Tuesday's Tidbits......

It is an old train.  I found it in the toy bucket at the house of John and Iva Horton.  Those who follow me know that I have many things from the John and Iva connection. I have always valued it mostly because of the connection but I  also thought it was rare. It is an old cast iron toy.  I destroyed its value as an antique because I painted it some 30 years ago.

It has always been special to me and then the hardware owner, who has a store up town full of antiques on display, put in his window this engine and all of the cars with caboose.  Then another friend of mine said she had the entire set with windup key and its original box and track. She had received it for Christmas as a child.

I guess it still is very special too me but it isn't one of a kind. I need to thoroughly clean this engine and it may show up on Photo a Day some of these days in a more precise pose. If you ever have read the Little Prince story, the Prince thought he had the one and only rose in all the world and then he ran across a whole garden full of roses, his rose seemed less personal and special. The little Prince had to reevaluate his feelings and reassure himself that he was going to be ok with the one rose in his life.

The snow rocks are most all completely covered with very fluffy snow.  We had a light scattering of snow this morning but it was more like a salt shaker of snow that didn't require any shoveling. We did wake up to 8 degrees F today.
I keep being puzzled as to how Des Moines is 14 degrees this morning, Ames north of us was 11 degrees F and my thermometer is at 8 degrees.  I don't see how any consistent  measuring of the temps in this country would be accurate as everyone in the city is always warmer than those of us on the prairie.  You could never average that out to make it accurate.  Most all measurements of the past were done by people who had weather boxes out in their back yards in a country setting.  I see people are predicting now we have global cooling, oh my!

I am glad there are some nice shots that can be taken of the snow but I think we should be done with it for a while. The Christmas season is coming like a tidal wave and all of a sudden I have a lot of things to do. Fortunately I have work lined up for the next two weeks with one guy gone as his wife had a baby.  Another teacher is going to be gone for surgery. I need the work but then I now need bursts of energy when I get home from school.  I need to get four frame jobs done and mats cut for my wife's commision work that go out before Christmas. All the other standard Christmas stuff has to be done along side of this. It is more than a tidal wave and I need to start swimming. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog today.  Stay calm, stay warm and stay safe.