Diorama, Orphan Train, and Field

Field 3-30-2014

At this point, I am still gathering materials to start the Goblin Halloween Diorama.  I have been stymied this week by all my dealings with the insurance company and the contractors.  Trying to get my life back in order has prevented me from working on my art.  I hope to have some pictures next Sunday of the start of the diorama build.

Today's field project photo was taken at 8:30 am.  The temperature was 45 degrees, and winds were at twenty to twenty-five miles per hour.  Fortunately, it was not raining when I went out to snap the picture.  It has rained almost straight through for the past day and night.  We would have an occasional let up for a small amount of time then another squall would come through.  The ground is really saturated.  If the winds get much stronger, it may blow some trees over.  Fortunately, the trees are just in the early stages of leafing out so there will not be as many lost trees.  If the trees were in full leaf, I'm sure we would have lost a good many more.

As to the Orphan Train Story.  I want to pass on a link to the National Orphan Train Complex home page.  Under the history section, you can click on rider stories to read first hand stories from some of the riders of that train.  It is a fascinating personal view of an historical event.  I will be blogging about some of the stories during the process  of creating the diorama, but it is definitely a worthwhile read.  Here's the link.  http://orphantraindepot.org/

I wish I had more time today to blog but I don't.  Other things are afoot. More on that later.  It all has to do with the plumbing problem that has turned into a disaster in my home.

I have come to the conclusion that I have been somewhat delusional as to my assessment of the extent of the plumbing disaster that has befallen my home.  (They had to jack hammer up the floor on the lower level to get to the pipes underneath the slab.)  I expected that once all the dealings with the insurance company and contractor estimates were out of the way that the builders would get to work and my home would be put back in order in a matter of a week or so at the most.  Wrong!  First off, I'm still negotiating with the contractor at this point.  Once the matter is settled to everyone's level of dissatisfaction, their first start date is the end of April.  And once they get started, the concrete must cure for a minimum of 28 days before they can begin to put down the flooring.  So it looks like I might be sleeping on an air mattress for a while.  I can live with that better than I can with the fact that most of the furniture and belongings that were on the lower floor of my home are now stuffed all over the place to get them out of the way for the rebuild.  Stuff is stacked up in everywhere.  I feel very stressed from being so crowded. 

At least most of the phone calls and contractor preliminaries are out of the way.  I'll have more time to get started on the diorama.