Birds and Deer

We've found the birds and deer have an interesting relationship here on the mountain.  We fill the bird feeder on the rear deck with a typical mix of bird food. This consists of sunflower seeds, nuts and bits of fruit.

The Stellar's Jays will knock the sunflower seeds aside and to the ground below to get at the nuts and bits of fruit.  The deer have figured out  they can forage on the large stash of spilled sunflower seed and frequent the area under the deck for their evening snack.

The deer have no fear of our watching them so it makes for fun nature watching...

Somehow the word gets out and the herd then arives

The Finches  have discovered the bird seed and show up in groups of a hundred or so and consume everything. Pretty interesting to watch.

We keep the seed in the galvanized pail to make it easy to refill the feeder

Wichita KS Model train show Feb 2018

Every February the Wichita model railroaders get together to put on a model train show.

Part of the show involves experienced modelers giving 'How To' clinics on a variety of topics.

One such clinic was put on by Larry Diehl and involved how to detail various scenes including Colorado Mines. Larry is quite the modeler and brought one fine examples to support his clinic.

One part involved how to make realistic power poles

Larry used a laser pointer to highlight specific details

The models are all built on bases made of two inch pink foam

Larry Alfred gave a clinic all about how to detail a plaster wall casting to look like the side of an old historic building. He took us step by step through each bit of detail added.

There was a nice N scale railroad display based on a Japanese city layout. Not often you see that in the Miidwest

The guys from Dodge City were back with their 1/4 scale layout of the Old West. That is always fun to see and check out the latest details added

A N scale layout which captured the feel of living on the plains was new for me to see.

Tractor dealer

Walmart Store

One enterprising chap brought a locomotive cab and used it to sell simulator train engineer experiences

Steve is a rancher from near Dodge City and gave a clinic on have to accurately paint cattle. This proved to be a lot of fun. You are best to start with a picture of a real cow to use as a guide.

Once you have mastered painting cattle you can try other animals

David and Chris brought a clever N scale switching puzzle to demonstrate

This switching puzzle includes both a Timesaver and Inglenook track layout to test your RR car movement skills.

This was a lot of fun to try out your skills