Health Update with a Few Photos

I haven't written anything here in a week or two so I know I'm behind a bit when it comes to staying up to date about my health.

I had last written about designing and building a new bridge for our garden railroad.  I still need to add a second coat of paint and then build the roadway surface but the weather has not been cooperating.  It has been too cold for painting and we've had rain, on and off, every day.  I really need a couple of completely dry days to finish this project.

While I'm waiting for the weather to improve, I've mostly been indoors working on a few other little scenic things for the garden railroad.  I've also had to step up my daily physical therapy for my spinal injuries.  I was having a painful time walking around after those couple of days bending and crouching while working on the bridge!  

So, I've been indoors working on rewiring a couple of grade crossing signals that I plan to add to the garden railroad.  These signals were wired so that both lights illuminate at the same time.  Also, they did not flash so the lights were either all on at the same time or off.  I want them to flash alternately like the real thing so I had to rewire them.  

I also had to order a few electronic parts.  My plan is to test the new wiring tomorrow, including all the electronics to make them flash alternately, so maybe I'll put together a short video showing them in action.  

I ran into a problem after rewiring each signal.  The crossbar that holds each signal was also conducting electricity between the two lights.  I had to come up with a way to isolate each light so I can have alternating illumination.  I didn't want to remove all the new wiring and start over so I had to come up with an alternate plan.

I decided the simplest way to accomplish this was to glue a piece of wood to the rear of this crossbar and then cut a thin slice through the brass crossbar breaking the conductivity through the crossbar.  

You can see the wood I glued to the backside of the crossbar in the photo below.  I still hadn't filed it to shape in this photo but it is glued in place....

Below is a photo of the front side of the crossbar after cutting through the brass.  I used a Dremel rotary cut-off wheel for this task and then filled the gap with more glue.  Now each light is isolated allowing for alternating illumination...

Since I shot these photos of the grade crossing signals above, I had painted all the black a silver color just like real grade crossing signals.  So that is another thing I've accomplished in the past few days.  That silver didn't cover well so I needed to apply about four coats of pain to fully cover the black.

Back about a month ago, Will (Sheila's dad), had mentioned that he needed to order firewood.  I had asked how much wood he was getting and who he was getting it from since we needed firewood too.  We only needed about a half or quarter of a cord of wood so our order probably wouldn't be worth anyone dropping off such a small order so I asked if we could possibly pay him for part of his order.  It turns out that Will knew a guy who had some firewood he was looking to unload because it was all odd sizes and very knotty.  We're just using this wood for the backyard firepit so we aren't all that picky.  All I ask is that it isn't rotted out wood.  

Well, this guy dropped off a bunch of large sections of a tree that he couldn't use.  He dropped it off at 3pm.  By the time Sheila arrived home at 4:45pm, I had it all split.  And, I split it by hand using an axe!  This did not help my spinal injuries in the least but I definitely needed the exercise and we definitely needed some good firewood.

So, I had to step up my physical therapy again and now I'm just dealing with a bunch of very sore, old-man, muscles through my back, chest and abdomen.  Honestly, I expected to be feeling worse than I have been after this activity so that is good.  Maybe the previous spinal pain and extra physical therapy helped prepare me.  

I still need to move all this split wood under cover but that is going to be a whole other project.  I need to move out all the lousy firewood first...  fix that roof...  and then I can move this new wood into place where it belongs.

So, spring is finally here in our neck of the woods.  We had an exceptionally dry April but our April showers have begun in May and it has been raining every day since the beginning of May!  We normally have a very short growing season here but it now appears as though it will be a month shorter this year unless the snow arrives late this autumn.

Here is a photo of some of the leaves beginning to emerge from the trees...

I made myself a giant pancake over the weekend...  that was good!

I was testing my little Fuji compact camera and shot a few photos in our bedroom.  Here is just one of those photos...  I really like Fuji cameras and their color...

My new-to-me Fuji medium format camera was sitting on the bed while I was testing my little Fuji compact camera (after realizing my sound problems at The Harlem Globetrotters show) so I captured a quick snapshot of this bigger Fuji camera while it was sitting on the bed...

My spinal pain has mostly subsided back to my normal levels (pain at the 3-4 level) but my muscles are still a bit sore through my abdomen, chest and under my arms.  Splitting wood by hand can be a bit physical!

So, even though the weather and my health have not been cooperating, I have been getting small things accomplished little-by-little.