Good Morning All. Clear and 26° to get my day going. It's supposedly going to snow a bit west of here sometime today. We'll see. Otherwise it's going to gradually warm up before returning to colder times
next Wednesday.
Nice day yesterday enabled me to spread another 2.5 yards of aged shredded/chipped trees to the garden, as well as 10 five-gallon pails of wood ashes and an immeasurable amount of grass clippings. Since I have temporarily retired my 41 year old garden site and I am starting a new one, I will use a tiller to work all of that into the soil to loosen and fertilize it. After the initial tilling, I will then add bone meal, more wood ashes, blood meal, compost, goat manure and shredded leaves and do it again before planting in about ten days. Looking forward to using this new plot. I'll do some more today.
Blueberry pancakes and sausage links this morning Flo. Extra butter and maple syrup, and put a spoonful of whipped cream on top. I'll wait for the real stuff, not that can of cool whip!
Thanks for all of the likes and comments regarding the re-purposed Preiser figure; my layout reflects real life;
Louis, Karl, James, Smudge, George, Steve J, Joe, Tom O, Hughie, Sherrel, Patrick, Mikey, Jaz, OB Ken, Gary, Curt, Rick, Tom, Moermusic.
Yesterday out in the train shed I just did ground cover and ballast. Made a lot of progress in my eyes. I also inspected nearly 100 freight cars in order to locate the one with the missing (but found) air reservoir. Nope, not yet.
No progress pictures today, but I'll post some scenes for these guys.
Steve J/Sherrel/Hughie- I also like eye-candy. That is the reason that I include so much on my layout. My wife doesn't share my enthusiasm.
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Sherrel - I hope that you have recovered from the kidney stone by now. Other than Advil, there is nothing that you can really do about them. I try to avoid certain calcium heavy foods that I really like, that tend to contribute to the issue, like spinach, peanuts and other nuts, beets and a few others. 8 oz of lemonade a day will retard their formation, but not prevent them completely.
Tom O - I have been to Trader Joe's a few times because my wife likes that store. Some very interesting and eclectic stuff and probably the largest collection of cheese outside of Wisconsin. I considered all of their stuff as way overpriced. I felt underwhelmed parking our Accura in their parking lot full of Mercedes, Lexus's and even Bentley's. Being as this is North Texas, there were no Tesla's. They keep them down in Austin.
Gas points are important to me as well. The Kroger that I use occasionally doubles the points when you purchase meats and veggies. I never pay full price for gas there.
Hughie - Many of my 800 freight cars are in semi-permanent unit trains that just run from one end of the layout to the other. For example I have 4-16 unit well cars with containers, but I do not have a container yard. It got dropped from the original plan due to space requirements, but I still like to see them run.
Tom - I agree. Those casinos wouldn't look so fancy and extravagant if they weren't coming out ahead of you.
OB Ken -
Things are really screwed up there this year. Part of it is due to all of the extra stimulus checks that they had to deal with. Plus they don't do business efficiently. An example from my last years return. We filed about four weeks early electronically, which in the past meant rapid processing. We were due a refund of over $1000 (not normal for us, we like to be closer to net zero), because of some rule changes regarding unemployment and a couple of other minor things. It took over seventeen weeks for that to be direct deposited when in the past it was generally less than a week. Four weeks later another deposit was made for the interest that they paid on the late refund. Then last month, we received a form 1099-INT, which shows the amount of the interest that we now have to pay tax on!
Patrick - Just wait until those overnight bathroom breaks become spaced at 2-3 hours @.
Steve J. - Enjoy that book. Kathy became a favorite of mine a few years ago through her videos.
James - Wow! 228k miles in a year. Our drivers usually came in around 202k per year. Had one guy log nearly 250k back in the day of dual logbooks.
Back to the subject of grocery stores. I realize that different stores in different parts of the country can vary greatly in selection, price and quality. The Kroger that I frequent keeps prices lower since they are across the street from both a Walmart and a Target. Our produce tends to be real fresh, due to the proximity to the imported stuff from Mexico as well as the farms in South Texas. Although a lot of that depends on the individual store or chain. Re;
Tom's experience with lettuce: I have had loose leaf lettuce last 3 1/2 weeks when I "lost" it in the back of the fridge. By contrast, my wife bought some from a competitor, Winco, across town and it didn't last a week. It's all a matter of using your resources wisely.
Well, I have rambled on incessantly this morning. But I did use pauses and punctuation. Hope that I haven't bored anyone.
Everyone have a wonderful day.
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