Running Bear's May 2022 Coffee Shop

[santafewillie]

By the way. Do they plant another crop when the wheat is harvested?

Not usually since it is actually combined later this month or early June. Moisture in June-August cannot be counted on to germinate any seed in the ground. However some farmers will cut the wheat as a hay crop before the seed heads form in late April. They can usually plant sorghum (milo) or soybeans in very early May and get a decent crop by September or October. May is normally our wettest month and any rainfall can allow either crop to thrive 3-4 weeks without any additional moisture.
Typically this field south of me (and many others in the neighborhood) are grown in wheat for three seasons, and allowed to lie fallow for 10 months and replanted with sorghum or soybeans. Those crops can be followed immediately with wheat again which here can be planted as late as Christmas.

 

[santafewillie]

Just feel like being lazy today. Think I'll drag the lawn chair out to the back deck and take a nap under the sun.

Some days are just made for that.

 

[PNKFLOYD]

I believe that someone has already mentioned it here, but I think that Elmer's Glue All is the same thing. My bottle here has dried up, so I will demonstrate with the Elmer's.

Willie- Great demonstration on using glue for window making. I have found that the brand of glue doesn't matter, but that the glue should not be real thick to let the film of glue span the opening.
The largest opening I have spanned was about 3/8" x 3/8".

 

[Jaz avalley]

The weatherby 7mm is a hunting rifle for shooting Bambi at multiple hundreds of yards. A 9mm is not good for that at any range except point blank.

And you hope bambI is not big and got large antlers and has loads of momentum because he may still get to you, at least if the 7mm does not stop slow him down you have time for another shot.

 

[Jaz avalley]

Good Morning All. Clear but hazy and 72° this morning. Nothing much has changed in the forecast, rain starting Saturday and continuing through Tuesday with abnormally cool temperatures Sunday and Monday. Given the NWS record this year, that will be off. The weather radar showed a shower passing overhead about an hour ago, but the porch and car are dry. Maybe it hasn't hit the ground yet?

It must be Thursday and the weekly grocery trek, as the fridge and pantry are quite empty. After the cardiologist visit yesterday, I spent some quality time mowing various parts of the yard. I am having to use the mower on an extra-high height right now, in order to get things under control. I am using #10 of 12 which is about 6". By tomorrow I will be able to go back and re-cut stuff on a more normal height. Remember my tractor/mower was in the shop for 11 days and it rained 2.5". I have currently completed about 2.5 acres, just a half acre to go.

Covid_ I thought that we informally agreed to quit posting about this and vaccines a few months ago.

Thanks for the likes and comments on the garden and project pictures posted yesterday; Karl, Joe, Guy, Dave B, Dave, Tom O, Chad, Sherrel, Steve J, Hughie, James, Rick, Patrick, Louis, Mikey.

So on the subject of gardens, the wheat field next door is turning into "amber waves of grain" rather rapidly. Sure is a great sight to see every time I step on the back porch.
View attachment 146097
View attachment 146098

Out in the train shed yesterday, I mostly ran trains since I hadn't done that in over a week. I did spray the bank with dull coat before I add clear styrene windows and window treatments. I also put together the tutorial below for Guy and any others who may find it useful.
While running trains, I stopped one on a siding in Charlottesville. That siding crosses a grade crossing. I don't know if any of you other folks break a train when blocking a grade crossing overnight, but I do.
View attachment 146099

Ken (D&J) -

At first I just dismissed this as paranoid fake news since you didn't give a specific link to your information. Then I found this:
Biden Administration’s plans to surrender U.S. sovereignty to the World Health Organization
Time to write to my congressional delegation.
Karl - I have actually been informed about the roof in much stronger terms than I posted. Discouraged is not what it is, threatened more aptly describes it.
Dave B -

Have they really improved or is it that you just don't notice as much since you're used to it???
Guy - Regarding the windshield on the truck. Years ago I bought some of this.
View attachment 146091
I believe that someone has already mentioned it here, but I think that Elmer's Glue All is the same thing. My bottle here has dried up, so I will demonstrate with the Elmer's.
Start with a dab of Elmer's and a toothpick.View attachment 146092
Spread a bit around the perimeter like this.
View attachment 146093
Then with just a tad more on the toothpick, draw it out across the whole opening like this.
View attachment 146095
Let it dry. Rotate the vehicle every five minutes or so for the first half hour to keep the glue from pooling.
This vehicle was not dry when I had to leave the train shed, so here's another that I did a few years ago.
View attachment 146096
Practice first. Drill some 3/16" holes in some scrap styrene and smooth off the edges and try this on the styrene first. Any excess can be carefully trimmed off with an Exacto #11 or a single-edge razor blade later. On this red vehicle, I actually did this from the inside since the cab was rather roomy. It is by no means perfect, but it is a lot less trouble than trimming clear styrene in my opinion.
Tom O -

Not sure if I am paying anything, except maybe through Medicare and insurance premiums.

