Good Morning All. Cloudy and a somewhat warm 72°, wind has come down to a more reasonable 10 mph for the time being. Yesterday's projected high of 88° turned into 90°, it's supposed to be only 85° for the next three days.
Another Thursday, another grocery store trek into the big city of Denton TX. Looks like my wife has the wine store, car wash, and shoe store on her list. I have the shoe store, gasoline and Home Depot on mine along with Kroger.
I managed to coerce a notary to provide me with a Medallion signature guarantee yesterday on the paperwork that I need to claim my beneficiary IRA benefits from my late brother's estate. He was the manager at a competing bank in town and he initially said that they only notarize for their own customers. So I made a comment that I would just have to come in with $50 and open an account and then I would be one of their customers. There was a pause and he then said to just come in and he would do it. After everything was completed, I asked about a fee and he waived it. It probably would have cost the bank if I had actually opened the account knowing that I would probably close it later this week.
The garden is over on the back burner for the most part yesterday. I did pick a large plastic bag of the two different lettuce varieties for supper last night and a couple more meals. Too soon for anything else. While it doesn't seem likely, I am hoping that the wind dies down for just a little bit of time so I can apply organic fertilizers prior to the rain Sunday.
Added to the firewood stack yesterday, quite by accident. The tree trimming contractors for the local utility company were set to trim 200' along the road fronting one side of my property. I caught them in time and they dragged all limbs with any parts greater than 2" in diameter over to my yard instead of throwing them into the chipper. I brought over the chainsaw and cut the parts off that were worthwhile and then they threw the skinny ends into the chipper. They weren't allowed to do any of the cutting for me, but that was OK. It looks like I ended up with about 2.5 weeks worth of wood, approximately a 1/4 of a cord. They're all between 2" and 4" in diameter, but I need them to burn with the 6" to 10" logs that I already have, so they will eventually last over a month. I don't generally have to split anything 10" or under, but I do need some smaller stuff to keep the larger ones well ignited. A 10" log 16" long will fully heat the house for over 14 hours when done correctly. The door opening in the heater is 12" x 18".
Thanks for the likes and comments regarding yesterday's post;
Smudge, Guy, Steve J, Patrick, Chad, James, Tom O, Hughie, Joe, Dave B, Mikey, Curt, Gary, Louis, Rick, Tom, IB Ken, OB Ken.
In my other life, I was out in the train shed for a while yesterday. As I was admiring my handiwork on the Seymour Block structure, I realized that one of the primary reasons that I removed it from the layout for upgrading was to add a sidewalk!
So out came the Evergreen Styrene sidewalk sheet. I chose to use the 1/2" pattern on this stand-alone corner structure. This will be a scale 14'+ sidewalk. Good for a bench on the right side later.
Since I glued the walls to the top of the sidewalk, I also had to add some .040" x .060" strips under the other walls to even out the foundation. Then I painted everything including the strips that are now concrete foundation.
In between cutting, gluing and painting, I was able to run a few trains since that is the primary reason for having this fantasy land. Still trying to figure out signage and window treatments.
Tom O - Not too many horse stories for me. I like reading about what many of our Coffee Shop visitors do in their non-train lives. I certainly write about it! This is a Coffee Shop isn't it?
Dave B - Really nice progress.
Greg - Whether you like it or not, your true age is out there in cyberland already, and has been for years. All public records including births have been published on the Internet. There's actually probably at least ten sources of your age out there.
Everybody have a great day.
