gmpullmanWe have to keep the critter population down in order to protect the chickens.
Top of page?
All you can eat:
(they taste like pickled chicken)
Re: the chickens, you need one of these:
Raccoons at bird feeders.... I know the pain.
We have one that is taking the oranges off of the Oriole feeder, eating everything but the rind, then going over to the seed feder and tipping it so as to munch on seeds.
Mike - Glad to hear the surgery went well. Hoping this one solves the issue.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
Good Morning Diners. Chloe, loaded scrambled eggs and some whole wheat toast please.
Thanks John & Ricky. Praying this surgery works.
We don't seem to have a problem with Racoons (yet) at our birdfeeder, but my wife isn't always on top of keeping it filled either. We do have a good number of suicidal rabbits at the house though. We have three small dogs, all bred for hunting small game. They also have dog doors to go out of at any time. Usually the rabbits get away, but not always. We do have opossums in the neighborhood too. One of our neighbors has a variety of fruit trees in their yard, and the opossums are especially fond of taking a few bites out of the pears and then chucking them over the fence into our yard. This time of year we find pears with itty bitty bites taken out of them along the fence between our yards every couple of days. There are a line of spruce trees along the fence they must climb with them and then drop them on our side. We were actually getting a bit upset with our neighbors until we figured out it wasn't them!
Shouldn't Track Fiddler be back from his little getaway soon? Hope they are having fun. Seems like NorthBrit Dave is on holiday as well, if memory serves. Still, it seems a little slow in the diner lately. Must be everyone is sleeping off the effects of the wine train York1 John brought us to!
Have a good day everyone.
Mike
Good morning, everyone. How about bacon, eggs, and coffee this morning? It never gets old having my favorite meal.
It's raining again. It's unusual for us to have several days in a row of rain. I'm not complaining. A side benefit is that the lawn mowing can't be done until it dries out a little.
If you've ever traveled in California, you notice the large variety of landscapes in a single state. Deserts, ocean, forests, farmland plains, mountains, -- it seems California has it all. No wonder so many people moved there during the last century.
I visited the mission at San Juan Capistrano years ago. The story of the swallows was pretty neat. The San Juan Capistrano train station:
Have a good day, gentlemen.
York1 John
The Japanese beatles have showed up. Its been a few years.
Had to buy a trap for them.
moelarrycurly4The Japanese beatles have showed up.
"Japanese Beatles" you say...
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
I am so sick of painting this living room.
SeeYou190I am so sick of painting this living room.
IMO, better than wallpapering!!!
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
I walpapered a small bathroom once. Never again.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasleyI walpapered a small bathroom once. Never again
I've never put up wallpaper, but I'm confident that if I did, it would look horrible.
York1I've never put up wallpaper, but I'm confident that if I did, it would look horrible.
Same here. I would not even know where to start with wallpaper. Putting up printed paper backdrops is barely in my skill set.
When I say "living room", that is a bit misleading.
The living room section of this project includes three small closets, two alcoves, the garage entrance nook, and a nook for the desk. All that, and the living room too. This is a lot of painting.
I haven't wallpapered in decades but I actually liked doing it! I got a huge sense of accomplishment when the job was done and looked good. In our first house in Chatham, Ontario we wallpapered the whole house. It was the thing to do back then! We used grass paper that was 4' wide for the front hall and the stairway. Hanging that was a challenge! Some of the pieces were 18' long! To add to the challenge, it wasn't pre-pasted. We had a heck of a time trying to figure out where we had applied the glue and where we hadn't. Finally I smartened up and added some yellow food colouring to the paste. That made things much easier!
Like most of you, these days I would never even consider using wallpaper, even if I could still hang it myself. Some things come and go. IMHO, wallpaper has went!
Cheers!!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
A close friend of mine was buried today. I had know him for 55 years. His name was Ted (Gil) Gilbank and he was the Commanding Officer of the 151 Lloyd Chadburn Squadron of the Royal Canadian Air Cadets which I joined at the tender age of 13 in 1967.
Gil spent 70 years working with the RCAC, starting out as an Leading Air Cadet (LAC) in 1952 and rising to the rank of Lt. Col. around the year 2000. He had an incredible influence on many, many young people including me. He was generous to a fault with his time, and he even spent many hours with cadets outside of the official Air Cadet program. He took me and others camping several times and we toured all over northern Ontario. He taught me how to speak confidently in public. He also set me straight on a few occassions, like when he reined in my overly aggressive yelling of commands on the parade square sounding like I was angry with everything in the world! I could go on and on and on.
The world has lost a great person!
Thanks for listening.
Dave,
Sorry to hear that. I don't have anyone in my life that I have considered a friend for a very long period of time.
He sounds like an interesting person.
California Is A Beautiful Place
-Photograph by Kevin Parson
I am sure I have more than enough pictures from California to keep this going for the rest of the month.
Dave, I'm sorry to hear about your friend. He sounds like an amazing individual. People like that are too few.
Today is the second coat of paint on the living room day... here I go.
I am looking forward to next week and putting all this mess back together.
It Reached 100 degrees here yesterday. My AC tried to be flakey but I found the issue. I have a loose connection from 24v transformer to blower contactor.
sometime blower does not come on. I will attack it early in the morning.
moelarrycurly4My AC tried to be flakey but I found the issue. I have a loose connection from 24v transformer to blower contactor.