Well, everyone have a wonderful day. Think positive thoughts.

Nice job,

I did the same on a loco

 

[Jaz avalley]

Good Morning!
Heavy rain this fine morning, so I get a day off from fencing. I'm within the last 10' and a gate, so I might finish it over the long weekend.
The client is so happy he's asked me to submit a price for new fencing along the adjacent property.
One of the problems with fencing these properties, is that I need to erect a temporary wire fence inside the old fence to keep the large dogs in the yard until a new fence section is built. So it's been 20' at a time.

It's 38F out there in the wet.

Last evening, I did put the wheels on my 52 Ford truck. This truck was made to look like an older truck, as my layout is into the mid-60's. I feel that 'Dixie' looks darn good in there as a women trying to start a trucking company in the 60's.
View attachment 146100
View attachment 146101
The right rear wheels sit up a little bit, but, I don't think it will be noticeable on the layout. Also, the cab is not secured, so I can take it off to put in a windshield.

I'm just going to sit back and sip coffee while the rain patters on the roof. It appears I'll get some layout time today, which is very good for the soul.

Have a good one!

Ooh I like it

 

[chadbag]

Feeling reasonbly well today. Last night slept better than the two previous nights, though I did wake in the middle of the night a few times for potty breaks and one time my brain got busy thinking and I was up almost two hours before I decided to read a small amount to calm down... But overall was better than the nights before. Shoulder hurt a lot less and the big bruise on my left hip was a lot less sensitive. Most of the abrasions are half healed and no issue. Just the bigger gouges still bandaged and nurse-wife said they looked good when she helped me put new bandages on (which do to location of injury were easier for her).

Still have not been back up to finish the job as my work computer crapped out on Tuesday and I was busy yesterday including a trip downtown to the Apple Store. Went back today to get it and it seems to work. No charge as all they did was take it apart and re-seat cables and run a ton of tests, all of which passed. I suspect a cable had come loose or a connection oxidized or something.

 

[MikeInHubCity]

Not usually since it is actually combined later this month or early June. Moisture in June-August cannot be counted on to germinate any seed in the ground. However some farmers will cut the wheat as a hay crop before the seed heads form in late April. They can usually plant sorghum (milo) or soybeans in very early May and get a decent crop by September or October. May is normally our wettest month and any rainfall can allow either crop to thrive 3-4 weeks without any additional moisture.
Typically this field south of me (and many others in the neighborhood) are grown in wheat for three seasons, and allowed to lie fallow for 10 months and replanted with sorghum or soybeans. Those crops can be followed immediately with wheat again which here can be planted as late as Christmas.

Willie- The fields separating our local airport’s main runway from the large mammal(bison, elk, whitetail, etc) drive at our small zoo rotate crops from one year to the next between soybean & corn.
Jaz- nice looking switcher.
D&J Ken- I did the lazy day thing today, too. I had today off, but I went to work for a picnic with coworkers & leadership team from the Chippewa Falls HQ. We played bags & my team won the first game(hit the winning throw “nothing but net”- my only points of the game) & then won a second game with a different partner(orig partner had to go back into the call floor- they allowed everyone working an hour to eat & play/hang out).

 

[troyphoto]

Glass of red-blend wine, and a book on politics

That's my evening.

G'nite

 

[kbkchooch]

Trackside diners, gotta love em!

 

[McLeod]

and a book on politics

That's living dangerously. Most folks just take a sleeping pill.

Willie - Thank you for the excellent tutorial on windshield forming.
I tried it today, using Pacer Formula 560 canopy glue. This glue is marketed as 'The Worlds Best Canopy Glue', and is what I used to glue on canopies back in the model aircraft days.

I'm afraid I met with limited success. The trucks rear window went first as it is the most expendable. Here are the results:

I applied the glue a bit thick, ya think. It has an air bubble in it and absolutely had troubles levelling out.

Then I moved to the front windshield, which went grievous on me:

This photo shows the glue right after application, and it is still wet white. You can see how the glue has started to separate. That separation spread right across the entire windshield as it dried.

