Adding the walls and test fitting....

 Greetings once again dear readers!

Okay so this morning, (while binge watching ST DS9 on Pluto TV going on in the background), I worked on the walls and test fitting the entire setup.

(A test fitting to get a basic idea of what it will look like once it comes together.)

(Looking down to get a good pic of what the floor plan will be. Plenty of room for some jailhouse action...)

(Another shot focusing on the walls.)

(The size of the brass rods I am using for the cell bars.)

Currently I am short the brass rods, and have some on order. That is going to be the next (and hardest part) of this project is assembling the jail cell bars.

But I do have a plan....

Thanks for reading this short update and rest assured that more is to come!

Building a Western Town: Redoing the Sheriff's Office...again....

Howdy once again dear reader!

As the month of January continues, I am also continuing to push to completion (once again) some very long and overdue projects. I've been on a roll working on my long overdue Western Town.

This months update is on the new workings on that building that has plagued me; The Sheriff's Office and Jail.

Back in June of 2017, I had started working on the Sheriff's Office and Jail for my town. The building was one of the old TCL kits that Knuckleduster had offered before bringing up their own line of buildings. I will admit that I do like these kits from TCL as they are so easy to modify.

I didn't like the original jail idea though, (one big cell in the back), and so I decided to modify it by making two cells. The picture shows the process and you can see the idea I had.

Unfortunately that didn't work either.

So I set the building on the back-burner and there is has remained for the last five years.

Until this past week.

While on my binge of "finishing up long delayer projects", (Mostly buildings, and of them, mostly Western buildings), my wife suggested for me to do an "extension of the building.

"Hmmm.." sez I.

So with idea in my head, and wood, pencil, and trusty Dremel tool, I've sat down and started slowly working it.

The building will be an L shape, with two small cells and one larger "Drunk tank" at the end. It's a slow process to make sure that everything measures up, but so far so good.

The jail cell bars are going to be 1/16" brass rods. These are easy to work with.

I'll keep you informed as to how the progress is going.

The pics below show the building in it's original format, the planned changed of two cells, and then latest modifications.

(Click on the pic for larger versions)

(This was the stock TCL kit in building form)...

(With the jail cell wall which made one big jail cell....sigh...)

(A back shot of the building showing the cell, and the "wood/stone" work on the outer walls...)

(A close up of the actual jail cell bars and door...)

(This is the first modification that I tried. Two small cells with a cell door and wall. The cells were too small and could barely hold a 28mm based figure...hmmm...need to go back to the drawing board....)

(I will admit that it does look kinda nice but just didn't do what I needed it to do for me....)

(So here we are five years later...LATER! And I am once again at work here. The new idea is to simple take out the cells, dividing wall, and one part of the back wall, and scratch build and extension of sorts to the existing building making an L shape.)

(The wall is cut for the entrance to the new section.)

(3/32" basswood is being used for the walls. Each one a little over 2" in height.)

(The walls, cell doors, floor, and roof sections to the jail. The brickwork was done in pencil and then scribed with my trust Dremel.)

(A close up showing the brickwork, and the floor settings for the bars.)

Hang onto your hats folks, because there is more to come as this project moves forward!

Thanks for reading!

Building a Western Town: The Herald-Gazette....

 It's amazing what a person can do once they are motivated.

So I am pushing on completing two buildings this week for my Western town of Rimfire (Arizona Territory), and with the assistance of some "Saloon Piano Music", and some Western Movies, to keep me "inspired", I have been pushing hard on completing the projects.

The first one is done.

This is another TCL building that used to be in the Knuckleduster line before he switched over to the Gunfighters Ball stuff.  This is the TCL "Small Store".

I decided that every up and coming town needs a newspaper. So, Rimfire now has a newspaper building.

(The Rimfire Herald-Gazette.)

(Another shot of the Herald-Gazette, showing some of the weathering to the building. These kits paint up and weather quite nicely.)

(Rear and side shots of the building. The harsh environments in the West, played hell with wood and paint very quickly.)

Construction was pretty standard per the instructions. The only modifications I did was to add the signboard, and a different back door, and window "glass". After that, the hardest part was waiting for the glue to dry.

(As you can see the inside is pretty bare and standard, but it does allow for placement of figures, and other items.)

And now, (as usual), there is a backstory....

The Rimfire Herald-Gazette is the product of Mr. Horace Randolph Draper, and his nosey wife Eugenia, who upon arriving in Rimfire from Philadelphia, (rumor has it that they were run out of the city due to Eugenia's meddling in the affairs of some of the town's blue bloods), realized that the town was desperately needing a newspaper to tell them of all the events going on in the town of Rimfire, (for a fair price of course). Unable to settle on a proper name, Horace (who likes to go by "H.R."), and his wife compromised and thus the Herald-Gazette was born. 

