Good Morning All. Clear and 34°. Still have wind about 10 mph, but it's out of the south today and it will warm up to the mid-60's later on. Forecast still has single digit lows for Monday and Tuesday mornings. I can just imagine what some of you others up north will see.
No issues yesterday with the dental hygienist, that's always good news. Other than that I mostly did some indoor chores and carried in firewood. Wife did finally start the process of removing ornaments from the Christmas tree, so I will likely remove the lights today and take it down. Trip to the attic will be Friday since tomorrow is weekly grocery trek. I'll take advantage of the warmer temperatures today by preemptively removing ashes/embers from the wood stove once again. Tools used are a shovel end with no handle, heavy cotton gloves and a galvanized 8-gallon pail with lid. Since there will be embers in there and the stove will be hot, 250° or above; I will also use an old scarred sweatshirt to protect my arms. No matter how careful one tries to be, second degree burns are inevitable without the sweatshirt. Don't bother asking how I know this.
I was late getting out to the train shed yesterday, so I mainly inspected and cleaned freight cars. I ran the last of the trains that were moved from the staging yard back in place. I surprisingly found another freight car that still had a pair of McHenry couplers on it and changed them out to Kadee $148's. For me, that was a horrible decision made in the late 90's, but at the time all new freight cars still had horn-hook couplers and Kadees were in short supply at the LHS's near me. It took about 4 years for them to begin to fail. This pair still operated mainly because the car was parked at an industry for many years without being moved. With the freights being moved back into staging, I can continue with the quarterly cleaning project and hopefully return to the cemetery build. The wooden rail fence is next as I have gotten all of the posts and rails cut and ready for assembly.
I don't really have any layout or train pictures to post today, so let's look at a few that I had taken of some neighborhood wildlife in 2008.
The owl who was just as surprised as I was while he was snacking on a rat seen in it's claws.
A rare daytime view of a coyote.
A pair of deer walking down our road who obviously didn't see me.
And finally my mousetraps relaxing on the porch.
Tom O -
Something kept getting repeated about me getting up there in age and I shouldn’t be out there moving snow.
Same here!

Oh! Wait. I only have to move it from the porch, just a 2'x8' one at that. Although I did have to deal with this in 2008.
Sherrel - Get well soon and the same for Kate and the rest of the family.
Curt - I have gotten used to the expense of this hobby, but fortunately I bought all 800 freight cars years ago and stopped in 2014. While I have still bought diesels recently from ScaleTrains, I really have all that I need...unless they come out with something that I can't pass up. I am still filling in with vehicles which I may never get enough.
Chad - I may have missed it, but when do you hope to move into the new house?
Terry - Good luck with the leak.
Today is model railroader Rod Stewart's 79th birthday.
Enjoy the day today if you're not dealing with snow.