Perhaps you can see in this next photo that I tried to salvage the situation. Here, I placed a strip of clear acetate into the windshield space and glued it in. The results are not pleasing:

So, I can only believe that it's back to the drawing board. I'll scrape all that glue out, and probably need to do a repaint on the truck (wasn't happy with the first paint anyways).

Maybe I should buy new glue for the next round. The Pacer stuff is at least 15yrs old, and I had to thin it down with water.

Anyway, have a great evening to all!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

I set the GTEL tender aside after cleaning up the kingpin bolster. I'll have to pick up a plastic dowel rod tomorrow at the hobby shop to finish the repair job.
Did some more work on an MTH SD70ACe that I stripped the decoder out of a few years ago. MTH decoders don't play well with other DCC decoders so in order to fix that, I decided to replace the decoder with an ESU decoder. I had a problem with it though. The loco wouldn't run after I wired the decoder into it.
Now, I'm sure some of ya all are gonna start telling me how to troubleshoot the wiring, but really. I've built DCC decoders from the bare circuit board and plastic baggies of diodes, resistors, caps and chips. I know which wire goes were.
I took the decoder back out of the loco and mounted it in my Loys Toys D1 (Decoder tester). With the jumper installed on the tester, the decoder worked fine. Motor, direction, lights and functions. I went back to the loco chassis and applied a 9 volt battery to the motor leads. The loco took off across the desk surface. I put the chassis on the track and measured the AC power at the two leads that would go to the decoder. Rocked the chassis to see it there might be an intermittent issue. Solid voltage read.
Puzzling, but then, this isn't the first anomaly to occur on this railroad. I'll let it sit overnight and continue messing with it tomorrow after I get back home from a ride.

 

[McLeod]

Folks, I knew I wasn't going to sleep until I got the glass into this little truck. So I worked at it until I had cut a piece of acetate that fit:

I used the Pacer glue to stick the glass in. I'll clean it up better in the morning, when the glue is dry.
Now I can do a bit of repainting and clearcoat it.

Goodnight!

 

[Jaz avalley]

View attachment 146116
Trackside diners, gotta love em!

Very nicely presented scene, ticks so many ‘yes’ buttons.
If you had ‘cut’ thr bottom you would have lost the ground signal but the edge of the model would have been lost tooexcellent modelling

 

[bnsf971]

Good morning. It's clear and 64, with an orange air quality alert.

 

[OBTC 1909]

Good morning all! 66 on the way to 88 degrees. We got quite a bit more rain yesterday and last night with more coming tomorrow night. Gonna be a while before we can get back in the garden because of that, but at least we do have a quite a bit planted so far. I really want to till up some more ground and plant more corn and green beans but it would be a muddy mess if I tried it today.

Had a good visit with my sleep specialist yesterday. I do feel like things have improved using the BIPAP machine although there are still nights I fight with the mask half the night trying to get it to seal. They gave me a sample mask different than my current one to see if it seals better. I'm going to try it out tonight. Overall I feel like things are going in the right direction though.

Seasonal allergies improved yesterday but seem a little bit worse again this morning. Tis the season.

Went to my grandson's 8th grade graduation last night. Hard to believe he's that old already and a tad taller than me to boot. Having a little party for him this evening.

Off to work soon. Hope you all have a great day!

 

[D&J RailRoad]

Just heard on the morning talk show, a child actor from the movie "Jaws" recently became the chief of police in the town where the movie was shot where he participated in it.

'Jaws' Child Star Named Police Chief Of Town Where Movie Was Filmed

Jonathan Searle has been named the new police chief of Oak Bluffs — 47 years after he filmed Steven Spielberg's iconic shark shocker in the same Martha's

nationworldnews.com

Jonathan Searle's role in the movie in 1975 was the prankster kid who trolled the surf with a shark fin causing a panic among the beach goers. My kind of kid.

 

[santafewillie]

Good Morning All. Around here it's mostly cloudy and 73°, somewhat windy out of the south which is bringing moisture up from the Gulf. Today's high of 94° will be above yesterday's high of 91°. NWS is still predicting rain for tomorrow through Wednesday now and unseasonably cooler temperatures from Saturday now through Thursday. They're actually predicting a high Sunday of only 69° due to a cool front from the north. We'll see about that!

