Go West - Warragamba needs you.
Last night I decided to visit the shed. As those of you who reside on the east coast of Orstralia would know we have had a ton of rain this week.
So as I gingerly opened the door and slowly cast my eyes roofbound it all appeared to be there and no dripping bits. Great, any shed that has come through the last couple of days without a leak is doing well. I kept looking at the two hundred projects that I need to do and couldn't decide on any of them.
Stuff it all I will drive a train round the layout, after all thats what its all about isn't it? In order to do a complete lap involves closing a hinged section and line up two sections of track. Well thanks to the rain we have been getting, the wooden hinged section appears to have swollen and the rails didn't join up. And naturally I didn't get to drive a train last night. So that was the end of that and I came inside and did a bit of computer work.
Sunday and after filling up the green bin with garden refuse, I needed a break and decided to go visit the shed again. And after another night of heavy rain I again checked the roof as I went in. All appeared well until I noticed a pool of water on the floor. I have traced this water to a build up on the outside wall and it has decided to take a shortcut through my shed. Luckily this doesn't affect the baseboard so no real damage was done.
Then aargh! I noticed the ballast looked considerably darker at the end of Bega platform. Yes wet and some pooling on the floor. If you remember a previous thread where the bats and rat poop have crashed down it appears this section was in trouble again.
Out comes the ladder and up onto the roof I go. It appears no matter how much gooey black crap you stick over the joins, it eventually dries out, cracks and back to square one. More rain in. Of course we don't notice leaks when it doesn't rain.
What the problem with the roof is that on the original shed roofing iron only came in certain lengths and this shed roof needed a small section at the end to finish off. So I have decided to only way to completely cure the problem is to order in longer sheets of gal and redo the last section. And then I might be able to stop blogging about bloody leaks in the roof.
Almost as annoying as the leaks is the number daddy long leg spiders that reside in the shed. The smart ones are hidden away under the baseboards and the dumb one are clearly visible ready for the vacuum cleaner. I missed my chance about two weeks ago when I saw a mummy long legs had given birth to about fifty or so kiddy short legs. Last time I looked for them they had left the web. I wouldn't mind them if they would only stay up on the roof but they insist on visiting the layout and making bloody webs all over the scenery and its a pain to remove.
Another spider has decided to build a home in the sliding window and has used the buildings for the Candelo Canning Factory to drape his web over. Maybe if their webs were green, then they would look like vines.
So as you can see this weekend has been a downer. Then as I was looking around the future Bega Loco area I noticed a heap of black dots on a piece of white styrene. So on closer inspection it appeared to be an ant graveyard. I can only guess they have taken up residence in the ceiling above and then when they cark it, they just dump bodies and parts and other rubbish down towards the layout from the flourescent light above. Obviously no dignity in the ant world, just get the parts and chuck them out. Surely if you were married to an ant, just keeping your husbands head to one side wouldn't hurt anybody.A little bit different to the usual model photo with a train in it, I have included a photo of exhibit A showing the above ground cemetery for ants. If they weren't dead when they were chucked out of the crack, they would have been when they hit the styrene. One wonders why all the resident daddy long legs don't wonder over and help themselves to a meal. Maybe if I put up a sign "Hungry Cracks Takeaway" they'd come.
Well sorry I couldn't be more rail oriented this post but I have to tell it as it happens.