Sandy Lake & Northern misc builds, etc.

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

The orchard looks fantastic.  The dog adds a lot to the realism.

The layout is progressing nicely!

Have fun,
mike

[elwoodblues]

The scenery is looking great Dave.

[deemery]

Back wall is vegetated.

Next step is to work on the removable piece that covers the hidden trackage.  You can see that as the lighter (wood) colored piece on the far left.  I need to work out the terrain on the removable section and how it will blend into the rest of the forest.  That needs to be removable for cleaning and derailment.  

Then I need to work out the closer-in vegetation, both here and on the other side of the gorge near the farmhouse.

dave

[Philip]

  Fantastic!

[Jerry]

Looks great Dave!!

Jerry

[deemery]

I'm working on the removable scenery section.  I want a pretty good fit (doesn't have to be perfect, since this entire area will be forested.)  

I shaped the styrofoam subterrain.  After a test fit, I removed it and covered the hole with wax paper, taped into position.  

I replaced the 'plug', then applied several layers of plaster wrap.  Then I laid down a layer of wallboard nylon mesh tape.  (Photo adjusted to make that tape stand out.)


And another couple layers over top of the wallboard mesh. 

I'll let this dry thoroughly, inspect, and add at least one more plaster wrap layer.  Then the plan is to mark where the boundary will be, trim the plaster wrap, and -back fill- underneath where the plaster wrap is not well supported.

dave

[deemery]

A question for those of you who grew up/around farms...   Consider this terrain:

There's a steep drop-off to the front and to the left.  I'm presuming the farmer who owns that property would install fencing to keep cattle, etc, from wandering off the cliffs.  But what about that space directly in front of the house?  Should I run the fence along the road in front of the house, writing off the relatively usable land in front of the house?  Or should I run the fencing towards the cliff?  If the latter, what should the farmer do with that terrain?  Just some pasture?  Maybe a vegetable plot?

Thanks in advance!

dave

[jbvb]

In your era, fence was expensive enough that it was only used around specific parcels or fields that needed it. In the Northeast, stone walls would surround any cultivated field because each year's plowing brought up more.  Cattle pastures got fenced to keep the herd from wandering, but pasture land was often steep and/or rocky areas difficult to cultivate. Pigs were (and are) hard enough to fence in that they were sometimes let run free to eat nuts in the forest and whatever in the bog. Farmers relied on feeding food waste in a pen to eventually capture them just as cold weather brought slaughtering season.

Your house dates the farmstead to before maybe 1820, but the barn looks later, maybe after the Civil War.  The arrangement suggests the road coming in from the right and passing close to the house is owned by the farm, rather than a public way.  I suggest fencing the area R of the barn and behind the road using barb wire (I strip strands out of lamp cord for this).  The area across the road from the house could include a kitchen garden. A dug well is era- and area-appropriate, but it would likely have been behind the house or barn. Dug wells above cliffs are pretty scarce.

[deemery]

In your era, fence was expensive enough that it was only used around specific parcels or fields that needed it. In the Northeast, stone walls would surround any cultivated field because each year's plowing brought up more.  Cattle pastures got fenced to keep the herd from wandering, but pasture land was often steep and/or rocky areas difficult to cultivate. Pigs were (and are) hard enough to fence in that they were sometimes let run free to eat nuts in the forest and whatever in the bog. Farmers relied on feeding food waste in a pen to eventually capture them just as cold weather brought slaughtering season.

Your house dates the farmstead to before maybe 1820, but the barn looks later, maybe after the Civil War.  The arrangement suggests the road coming in from the right and passing close to the house is owned by the farm, rather than a public way.  I suggest fencing the area R of the barn and behind the road using barb wire (I strip strands out of lamp cord for this).  The area across the road from the house could include a kitchen garden. A dug well is era- and area-appropriate, but it would likely have been behind the house or barn. Dug wells above cliffs are pretty scarce.

Thanks!

Geographically/geologically, that whole area of the layout makes -no sense-.        The cow pasture to the right of the barn on the far side of the road has barbed wire already.  Fencing off and making a vegetable garden on the near side of the road in front of the house would probably work.  I do have more of the Woodland Scenics rail fencing to use for this.  The problem with doing stone fences would be getting them to run along the topography; stacking small stones would be as much work as for the prototype (the difference in weight would be made up by the problem of having to bend over underneath the dropped ceilings, either would end up with significant back pain.    )

dave