done correctly and quickly. The other thing ito place a top end speed limit as well. Some of these locomotive really zip! So with a little adjustments I can make it more realistic. I think my order is do to arrive today or tomorrow.

yankeedabbler.com

Accutrack II Model Train Speedometer (Scale = HO, N, OO) YankeeDabbler Part # = 66-Accutrack II

The Best Model Trains and Accessories - Sales, Service, Installations For Less
yankeedabbler.com yankeedabbler.com

I also got a few Walthers Mainline cars from there. Just 5 cars that I wanted.

Have a few visitors outside my office window this morning. Tis' the season....

Ya'll have a great day! I will of course check back for my next haul from the LHS today...... 🤪😁

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James - enjoy the turkey pics, what kind of office do you work at with all the wildlife, if you don't mind me asking
 
logandsawman said:
James - enjoy the turkey pics, what kind of office do you work at with all the wildlife, if you don't mind me asking
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Dave,

We have a lot of wild life that comes through here besides me.....no really we have fox, deer, eagles, geese, coyotes, turkeys, all kinds of ducks as we are in the federal fly way migration pattern and on occasions bobcats. We have had black bears come this way but not in a great while.

The company I work for now, is located at the fork of The Hudson river and Mohawk river which is just a mile south of the start of the Champlain canal system. My office is on Green Island. Green Island is the birth place of the big three companies. Ford, AC (Alis-Chalmers) and Edison. A lot of history here. Ford almost built their plant here but ended up only making parts then eventually going to Detroit. Here's a little great read on the history. I encourage ya'll to read a little bit of it it is quite interesting.


I am very fortunate to be at an office environment like this. My company owner has owned this property since 1991 and it has grown over the years. A 1st class place. I work as his director of operations and asset management. I left my other job at the tail end of COVID after 10 years with the old company. This job I have now is less stress compared to my other one. More money and benefits too. Anyways there ya go! Oh I do commute an hour each way. I am a country boy and I cannot live in the city life.
 
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Alcomotive said:
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand I am back! Meanwhile my wallet is a smoking hot mess 🔥 I can't sit down on it....🤣😂

Sooo the damages are......................no really I did good! I got some very constructive stuff for the layout. A couple more buildings, building materials as I mentioned I was looking for and some more detail items. Believe it or not I only bought one boxcar. Got couple of vehicles and thanks to Willie for the inspiration, I found one of the Scene Masters BBQ stand and Taco stand by Walthers. They had several different one and different combos. I like this one as I like both BBQ and tacos Pretty cool! The store still had a lot of stuff left.... a great deal of stuff really. I think I have more than enough projects now for the next couple years 😂 I know I had great savings between yesterday and today at 50% off it's hard to pass that up. If he goes down more I will be buying more materials I think we shall see. I even got tools and and Xuron cutters etc. Good deals.

Here is my ticket tape that shows my train therapy shopping spree. I will post later tonight my loot once again on the RPO thread. Ya'll have a good afternoon.

View attachment 152594
Click to expand...
Priceless!

no there is a price, ok, heck of a great deal
 
TLOC said:
Priceless!

no there is a price, ok, heck of a great deal
Click to expand...

TomO-

I tell ya what....if he had any locomotives in my wheel house I would have spent even more. 90% of the locomotives he had were D&H and the rest were other northeast RRs and Amtrak. He had some undecorated locos in both steam and diesels but none I was interested in. I am just happy to get all the buildings, tools, materials and details alike for 50% off. Tickled my wallet in a good way with all of the cost savings it was fantastic! I had to share the ticket I knew it would be hard to believe.....lol

Hope you are having some good R&R in your travels and get some good pictures. I am looking forward to seeing those pictures! I miss Wisconsin area. I may have to head out there next summer we will see. Right now I am in a holding pattern due to the loss of my baby sister and my big sister is going for heart surgery on Oct 24th. A lot going on and keeping an eye on my parents.

TTYL
 
Alcomotive said:
Dave,

We have a lot of wild life that comes through here besides me.....no really we have fox, deer, eagles, geese, coyotes, turkeys, all kinds of ducks as we are in the federal fly way migration pattern and on occasions bobcats. We have had black bears come this way but not in a great while.

The company I work for now, is located at the fork of The Hudson river and Mohawk river which is just a mile south of the start of the Champlain canal system. My office is on Green Island. Green Island is the birth place of the big three companies. Ford, AC (Alis-Chalmers) and Edison. A lot of history here. Ford almost built their plant here but ended up only making parts then eventually going to Detroit. Here's a little great read on the history. I encourage ya'll to read a little bit of it it is quite interesting.


I am very fortunate to be at an office environment like this. My company owner has owned this property since 1991 and it has grown over the years. A 1st class place. I work as his director of operations and asset management. I left my other job at the tail end of COVID after 10 years with the old company. This job I have now is less stress compared to my other one. More money and benefits too. Anyways there ya go! Oh I do commute an hour each way. I am a country boy and I cannot live in the city life.
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James, funny that--

I commute an hour each way as well.

I used to live near the old Ford plant in St. Paul, which also had hydro power. In addition, they made their own glass from silica sand mined at the plant, as well as assembled automobiles. They recently shuddered the plant and I think they are still arguing about what kind of development will take place there.
 
Afternoon All,

Spent most the day working in the yard with my 16 yo grandson. Of course I paid him for working with you. It is a beautiful day here starting in the mid 60's getting to 82 and a almost cloudless sky. We ended up with 10 full yard bags and a pile of larger branches. I think the final rain amount for my location was 10". Tomorrow I hope to work on the signals some more.

Thank you for the well wishes. I was finally able to get in contact with my buddys so I'm happy about that.

IB Ken- It's good to see you posting again.

James- Great catch and photos.

Troy- I hope you feel better soon.

Willie- Safe travels home.

Dave- Very nice night time photos.

TomO- Hope you enjoyed your trip.

I hope everyone has a good night.
 
Alcomotive said:
TomO-

I tell ya what....if he had any locomotives in my wheel house I would have spent even more. 90% of the locomotives he had were D&H and the rest were other northeast RRs and Amtrak. He had some undecorated locos in both steam and diesels but none I was interested in. I am just happy to get all the buildings, tools, materials and details alike for 50% off. Tickled my wallet in a good way with all of the cost savings it was fantastic! I had to share the ticket I knew it would be hard to believe.....lol

Hope you are having some good R&R in your travels and get some good pictures. I am looking forward to seeing those pictures! I miss Wisconsin area. I may have to head out there next summer we will see. Right now I am in a holding pattern due to the loss of my baby sister and my big sister is going for heart surgery on Oct 24th. A lot going on and keeping an eye on my parents.

TTYL
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The travels are fun. Thanks, even better when someone else drives

I am like you, when the deal is fine, it’s time to buy! Congrats again
 
So after spending 12hrs a day for the last four days driving around in a vehicle with no heating (and I mean NO heating) and running on half power, I'm done for the week, average temp 35F this week, been causing havoc with my amputated leg, haven't had phantom pain so bad in years, normally I'm ok, but sitting in a fridge for the last four days, definitely not good, doesn't help when I'm also having autonomous "knee jerks", (imagine a sewing machine needle going up and down, fast) that I have no control over, and at the same time someone is stabbing a large hot needle into whats left of my leg.

The Half power I mentioned is because of excess exhaust emissions, the ECU automatically reduces the engine power by 50%, and will only return to normal after the entire exhaust system is removed,a new sensor fitted and the ECU is reset, which didn't happen because we (until tomorrow that is) don't have any spare vehicles.

Rant Over.
Thank's Guys.
 
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