Mookie Wow, Murphy - I hate to hear about your department and summer home falling apart. I am terrified of lightning, but hail is always a problem. I keep feeling like the minute Millie comes out of the garage, some silly storm will suddenly appear. And at least here, you can always tell hail clouds - they look like bare baby bottoms hanging out of the sky. That should give everyone pause to consider.... I love dill. Don't do pickles, but e-mail me some and I will just make a boquet out of it. I can also cut it up and put it in my Cheerios - I like the taste and it definitely brightens up my O's.... Moo....
Wow, Murphy - I hate to hear about your department and summer home falling apart. I am terrified of lightning, but hail is always a problem. I keep feeling like the minute Millie comes out of the garage, some silly storm will suddenly appear. And at least here, you can always tell hail clouds - they look like bare baby bottoms hanging out of the sky. That should give everyone pause to consider....
I love dill. Don't do pickles, but e-mail me some and I will just make a boquet out of it. I can also cut it up and put it in my Cheerios - I like the taste and it definitely brightens up my O's....
Moo....
Our youngest son Luke was terrified of lightning as well, but I got him over it. Have Driver help you with this: We had a stair landing with a big window. During thunderstorms, Luke and I would lay on the stairs with a view of the sky. Every time that lightning would flash or thunder would crack, I'd have him yell at the offending natural phenomena. You may want to alert the neighbors ahead of time.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
mudchickenHey Mooks, Ghurkensalat? (BH hears it's really good with asparagus too!)
She who has no signature! cinscocom-tmw
[quote user="Murphy Siding"]
tree68 I have a "patio" that is grass - just a raised level area. Right now I can't get the zero turn onto it, so I'll be taking out the steps I never used and filling that area in so the ramp onto the patio from the yard is wide enough for the zero turn. Wheeeee!
I have a "patio" that is grass - just a raised level area. Right now I can't get the zero turn onto it, so I'll be taking out the steps I never used and filling that area in so the ramp onto the patio from the yard is wide enough for the zero turn.
Wheeeee!
I see a Dukes of Hazzard ramp in your future. Wheeeee!
Murphy, not far off at times. Got a 61" Simplicity w/ a suspensionthat will do 10+ mph. There are places that will really get your attention if you forget to slow down!! Also still use the 22" push and 54" riding tractor in places you don't want to take the '0'.
The zero is a riot to use. Spin to fast and you just dug a trench!!
rvos1979Larry, my neighbor across the street from me has a zero turn, I was slightly puzzled as to why he upgraded to that from a lawn tractor. It still takes him two hours to mow, and his lawn isn't much bigger than mine, which takes me about 45 minutes...........
Maybe it's because he's having fun. I tried my younger sister's zero-turn and got a kick out of it.
By the way, my older sister (78) mows her yard with an old fashioned push reel type mower -- strictly people-powered. My younger sister and I can't keep up with her energy.
_____________
"A stranger's just a friend you ain't met yet." --- Dave Gardner
I was soooo hoping that Murphy would divulge who's stealing all our water and shipping it his way.(ol' Willie has gone into hiding and graduated to Blizzards and Hurricanes?) ... Four days in a row with high 90's and virga, it all is gone before it hits the ground.
Hey Mooks, Ghurkensalat? (BH hears it's really good with asparagus too!)
Mookie rvos1979 Mookie, please quit sending us rain, I'm getting tired of baling my lawn......... I'm sorry, Randy - but that is a different department. You need to contact Murphy - he is in charge of the northern tier. You might have to be a little firm with him....please?
rvos1979 Mookie, please quit sending us rain, I'm getting tired of baling my lawn.........
I'm sorry, Randy - but that is a different department. You need to contact Murphy - he is in charge of the northern tier. You might have to be a little firm with him....please?
I mowed our lawn Sunday after putting it off a bit waiting for cooler weather. I came across bison grazing in the tall grass. Anybody need some dill? When that stuff goes to seed in a flower garden you get a dill hedge the following year. My wife alerted her friends. She said some had come over and gotten some dill but I'm a little concerned. Some of the tracks are from small hooves.
zugmannIt's not that he wanted to - it's that he hadn't figured out how to stop it at the time.
Not entirely the case - but...
I skipped the lawn tractor - went straight from the push mower to the zero turn. What I do know is that certain areas of my yard need to be reconfigured - they aren't friendly to the zero turn. I kinda expected that, though.
Tonight was the county fair parade. As president of the county firefighters association, it was my job to stand on the stage and take the salutes of the marching units as they passed.
Our county fair is billed as the longest continuously running county fair in the country. This year is number 200.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
rvos1979Mookie, please quit sending us rain, I'm getting tired of baling my lawn.........
tree68 They let me back out.... Then I went down the hill (the prison is on an old USAF radar site) to the local farm dealer and bought a new lawn mower. After a trip home to get my trailer, I got it home and provided the afternoon's comedic entertainment - me trying to tame a zero-turn mower. It's a hoot. At least I didn't break anything, and I even mowed my neighbor's lot. With a 42" deck, this mower is really overkill for my yard, but pushing a 22" mower around the yard gets a little less fun every year...