Grocery trek went without a hitch, including stops at Home Depot for more chlorine, bank to deposit a large sum of money, pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, two gas stations - one for the limo and one to fill up the gas cans for the mower. A definite increase in summer attire on the young ladies kept my eyes exercised.

Meanwhile I was able to get into the pool yesterday after finally getting the steps in place. Temperature was a comfy 83.5°. It has never been this warm this early, it is mainly due to the removal of the 40 year old Ash tree that partially shaded it in the morning for many years. It did take me 16 gallons of liquid chlorine to finally clear up the algae that developed. Not sure how it developed under the cover all winter???

Thanks to all who commented on or reacted to the pictures posted yesterday; Guy, Tom O, Chad, Hughie, Sherrel, Dave B, James, Rick, Smudge, Patrick, Curt, Mikey, Jaz, IB Ken.

The trip to the train shed yesterday was a partial success. I did install all of the clear acetate in the bank building, but the pool was beckoning.
So how about a few overall layout views today.
Looking at the return loops on the peninsula.

And the west wall.

Smudge - Not really worried if I need a stent. It's the hospital environment that always concerns me. This same cardiologist put one in my wife maybe 14 years ago. It will be done in the out-patient portion of the hospital and I should be released within a couple of hours. He says that I am cleared to drive myself home if needed, but my wife will be doing that. Local anesthesia only, they'll be going through the groin since it is the lower left whatever that they are going to. That part should be fun.
Patrick - Road reconstruction here was announced in 2018 for a six mile stretch of a two lane state highway that I use to get to the Interstate, expanding it into a four lane one with some left turn lanes as well. For the most part land acquisition (41.5 acres) took three years and utility relocation began in early 2021. Water company had to move two 12" mains, although one was originally only a 4" main to start with, two different electric providers are in the process of moving all of their poles over, and the phone company has already completed their work. Highway department has promised no road or lane closures, ha, ha! I have two alternate routes from my house, one is actually shorter but is over crummy county roads, the other is over a similar state highway, but passes through a small town on the way. Distance is similar. I'll most likely still use the old highway occasionally just to watch the progress.
This is a state highway project. On county roads, our local road commissioner told me and a neighbor once, that there isn't enough money in the budget to repair or maintain his roads, just enough to patch them!
Mike - Soybeans are a legume like beans, clover, peas and peanuts. They extract nitrogen from the air and leave it in nodules on their roots, which in turn help fertilize the soil for future crops like the corn.
Guy - The glue doesn't always work for me and I have to redo it sometimes. Air bubbles are a no-no. The process takes a little practice.

Today is Cher's 76th birthday. I used to like her until she got too political.
Everybody have a great day, and an awesome weekend.

 

[TLOC]

Good morning from So. Central Wisconsin. Been up a couple of hours already but just picked up the IPadPro.
we were supposed to hit 80 yesterday and finally did about 6:30pm yesterday. It is 68f degrees now heading to a high of 69 with T-storms around 10am. The hit and miss rain predicted yesterday did hit us to the tune of .75”. There were no overnight storms that seem to have gone north and south of us.

I am not exactly sure what I want to do. With the rains and the driving embargo I am relegated to the house and walking the property. Just not ready for the train room yet. I may cheat the diet and have cereal for breakfast instead of yogurt and granola. I know living big!

Met with my Endocrinologist yesterday and I have the recovery plan till July. Her hubby called last night and invited me to dinner at their place tonight. Said no, but will accept when Terry is back. The doc and my wife have become good friends. The doc is 15 years younger then her hubby. He is my 5 years older then me (74) and just retired and now wants to return them to India. She doesn’t want to retire and said to Terry she will divorce before she goes back to India. Without Terry I don’t want to get in the middle of that by going to dinner. They were a great couple together until he retired. I also know some of my wife’s and my sister’s attitude toward feminine independence has rubbed off on the doc over the last 5 years.

Just got a text message from Hulu wishing me a Happy Streaming Day. Another Hallmark holiday invention I did not buy a card for.

I am heading out on a trail before the rains hit. I will text the SIL that I am out there. Maybe the walk will burn off this energy I seem to have an excess of.

Pictures are of the bench project, adding fiber optic lights

Have a good day
TomO

 

[logandsawman]

Good morning all

49 with clouds, sun breaking through

Chooch, Willie, Tom - great layout scenes!

Flo- I would like some scrambled eggs, hash browns, and white toast with that strawberry rhubarb jam. Thank you

Guy - way to solve the windshield problem!

I was fast asleep while you were still at it!

More later. Dave LASM