Friday 10 October 2014

In the poo (again)

As much as I would like this blog to be devoted to model railways it seems there are other forces working against me.
Many posts have been devoted to the ferals that inhabit the shed. Well this week was going so good in that I had finally sealed across the front of the shed under the eaves. The painting is yet to come and it will then start to look half decent.
During the week I have done some more ballasting and painting the sides of the rails. Now yesterday afternoon I thought I would pop in and have a quick look and see if the ballast had dried.
But when I got inside, turned left and went to have a look at Candelo what I saw was mayhem. There were locos and carriages on their sides all over the place. I do not recall any earth tremors the night before and immediately felt my little furry friends had paid me another visit.
Maybe this was payback revenge for sealing up the hole into the shed (that they had put there) in  the corner of the roof. On the main board down the middle of the shed (Bega) the garratt had been tipped on its side. (goodness how many parts have fallen off) and random wagons on different roads were tipped over.
I could not hear any activity anywhere in the shed, maybe the little bugger was asleep planning his next raid? So all I could do was to right up the overturned and hope for the best.
So going up for dinner the door was closed then to suck a bit of sympathy from the wife. 
Today Friday after having been out most of the day, I wondered down again to the shed, turned left again towards Candelo, you guessed it the little bugger was back. Candelo suffered most.
Not being an expert in animal faeces, what I did spot was a calling card on the floor. Having seen enough of this rear end product over the years I like Sherlock Holmes deduced it was from a possum. I apologise in advance for subjecting the following shots to you, but if its not from a possum someone out there may be to identify it.
Although this first shot may be sufficient to identify the said animal, the second shot is only included for the fantastic stacking skills of the phantom layer. (made harder as the landing strip was on an angle!!)  Assumed as coming from the same creature it was probably as result of panic setting in when he was up against the window with the outside with its green trees beckoning him to join them. They actually looked like O scale black puddings. The bit I liked was that they seemed to be laid dry and not wet and sloppy which would have taken longer to clean up and would have played havoc with the vacuum cleaner. The cars were also part of the accident scene.
Above is a photo of the carnage brought upon Candelo yard. All I can say is that I'm glad it wasn't any further advanced here or more damage could have been done.
I'm sorry I had to share these pictures with you. The good news was that no one was hurt and all the locos and rolling stock has been righted. After cleaning up the mess I thought if I opened the roller door the phantom mangler might disappear into the night. Getting the key I opened the roller enough to let any animal up to a metre tall to make a quick evacuation while I had dinner and watched the news.
So after a few hours and darkness had come, I went out to re-close the door. Now there is one thing you must do with roller doors and that is to remove the key before pulling it up. As I look up I see a bent key and as I try to straighten it up to pull it out, yes it snaps with half key in and half key out. 
So tomorrow my project will be to Google how to remove broken keys from locks. Wish me luck.


4 comments:

  1. Bob,
    Its quite clear the culprit is not a NSWGR modeller, must be a mexican that was upset as I see in the pics most of the VR stuff is still upright. Your not the first to snap a key off. I just went to buntings and brought another lock and key set (couldn't get it out).

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  2. Bob,
    Lucky Lloyd is overseas at the moment.

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  3. Bob,
    Just went out the front and I have similar deposits on the front lawn. It is from our resident kangaroo, about shoulder height. Explains why it was able to tip such rolling stock on their side.

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  4. Jim,
    enough damage is being caused by a possum, imagine what damage a big red kanga could do in there?
    Bob

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