This winter I didn’t manage to get any of the buildings from the layout inside to refurbish them, which is when I usually work on that sort of thing. So I’ve brought a couple inside. I bought a few additional live steamers in anticipation of spring, but… between school activities being canceled for my three school-age kids and work going a little crazy, that got away from me too.

A few weeks ago I looked out my back window at the layout and realized that the grass had grown up so much that some parts weren’t visible, and the ROW was overgrown with sedum and juniper. I’m having trouble keeping the weeds out–here in Kansas I need to spend a couple hours a week to keep things under control and I’m pretty busy.

I’ve enlisted the help of my kids (the oldest one at least can tell the grass from the sedum) and there’s a high-schooler at our church who is planning to be a botanist who will come do gardening for a small fee. And I can still put glyphosate on the ROW to keep off the sedum. So the layout is almost ready to run trains again, once the weather turns cooler than miserable summer heat.