They let me back out....
Then I went down the hill (the prison is on an old USAF radar site) to the local farm dealer and bought a new lawn mower.
After a trip home to get my trailer, I got it home and provided the afternoon's comedic entertainment - me trying to tame a zero-turn mower. It's a hoot. At least I didn't break anything, and I even mowed my neighbor's lot.
With a 42" deck, this mower is really overkill for my yard, but pushing a 22" mower around the yard gets a little less fun every year...
Larry, my neighbor across the street from me has a zero turn, I was slightly puzzled as to why he upgraded to that from a lawn tractor. It still takes him two hours to mow, and his lawn isn't much bigger than mine, which takes me about 45 minutes...........
Mookie, please quit sending us rain, I'm getting tired of baling my lawn.........
Randy Vos
"Ever have one of those days where you couldn't hit the ground with your hat??" - Waylon Jennings
"May the Lord take a liking to you and blow you up, real good" - SCTV
tree68At least I didn't break anything, and I even mowed my neighbor's lot.
It's not that he wanted to - it's that he hadn't figured out how to stop it at the time.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
[quote user="tree68"]
Larry, once you get the hang of it they are SO much better for mowing. It is funny to watch the first few trips around. Couldn't get much help before, now I don't get to use it.
afternoon
Muggy here in Nw Ohio.Ns has an eastbound coal train in the siding.Chores to do here at home.
stay safe
joe
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
tree68 Got the front yard mowed tonight. Maybe if the rain holds off tomorrow I'll take a crack at the back yard... Headed for one of the area state prisons tomorrow morning - to talk about a group that benefits firefighters with cancer. Presumably they'll let me back out when I'm done. Another correctional facility in the area made a large donation and challenged the other facilities to match it. We'll see how these guys do...
Got the front yard mowed tonight. Maybe if the rain holds off tomorrow I'll take a crack at the back yard...
Headed for one of the area state prisons tomorrow morning - to talk about a group that benefits firefighters with cancer. Presumably they'll let me back out when I'm done.
Another correctional facility in the area made a large donation and challenged the other facilities to match it. We'll see how these guys do...
Johnny
evening
Mother nature filled the swamp again today.Work will be busy for quite awhile now.Ns had a westbound frieght in the siding when I left work.Larry saw that story on the news.More of that going on than I like to hear.Chores to do.
Mourning the loss of a state trooper not to far from here - the result of a domestic incident to which he was responding. The husband also shot his wife and injured a neighbor before surrendering to the second officer to arrive on scene.
I was on my way home from the railroad and heard the event unfold on the fire radio (ambulances are dispatched by the fire dispatcher). Terrible loss. The trooper left a wife and three kids.
It's always fun sharing what one knows with people who appreciate the learning.
Had some fun with that today on the train. A regular question I pose to our passengers is where the water from the Moose River will be in a week. It usually ends up being a geography lesson (for them, not me). (Answer - in Lake Ontario)
Not a bad day on the railroad overall. Would have liked more passengers, but those we had had fun. Signed off a new trainman today, too.
Trip report from yesterday, cobbled from my Facebook post:
I had a marvelous day of train-hunting yesterday. My friend Randi had "bought" a trip from me at last year's church auction, and she and her dad Mike finally made the trip.
I showed them some complicated track work at the Park control point in Elmhurst, then (because of an offhand comment Randi made) took them into Proviso for a quick look at the hump and the diesel ramp (there was an SD70M on the turntable). At the yard we encountered a WEPX coal train, so I explained the concept of rotary couplers to them. After that we went over the Mannheim bridge (Mike had said he'd been impressed by the yard's appearance from up there, so we reprised that for him).
After that we got on 294 to go to Indiana. We had to make some fancy detouring to get around some construction traffic on I-80. I had been planning on saving Pine Junction for the trip home, but I had to time out the lunch right so we went there. Nothing transpired while we were there (that in itself was a surprise), but Randi wanted to see how deep the water in the road under the CN bridge went on the wheels of a truck going through (not as deep as I'd expected, though the dropoff at the beginning of the puddle was scary).
We then drove through Gary to get to the Great Lakes Cafe. The place never fails to impress the guests that go with us! We encountered Cindy (the owner) and Gloria (her granddaughter, six months old) in the parking lot, and encountered the rest of the family inside. Both Mike and Randi commented positively on the appearance of the exterior and interior, and their surprise at finding a place like that in such a remote location. Also encountered was some great food! But that wasn't surprising to me.
