Sunday's Shots

 

 

 

Caboose

 

 

As a kid one would say to the kids in line that so and so would be the caboose, last in line. The person in the  real caboose had a job to signal with certain colored flags to tell the engineer that all was clear behind them or all was going well with all of the cars.

 The oldest caboose I have in my collection is this tin one made in the 1950s. I was three or four years old when I received it at Christmas time. The train had a circle track that allowed the train and four cars to travel around and around. It was a wind up engine so it didn't go for very long until one had to wind it up again. 

 My brother and I were gifted a shared train from Santa. He wrote it on the box for us to be sure who it belong to and there wouldn't be doubt. That was probably in 1958. 

 My one brother in his adult years decided to send my 60 year old father two different small trains. They were only played with by his grandsons but I guess it was fun for him to look at each of the cars as  he took them out of the individual boxes.

 My brother went to the toy store and just picked out two different engines and many different cars to go with them. The train cars were really too small of scale and my sons still talk about how difficult it was to keep them on flimsy tracks. I display them like models and never try to run them.

 We warmed up to 23 degrees F. today. It helped a little to get the furnace to catch up. The 3 degrees F. is cold and the house may be newer it still gets cold inside. The day has been sunny all day though and it made it look good out there. I guess we have better temps with the chance of snow tomorrow. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Freezing Friday

 Having multiple days of cold is hard on the mind and body. I did get out Thursday to have my hearing aids checked and did get groceries but I still feel locked in. I did get chilled for the rest of the day after that adventure. I want to wander in my back yard. Instead I wander in the house working on storage shelves and watering plants. I am busy fish keeping as I need to maintain the water quality on a regular basis. One tank of guppies is not putting out babies and I learned yesterday that I need to keep exchanging water on them to get out any nitrates. 

 As I wander I notice this small Canada Goose never makes it on the Christmas tree. I had it on a shelf and it is so small compared to my duck collection. 

 Hanging cranes move around as the heater in the sun room blows out warm air. I did get a thousand cranes folded and if I were to count all the ones on the five mobiles that I have made, I am sure I have a hundred more of them than that. I do include folded cranes in cards just because. I still fold a few in the evening after supper, off and on, but not every night anymore. 

 My first four years of art teaching was in Sidney, Iowa. I was young and really don't know if I was doing a good job. Yet , kids would bring me conch shells from a winter trip and the one boy walked up and gave me one of his cast quails. He just handed it to me and walked away. His name was Steve Penn. He was a sweet guy who probably is a grandpa now. Fifty plus years later I see things that those kids, from a Rodeo Town, had gifted me, or drawn pictures for me, and I have good memories.  One boy drew faces of his boy buddies in my class and turned them into clown faces. He labeled who they each were just in case I didn't know. I still have that drawing. He said he wanted me to remember the class.

 It still runs and made a noise when I was moving the box around. The storage area of my basement looks like I am back into control. I had to move everything around when we had the furnace put in and I really never got things put back. With all the Christmas things taken off the shelves I had to start organizing it again. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  

Thursday's Two Things

 

 

Joy

 The shepherd is holding his lamb that he rescued form the crevaase. The large blue eyes is a theme that never goes away with the designs of cute little people. Sometimes they use brown eyes.

 

 

I worked on the store room today to make more room for storage. The three different boxes of tinker toys were all put into one box. The work brought me two and a half clear shelves. More room for more stuff. I did keep the two tinker toy containers because they are old. The big box of tinkers that I got from my brother when I was young was made with a wimpy box and that box was tossed years ago. My oldest brother worked in Kansas City and had money to buy everyone presents. 

 My son rescued toys from his grandparents home basement when they were closing it down. There were three sisters in the family and I am sure that the Grandpa may have bought this for himself to play with.  It actually has a place for batteries to make it run around in circles. I may ship it to my son and he can figure out if it still works. It has to be about 60 to 70 years old now,

 We use to have Hardware Hanks in the area but I don't think that it is related to the toy.  The rubber treads on it is still in tact but if it gets back into use it may cause it to break. 

 I will be glad to share more toys tomorrow. Cleaning and clearing out is a joy as I think I need to have more control over all my things that have piled up around me. We have warmed up to 25 degrees F. today for a short time and that seems better. The furnace is getting some rest today with no polar air blowing at the house and the temps not being in the negatives. 

Thanks for stopping by today. 

 

 

Tuesday's Things

 

 The lily responds quickly to the restoring of its water supply. It is certainly going to keep us on our toes to keep it on a watering schedule. 

 It was time to thin out the small pot full of plants. It was so crowded that I was able to spread them out into the two pots. They look a little sick right now but they will perk up once they get use to having soil again. This type of plant is easy to ignore but it does get to be time to repot.  I have another one, a cooking pan, that is in the same shape. It is  way over crowded, and maybe tomorrow I will get to that. 

The anthurium  is still doing well. I do monitor it often as I know I am lucky to keep it going in a winter, with indoor heated house. This plant and the lily are both plants from two different funerals. 

I headed downtown to the doctors office this morning. The endocrinologists is going to help me out with all my monitor system problems by prescribing a new Dexcom 7 system. I had my older system shut down on my phone monitor set up and also my sensor, transmitter system. The older Dexcom told me I needed to buy a new phone and also my providers for diabetic supplies weren't covered with the present company that I was using with my new health insurance. The bad news about that happened all on the same day. Health wise I am doing pretty good for a diabetic. I get tired of being hungry most of the time and do know how to keep my blood numbers looking good and stay away of all the good tasting things.

We are at 17 degree F. right now and it is close to our high of 20 degree F. The furnace does seem to be having an easier time in keeping things warm with the warmer outsie temps. The wind has been in the south and that has also helped. I didn't have to fight ice and snow this morning on the downtown ramp at the hospitals. Parking is always interesting on the ramp as they continue to work on it year round. I had to go to the top of the ramp and go down a whole level to find a place to park. I found a close place to park near a door and then worked the elevator to get to my top floor appointment. 

Thanks for stopping by today. . 
 

Lingering Tree Shots