The Rimfire Herald-Gazette is a weekly paper put out every Friday morning no later than 9 o'clock in the morning. The paper cheerfully tells everyone that saw something what it was that they actually saw (as written by the editor), and then sold to them for a nickel. 

The Rimfire Gazette Weekly usually is 4-6 pages of town news, an editorial, (often derisively called "Drapers Rantings"), 2-3 recipes, some advertisements, a few Bible verses, and any announcements such as weddings, reunions, picnics, political rallies, etc. There is also a "Society page" written by HR's wife to appeal to the ladies of the town.

HR employs Leroy Lumpkins as general help in the Newspaper office.  

HR will also do custom printing for customers for a price, (inquire within). 

January 2023 Update!

 Greetings to you in the new year!

Well 2023 is upon us like a tick on a hound dog, and we have to go through the 11 3/4 months left, before we kick it out the door, and hope that 2024 will be better.

But, enough of that right now. 

I was able to wander down to my painting room today and get to work on some projects on the table. I hadn't really sat down to do anything since the middle of October last year, and it took me a few moments to get myself oriented once again.

Then it took me a few minutes to do a little organizing.

It seems that whenever I take a break of more than two weeks from my table, it takes me a little bit to get comfortable and "back in the saddle".  It's more of a psychological thing than it is physical, and usually the first session or two at the table is little more than puttering around, doing trivial things and getting back into the swing and flow of it. 

(First shot of the table for 2023; cleaned and organized, ready to go....)

I decided the slip back into work, by not painting figures, but by working on finishing a couple of my Western buildings. In this case, one of TCL buildings, (this one is going to be for the Newspaper), and the Livery Stable, (a conversion of an ERTL Farm Town Barn).

(My two current projects.)

And in the meantime, I was jamming to some tunes via Alexa and Spotify. In this case, it was the happening sounds of Cirri and his 18th Century Cello Concertos.

(Who says I can't get down with the tunes?  Btw...the figures on the left are part of my "TBP" (To be painted) queue.)

And then out of nowhere I got the idea to "get some inspiration" for working on Western buildings by watching a Western movie.

Oops. Bad idea.

(And here we go.)

(I'll be honest with you, while I love John Wayne movies, this Western was kind of a convoluted mess. There's about four different storylines going through it, plus various sub-plots, and for some reason, there's some dude warbling a song about "Sally", in it. Yes we know Billy the Kid loves Sally, but we don't need this guy with throat cancer to croak out a tune about it....)

And it was a diversion, and not much else got done....

(Movie watching supplies.....)

And that was kind'a that.

I'm hoping to get more work done this weekend.

More to come my friends....more to come!

2022... A Year in Review...

WARNING: This post is pretty photo intensive and long.

 Greetings once again everyone. 

I apologize for not getting a November update going. So much has happened over the past few months, that I was simply overwhelmed with "Stuff", and haven't been able to get back into posting here.

However, I wanted to get out a final post for 2022, and perhaps take a quick look back at some of the things that happened during the year.

2022...well....the best I can say is that it was better than 2021...and waaaaay better than 2020.

Honestly? I believe that 2020 will go down as one of the massive suck years in recent history. But we are talking about 2022 here and not two years ago...so.....

This year saw a lot of changes around Casa Del Murph. We seriously started work on the house, (after two years of little to no inactivity), and I did some painting and gaming, (although not as much as I wanted to)...

2022; A year in review...

January saw the start of the year, and the temperature was well..."Indiana in January"....

I started off with projects on my game table, with a wide variety of figures needing painting, or needing to be finished painting.  It's the way the year always seems to start.

(CLICK ON THE PHOTOS FOR LARGER VERSIONS)...

(The table starts off the year with a series of various figures from various makers, but the current majority seem to be Reaper figures.)

( A close up showing some old BTD figures, Reaper, Pulp Figures, A Tri-Tac Elvis, some Foundry, Wizkids and yes, Reaper....)

(More figures and bases, ready to be primed...)

(Primed bases. It's amazing how fast these things are used up. Most of them are the standard 3/16" or 1/4" X 1 fender washers.)

(And yet, more figures to be coming onto the table...but first to be painted...sigh...)

And then I had to step away from the painting table and do something that I had never thought about.

I had to go say "Goodbye" to one of my best friends.

For those of you that have been keeping up. In December of 2021, my "brother from another mother", comrade in arms, fellow veteran, best man, gaming buddy, and all around good guy, Dan Merchant, died on 23rd December 2021, of complications from Covid Pneumonia. 

I was asked to come say the eulogy at his service.

So I packed up and made the long slow backroad drive to Ohio.

(A trip I wished I didn't have to take...)

I made the long drive along the backroads of Indiana and Ohio, dreading each mile, and passing through towns and small locales that had obviously seen better days.

