Scattered Thoughts . . .

I put together a few comparison "before and after" photos of my large scale trolley and my large scale steam locomotive.  I've been wanting to do this for awhile but never got around to it.  Having just working on the trolley again, I figured it was a good time to capture some "after" photos and then compose "before and after" comparisons. In each comparison photo, the top photo is the train in its stock condition from the factory before I did any work on it while the bottom photo shows the same train after I rebuilt it, repainted it and added details. So, this first comparison photo below is of the trolley.  I purchased the trolley a little over a year ago and immediately started planning for an upgrade and rebuild.  It was not running well when it arrived at my door because the motor had a split gear.  I immediately replaced the motor with Bachmann's replacement drive but, disappointingly and unexpectedly, the brand new assembly still ran quite ...

I 'm still feeling rather lousy so I stayed indoors again today.  I happened to find a small project to keep me busy for a short while so that was good. Since the time that I felt I had finished painting the new truss bridge for my little garden railroad, I've been thinking something isn't right.  I couldn't put my finger on it but I was left feeling the something wasn't right.  Part of me thinks the color isn't exactly right even though I've painted it and repainted it about a half dozen times.  I don't know if I should go lighter with the green or go darker toward a greenish charcoal.  I also realized that maybe I'm just feeling as though it is not "complete" yet and needs more detail.   In an attempt to add more detail to this truss bridge, this morning I decided to order some brass stock and tiny round head brass nails to add some detail to this bridge.  I plan to cut the brass stock into shapes depicted by the white paper in the photo ...

T his morning, I noticed that the weather was unusually nice so I decided it would finally be a good day to do a little more work on my large scale steam locomotive and the trolley.  I had painted and weathered both of them but I never got around to sealing all my work with a matte UV resistant sealer.  This is something I would prefer to do outside since I would be applying this sealer from a spray can and it appears as though today would be a good day. My plan was to go outside to grab a couple of sawhorses and a piece of plywood so I could make a utilitarian table where I could safely place my big steam locomotive and trolley.  We've had bears and skunks in our yard quite often lately so I've been very vigilant about scanning the area before I step too far away from our door.  I stepped outside...  no bears...  no skunks...  then headed to behind the house where I left my sawhorses. As I was about to place my right foot back behind the sawhorses so ...

I spent much of the day yesterday finishing up wiring the large scale trolley for the new electronics, new motor block, and new battery power.   I had all sorts of room in my big steam locomotive's tender when I did this same upgrade to that locomotive but this trolley has far less room so it was a frustratingly tight fit and things are not fitting as well as I would have preferred.  That being said, even with seeing some wires inside the trolley, this was definitely a worthwhile upgrade because I would not have used the trolley otherwise.     My plan was to keep everything I added to this trolley out of sight.  I added a lot...  the battery was perhaps the largest thing, a speaker in a homemade speaker box is large too, the electronic circuit board, a charging jack, a fuse holder, an on-off-on switch, and all the wiring.  I was hoping to be able to hide everything snugly up against the underside of the roof while the jack, switch and fuse w...

I 've been laying low while I continue to recover from my tick bite.  I'm still fever-free which I think is now the start of the third day of no fever so that is good.  I don't want to overdo it so I've been laying low inside the house.  While I'm laying low indoors,  I decided to start on a long-planned model railroading project. The particular trains I've been working on with this project are my largest trains...  narrow gauge F scale trains that run on G scale track.  These trains are quite large so are best suited for an outdoor garden layout unless you have a basketball court-sized building just sitting around unused.  We don't have that kind of real estate so we'll be setting up a small garden railroad in our backyard. About eight years ago, I found a beat-up freight set with a big 4-6-0 steam locomotive that was reported as "not running" at a small train show.  The guy was asking for $40 for the whole set so I jumped on it.  I figured ...

T he first of our 50 tulips has bloomed today!  Kenzie, our playhouse gardener, will be happy to see it in person.  For now, this photo will have to do.  Gee showed this first tulip to Kenzie this afternoon during their daily video chat but seeing it in person will be much, much nicer though.   It will be interesting to see how many different colors we get.  So far, we are seeing only yellow and what appears to be red.  It looks like that red one next to this yellow one will be the next to bloom...  probably tomorrow...

Will and Sue gave us a big bag of tulip bulbs a few months ago.  Sheila and I had been trying to find a home for them in one of our flowerbeds and finally decided to plant them around the playhouse.  This meant I had to find enough rocks to use as a border for two new flowerbeds.  I quickly found the necessary rocks and dug two new flowerbeds, one on each side of the path to the playhouse. Kenzie came over and helped Gee plant all the bulbs about a month ago... After Kenzie and Gee planted the bulbs, I went out there with chicken wire to cover the flowerbeds to keep our local rodents from stealing the bulbs.  I then covered the chicken wire with a mix of more potting soil and top soil.  We've had bulbs stolen by rodents before so hopefully this chicken wire will deter them this time. We'll see how these tulips do in the spring.  They should look very nice flanking each side of the steps to the playhouse.  

After turning over the ground in the front flowerbed... I had a good day of health yesterday and it was beautiful outside so we spent the day out in the yard doing our first day of landscaping for this year.  As I've written many times before, it is a rarity when my health cooperates with the weather... good health coinciding with good weather... so, after two weeks of pretty lousy health, it felt awesome to be doing something physical and being productive for a change! We cleaned up the flowerbeds... I turned the ground over... weeded out clumps of weeds... raked... weeded again... leveled... added wildflower seeds... lightly raked again to cover most of the seeds... while Sheila pulled weeds and rearranged plantings in another flowerbed.  One of the flowerbeds, weeded and seeded... I got the weedwhacker running and knocked down some of the longer grass where the mower can't access... I also got the lawnmower running and cut the lawn.  The yard is lookin...

Although about six months have passed, I am going to go ahead and share a couple of photos from our garden this year.  Of course, our garden is now buried in snow but, for a few short months every summer, our stone paths are lined with very photogenic wildflower gardens. The variety of flowers we typically grow each summer is pretty colorful, lush and amazing.  Of course, these wildflowers attract all sorts of birds, grasshoppers, crickets and bees. If I am having a quiet, but slow morning, I tend to grab my camera and head to the gardens to find things to photograph.  Every now and then I get lucky and find a few flowers which aren't blowing in the wind or a cooperative insect or bird. Here are two photos I just recently found sitting in a folder on my computer which I thought would be nice to share...   Hope you enjoy!