I had my entire A/C system replaced about 5 years ago. For the first six months after the installation I had all kinds of goofy problems.
They finally got them all straightened out, and the system has been flawless since then.
Good luck with your repairs.
Good morning, diners. I'm a little late today, but I'll still have bacon and eggs.
Dave, sorry to hear about your friend. It sounds like he was a great influence on your life. The best obituary for a man is that he left the world a better place.
SeeYou190Sorry to hear that. I don't have anyone in my life that I have considered a friend for a very long period of time.
Strangely enough, I am in kind of the same place. I have a lot of aquaintances, but none that I could call close friends. In my case, this was completely done by me on purpose, and I don't regret it. At one time, I had a 'best' friend, but I won't go into why that ended.
I have not ridden a motorcycle in 50 years, but at one time I was zipping through San Diego traffic at 50 mph on one. That was enough for me for the rest of my life.
California is one of the most beautiful states, with lots of trains running. This is another one of the Surfliner, this time at San Clemente:
Have a great Friday, everyone.
York1I have not ridden a motorcycle in 50 years, but at one time I was zipping through San Diego traffic at 50 mph on one.
I think it has been about 25 years for me. My last motorcycle was a HD DynaGlide Daytona.
My favorite was my 1973 FLH. Somehow all my pictures of my motorcycles have one of the girls in them.
Those kids creeped into nearly every picture I took.
My AC is from 1974 still going.
First of all I saw my cardiac surgeon this morning and I am now cleared to drive and can now lift 20lbs and I asked if that included bowling and he said yes!
Last I rode a motorcycle was in 1974 and I broke my pelvis in 3 places, no riding since then but I worked for Harley Davidson back in the early 2000's.
Regarding AC, mine would not shut off, made an appointment with the dealer, but I tried installing a new Nest Controller and that took care of the problem so cancelled the appointment.
Rick Jesionowski
Rule 1: This is my railroad.
Rule 2: I make the rules.
Rule 3: Illuminating discussion of prototype history, equipment and operating practices is always welcome, but in the event of visitor-perceived anacronisms, detail descrepancies or operating errors, consult RULE 1!
Dave: Sounds like your friend was a really good guy who will be missed.
John & Kevin: I understand your thoughts on friends. I have a couple of friends who I can call on to do anything for me, I would do anything for them. Unfortunately, we live hundreds of miles apart and rarely see each other. We pick up conversations like nothing has changed. I haven't made any friends here except for work friends; and my eye issue has kept me from getting involved in the local model rr scene. Hopefully that will change later in the year.
Had a very eventful day at work yesterday; we had a bomb threat called in to the local PD for our campus. I was the only administrator on campus, everyone else was on vacation. We got through it, no bomb; but not without evacuating buildings, closing campus, and calling for bomb sniffing dogs. We later found out that several campuses across the country had threats called in at about the same time yesterday.
Friends...
I know this sounds campy, but I am very lucky that I married my best friend, and we have been together for 34 years. There is not one I would rather hang out with, spend time with, or talk to.
Kevin, did your wife get ahold of your log-in?
Rick, congratulations on the good news from the cardiologist!
Tin Can, that certainly sounds eventful. Glad to hear it wasn't serious.
We don't have central air as our house has no ductwork (hot water baseboard heat). We aren't fans of mini-split systems. I looked into miniduct high velocity systems a few years ago. I may go that route someday, but it won't be simple. The way my house was built, I will need two air movers and want them to run off a single compressor. Only one system out there that can do that right now and the technology to do so is new, therefore pricey. For now, we'll get by with window units in the bedrooms upstairs and a portable unit downstairs.
'evenin'
I installed my central air system back in 1998. I have a ranch house and electric baseboard heat which I was "nervous" about in the beginning (electric heat — way too expensive, I was warned) but today I feel we have an ideal system.
After the first year in the house (1983) I installed a good, airtight stove. it provides about 75% of our heat and the baseboard heat, with individual thermostats in all the rooms and living areas only kick in as needed and we keep them pretty low.
The A/C mounted in the "attic" is also nice since the cool air is delivered from above. As it is we only run it about 20 or so days in the warm months. I don't mind warm days but Dee Ann sleeps better when it is cool (and lower humidity) so I fire up the A/C for her benefit.
I ran 6" and 8" flex ducts in the ceiling area. Crawling over them can be a pain but I seldom have to go in the attic area. After the 2011 fire it was all replaced by a "professional" installer and they didn't do as good of a job as my original system.
Coils at Pinole by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
Didn't know Alcos were allowed to smoke in California!
Alco smoke in wine country by Mike Danneman, on Flickr
Best wishes to all —
Ed
gmpullmanAs it is we only run it about 20 or so days in the warm months.
I never turn mine off. When it gets cool enough, it just stops running.
I never turn my heater on. I honestly don't even know if it works or not.
EDIT: Not only are avatars all gone, but emoticons are not working either.
I just stopped in the Diner for Saturday lunch, and Chloe told me no one came in for breakfast today.
I will be leaving her a big tip, I hope it makes her day better.