(At the funeral...)

(And 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division, USA, Ferris Kaserne, Erlangen, West Germany, was well represented...)

(We'll meet again at Fiddler's Green...Saying goodbye to an old friend...until we meet up once more...)

And then it was the long, slow, drive home with just me, a large Pepsi, a bag of potato chips, and my thoughts.  But while I was cruising through such happening towns as Cromwell, and Jumbo, Ohio, I decided to slip over to one of our reenactment sites.

This location is a very special and important spot to me in my reenacting life, and in my real life...

(A very important and special placed for me...)

Because ten years ago, at this spot behind me, I did this....

(Best wedding one could have... And yes, that's the same hat...)

And then February came in and blew through us like a breeze, and we put the game and stuff on hold for the month of Feb, and slipped back into it during March...

During this time, I was able to find (JOY!), that my international grocery store now stocked "the drink of drinks"... MEZZO MIX!

This was something I got hooked on in Europe and the closest you can get to it here is Coke and Orange Fanta, and it is still "unbecoming"...

They had six cans in stock. I took them all.

Sadly enough, they are hard to get into the store, and vanish quickly.

(Six cans of drinky drink drink goodness....)

(Mmmmmm.....delightful!)

And they had HP Brown Sauce! 

Yet another win!

And even though there were some cool and interesting things to see and buy, (And try), there were a few things that I would kindly say "Thanks but no thanks." to; In this case it was the bagged frozen guinea pig...

Yes, you read that right. Frozen guinea pig. 

(From what I have been told it's a "delicacy". This is one that I can easily pass up...)

On the gaming front, my friend Noah and I made a run into Lafayette to check out the local cigar shop, and their FLGS.

(Seriously?...They let BOTH of us into their humidor at the same time?!?!... What were they thinking?!?!...)

I decided to hit their pipe tobaccos and decided upon the Peterson, "Nightcap", and C&D's "Nutty Irishman". 

I do like the Nutty, but the Nightcap has a Latakia blend that has an aroma that I can't get past. 

Then we hit the Game Store...

(Why does this look like the cover pic for a Alternative Two Man Band?...)

And I bought stuff...

(The Megamat replaces one that was ruined years ago...)

And I bought miniatures...(go figure)....

And other gaming "supplies..."

(This hasn't been as easy to come by lately as it has been...)

And I decided to try this out for some gold coloring....

Later on during the Feb-March Months, my cousin, (The Elvis Impersonator), sent me a Confederate 20 dollar bill that was at one time part of the wallpaper of his mothers house. After the end of the war, CS money was pretty much worthless, so lots of poorer people actually used it as wallpaper.  This 20 dollar bill was on the wall of my Aunt's house for years.

(A little piece of family history...)

And as February turned into March, my wonderful wife (Gawd bless her!), had a birthday.

(A small cake for a lady with an enormous heart...)

And then I hit the paint table with a vengeance....

I went on a block painting binge as I needed goblins. Lots and lots of goblins. And I had a lot of the little green guys from the recent Reaper Bones Kickstarters. So with the mantra of Joseph Stalin going through my head, ("Quantity has a quality all it's own."), I got to painting them up.

(Nasty little green buggers they are!)

(Armed with swords and bows...to shoot you and slice you...)

(And spears and spiked clubs...to stick you and bash you...)

But it wasn't all evil creatures. I also got to work on a lot of townsfolk.

This is one of the Wiz Kids Deep Cuts figures.

Yes, another serving wench. 

Hey, I gotta keep them employed right?

(Fresh beer from a fresh barmaid....mmmmmm....tasty!)

And another Reaper Strumpet...a blonde version of my "Not Snow White" lady of the night...

(A flash of leg, a beguiling smile, a beckoning finger, and a glittering jewel...whatever could it mean?)

And I finished up a couple of Foundry Pirates.

This figure came out glossy, so I ended up giving him a flat spray seal to cut down on the shine, and it worked quite well. And I ended up having to fix the groundwork on the base also.

(Some British officer no longer needs that pretty red coat...)

And then painted up a Reaper Ghast. I went with the bluish color to show the etherealness of it, plus I just wanted it to look like the nasty creature that it was. And I ended up having to also fix the groundwork on the base of this one too.

(Something you don't want to meet up with by yourself...or even with a small group.)

And some more undead....

(Reaper Zombies, "William and Theodore", (aka "Bill and Ted"), and yes I fixed the bases on these figures also.)

(The Zombie bride and groom...)

(A wedding party that well....didn't end up so well....)

And then I decided to start working on something..."big".

I've never done a dragon before, and decided, "What's Dungeons and Dragons without well....Dragons?"

So I looked at what I had from my Reaper KS's and found one...

Here he is in his starting glory....

He's gonna be a long time being worked on.

(Oh dear....)