From there we took U.S. 12 to Michigan City, seeing one train along NS. At the NIPSCO plant there was a welded-rail train in the yard. We stopped and made a fairly close examination of a couple of cars. I think Randi was impressed by the fact that all of those letters and numbers on the cars mean something (I explained LD LMT, LT WT, and their relationship to each other, we found the build dates, and so on). I couldn't find the markings on the rail that I was used to seeing, but we did note that it was 115-pound rail underneath the train (that's weight per yard, for the uninitiated...catch that, Pat? we deal in yard goods, too!).
From there we went into downtown Michigan City, than headed back out on 11th Street, with the South Shore's main line just to the left of us, running down the middle of the street. No close encounters, darn it...a freight train with one of their SD40s would have blown us away!
Back to Chesterton using U.S. 20, which took us next to Amtrak's 110-mph line into Michigan. Again, sadly, no encounters.
Nothing in Porter, either, but the junction of three lines was impressive to them. Then, back to U.S. 12 for the trip into and through Gary, East Chicago, and Hammond. Mike had commented on how he enjoyed seeing large bridges, so I took them through Hegewisch to see the South Shore's bridge over Torrance Avenue and the old Nickel Plate, telling them about how it had been built just off-site and rolled into place.
From there we went to Dolton Junction, encountering an IHB steel train on the old Panhandle connection (I was hoping it would be the "bottle train" with the huge cars of molten metal, but we weren't that lucky) and a CSX stack train leaving Barr Yard for points east, with BNSF power.
The best part of the trip for encountering trains was at Blue Island, where there were trains on both CSX--including one on former GTW trackage--and IHB, as well as a Metra train going over it all on the old Rock Island. We encountered a few other rail fans there, including a father-and-son duo...the father was indulging his son by being/taking him there, but he'd obviously been learning a thing or two from the son as well. We waited to see a shiny CIT locomotive heading a train west on the IHB (their reaction said that this was a rare unit, probably true since it was an older SD unit).
As we were leaving Blue Island a bit before dinnertime, I thought I'd ask Pat if she'd like to join us for supper at Two Brothers from Italy in Elmhurst. Mike asked his wife as well, and we were also joined by Randi's daughter. Good food, and a couple of trains beforehand. It was about 10 1/2 hours total of exploring for the three of us. I only came back with three pages of notes, but those will require a bit of research, particularly the origin of the welded-rail cars.
I felt good about the day spent with Mike and Randi, both of whom said it was a real eye-opener for them. Thanks to Mike for doing the driving and putting up with some vague and spontaneous navigating on occasion, and to both of them for asking lots of questions.
I'm ready for another trip like this one sometime!
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
good almost morning
Went to Deshler for the fireworks.Didn't know they had a truck and tractor show going on tonight as well.Csx sent q 365 to turn to go south as the fireworks were going on.Need to sleep fast.Matt starts his trip in 5 hours.
work still busy.Will be working tomorrow.Local was uptown when I left work.Matt's church group is going to Newark Valley NY.Hope it's not a lake next week.Chores to do here.
We've got a real mess here - some places are getting too much rain, others not that far away are getting too little. Gardens are suffering due to the wetness, as are some crops.
Lake Ontario is the quandry - and thus the St Lawrence River. It doesn't look like they'll be going down any time soon. Some of the rain that hit central NY will actually end up in the big lake. The rest will be going down the Mohawk River to Albany and points south.
Today, it's warm and muggy, with a slight chance of a thunderbumper. We celebrated two days in a row without rain earlier in the week...
Gentlemen: Since we are west of you and send you most of our weather - you should be getting no rain no mo' and heat around 95-100. You should dry nicely. Happy summer....
BOB WITHORN Once again I got wet going to my truck in the rain to get my rain coat so I wouldn't get wet. Just seems I have something backwards. Now the sun is out and I have my jacket hanging in my office and don't need it. Maybe there's a pattern developing here?
Once again I got wet going to my truck in the rain to get my rain coat so I wouldn't get wet. Just seems I have something backwards. Now the sun is out and I have my jacket hanging in my office and don't need it. Maybe there's a pattern developing here?
Muggy here in Nw Ohio.Looked like NS had some empties.Work still busy.Finshed off Matt's list for his trip.Other chores to do here.
Joe
No rain as of yet.The guessers say Friday we will have more storms.Work is busy.Ns was clear when I left work.Still waiting for the "Big Load" to come to the ND&W.Haven't heard anything else about it.Chores to do.
CSSHEGEWISCHMuch of Chicago has incredibly poor natural drainage so flooded underpasses are to be expected after severe thunderstorms.
Kinda like Detroit's beloved "ditches," The John Lodge in particular.
The Utica, NY area was very hard hit by a recent series of storms. Significant flooding, including water over the tracks on the CSX "Chicago Line" that held up Amtrak 49 for some 4 hours at Utica.
We're into our second day of no rain. Rejoicing abounds!
Lake Ontario and St Lawrence River levels are going to be touch and go all summer, by the looks of it. About the time the near-record levels look like they're finally going down, Ma Nature tops them off again...
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