Good Morning All. Mostly cloudy and 62°, high of 82° later. Rain is still in the forecast for tomorrow, but it has been changed to just afternoon showers instead of thunderstorms. Those come Thursday thru Tuesday. Temperatures still in the upper-70's every day except Saturday. The forecast is for 2" of rain spread out over 7 days. We shall see!
Primary election day today in Texas, so we'll be off to vote around mid-morning. Polling place is about 7 miles away so a short drive through the countryside. Highly contested race for US Senate in both parties. Both will probably result in runoffs in late May. Dems are running a current US rep against a current Texas State House member. Republicans are running the current State Attorney General against the incumbent Senator. Both races are fracturing the internal party structure. I know who I am voting for, but I have seriously thought about voting in the other primary for the more "unelectable against my choice" candidate. Voters in Texas can vote in either primary, but can only vote in the runoff of the party that they originally cast their vote in.
I want to show a good example of Gerrymandering that hits close to home. Look at this picture of my neighborhood map.
The blue "X" is my house. The property across the road (about 2500 acres) is in a whole different congressional district. This map also shows that a trip around the block is just a tad over 10 miles. My mailbox which I have pointed out before, is just a little below where the red line turns left.
On to other things now. I now have the whole garden tilled to a depth of 8"+, except for a 5' strip on the east side that will lie fallow this season. That will be used for the hoped for fall garden starting around October. Haven't planted anything yet, as the soil is still a bit cool; currently at 58° according to the USDA sensor a few miles away.
Out in the train shed yesterday, I started painting the Fordson tractor. Most of the pictures I found showed it to be Gray, which is what I painted it despite being molded in Gray to begin with. Some parts are black and the wheel rims are Orange. Original wheels appear to be Gray metal wheels, but it looks like they switched to Orange rims when they went to rubber tires. At least that's what pictures of restored ones show.
Something unusual happened out there sometime Sunday night. Even though I am very rigid about turning power off when I leave, apparently I wasn't on Sunday. So I had a train running on the upper level for nearly 20 hours. At some point, the paired engines came uncoupled from the train and then ran into it from behind. Lead engine derailed completely as did the rear truck of the second one. But the front truck maintained contact and ran all night and part of the day yesterday. I now have deep grooves in the wheelsets! Bummer. I haven't yet figured out how to access the wheelsets on a ScaleTrains SD40-2. Initial search on the Internet came up empty. I will have to call them once I get the RH hearing aid back from the shop. Engine still runs fine but has no traction. Track is OK though. I still can't understand how I let this happen.
Mike - Casmir Pulaski, a very unlikely American hero!
Tom O - Sorry to read about the additional stress your relative is putting the family through.
Michael - Good to read that the UPS dilemma is close to over.
I think a few rumbles of thunder woke me briefly early this morning, but can't be certain.
Was it rumbles of thunder or the neighbor starting his truck???
Terry - Never had to put the shorts and tee's away this winter except for a week!
Yes, this website has been giving me trouble for a few days now, more so this morning. Frustrating.
Everybody have a great Tuesday. If you live in Texas, go out and vote.