Scattered Thoughts . . .

I made some significant progress on our newly designed and now fully built girder bridge for our garden railroad yesterday.  Hmmm...  well, I guess it is not fully built just yet because I still need to pave it with fine sand and I need to add lights.  The bridge, itself, is fully built though.   Consequently, my spinal pain last night was unbearable.  My spine was on fire with sharp pain radiating to my hips, pelvic region and kidneys.  The pain truly was brutal, take-your-breath away type of pain.  I'm feeling significantly better this morning so that is good! Yesterday's primary job was to assemble all the balusters, the top rail and the parapet bearings at each corner.   This promised to be a tedious job but it went more smoothly and more quickly than I expected.   Each baluster needed to be glued and nailed in place, one-by-one, using a nail gun so it was definitely a tedious process.   My air compressor and nail gun...

T his year, it seemed like all the grandchildren were really excited to be watching the garden railroad which was nice.  It definitely held their attention for quite a long time!   Lukey enjoys running the trains so he definitely enjoyed himself with this little garden railroad.  Then again, that should come as no surprise since he has always been interested in trains.  I ran one of the trains for a bit but Lukey spent quite a bit of time running both trains. These trains run on battery packs rather than power through the rails.  I made sure both trains were fully charged the night before the barbeque and we had no problem running the trains all day long without a hiccup.  They still had power when I brought them back indoors at the end of the night.  Lukey and I control the locomotive and trolley using apps on two of my tablets so it is all wireless which makes things very easy. This year, the grandchildren got to see a few new structures around ...

I 've been feeling worse today than yesterday so I assume I overdid it yesterday.  Some of the ear infection pain has returned and I just feel kind of lousy.  Today was just the second day of antibiotics so I know this will take some time even though I seemed to feel great yesterday for some reason.  Plus, the antibiotics will do nothing for the COVID symptoms that I'm still feeling.  I'd really like to get beyond this ear infection pain though. So, while sitting on my butt today, I managed to put some paint on the couple of buildings I built yesterday for the garden railroad.  They are looking a bit more appropriate now. I applied a Barn Red stain on the little train station and painted the windows and doors white.  It is looking much better now even though I still need to install corrugated roofing panels and some trim... You can see the coal storage silos behind the station in this photo below... I applied a brown stain to the upper structure of the silo...