And I looked at some of the figures I have stored away in my "Pile o' Shame"...errr.... I mean, "Drawers of Inspiration", and sighed...

(Just one of the drawers...)

And then I looked at some of the stuff on the shelves....

(Sigh...)

Then in March, SURPRISE!!!!!!

Back in Dec of 2021, I helped someone with their laptop. 

Windows 11 had essentially auto-installed itself, and violated everything on my friends laptop, and he was at wits end trying to fix it. 

I contacted him, and ended up going through almost 11 hours of working on it to get a 100% complete restoration, (This was done using FB messenger, and a lot of photos as the laptop itself was on the other side of the country.)...

I refused to charge him for anything, but imagine my surprise when I got a message from Reaper that I had a $200 dollar gift certificate waiting for me, (His way of repaying me, as I had saved him over 700 dollars in repair charges.)

So in March, I made my order, and lo and behold a box of goodness appeared!

(Minis and paints and a TON of freebies!)

(Packs of freebies....wow!)

(Some of the stuff I ordered...)

(One of the freebies was a Bones 6 theme figure with an "interlocking base" that connected to the other members of her dungeon exploration party....)

And I got back to the painting table...

(Every fantasy town, village, port, hamlet, burg, or city has at least one tired, grumpy, mean old lady...And in this case it gave me a chance to try out some different shading and inking methods...)

And of course, peasants...

I named this figure "Paoul the Peasant", after a good long term friend of mine. 

Sure, he's a simple headed, simple minded, simpleton that is perfectly content to work the soil with his farm tools and toil away all for the glory of a few beets and turnips....

(The peasant, not my friends...)

(Standing wide eyed and slack jawed in the field, Paoul the Peasant stares at the two nasty looking wormlike things that have emerged from the ground beneath his beloved turnip fields...) 

(And quite nasty looking creatures they are indeed...Poor Paoul...the first of many peasants to be sucked up and swallowed whole...)

Meanwhile I also needed some figures for "City Guard", and thus these guys got employed.

But I also noticed that they were wearing skulls. So I had to ask myself; "Are they the baddies?"

(City Guard #1: Axe and Shield...yes I brushed the loose flocking off before sealing...)

(City Guard #2: Sword and shield...)

(City Guard #3... Pole Arm and boredom....)

And then we got back to playing.

But first food before gaming!

(The group chows down...)

And then it was off to the village of Orsair where the missing son was said to be seen last. 

And now people are acting "strangely"....

(A nice little map of the sleepy village of Orsair...)

(The party enters an inn...)

And April rolled into May...

The game continued, and I did a few figures on the painting table...

(The table waited patiently for the players....)

And I painted up the "evil priestess"...

(She's pretty...and evil....so perhaps she is "pretty evil?"...)

And what's a pretty evil cleric without a large, well armed, well armored flunky waiting to dish out the maximum pain to any that would threaten her?  I ended up naming this guy, "BGIA", ("Bad Guy In Armor)...

(One simple figure with armor and a mace...held off the party in combat for almost three actual hours of game play. Yes the rolls were that bad for both sides...)

And of course, everyone should have a bard, and I needed one for "Jarrald, The Aspiring Bard"....

(Come and let me sing you the song of "The Waddling Duck"....)

And in between painting and gaming, I did a little light reading....

(Not your average bedtime children's story....)

Also while painting I had realized that I had run out of space on my painting racks. 

While looking around, I decided to try a different style of rack than the previous two I had gotten before, The rack arrived and I assembled it, (quite easily), and then set to setting up paints in it.

(A six tiered rack that will hold 72 eye dropper bottles of paint...)

I set them up and compared them,  The two left five tier racks hold 16 eye dropper bottles of paint on each row for a total of 80 bottles per rack, while the larger and newer one holds 12 bottles per row on six racks for a total of 72. More racks, bigger size, and less paint holding capacity...

(And they say "Bigger is better"... Not always it seems....)

I realized also that I was dreadfully short on mages, and so I decided to paint one up, (classic style), but also decided to try my hand at one of the new techniques I learned from the 2021 RVE that I attended. 

In this case it was taking a standard cloak and making it into a starry nebulae. 

(The mysterious old wizard and his owl companion, are always looking for people to go on "an adventure"....)

And then I tried my hand at it, and I was pleasantly surprised at the results....

( Not bad for a first time effort...)

And I worked on some ore townsfolks; in this case, the fishwife...

("Fresh fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiisssshhhh!!!")

And a courtesan, which allowed me to experiment with working with yellow, off of a pink basing.

(If you have to ask, you can't afford her...)

And finally a baddie...

An "80's style" undead warrior knight.

Ready to grace a Saturday morning cartoon....

(And your Saturday morning enemy is ready for the heroes to approach and enter "The Dungeon of Doooooooooooommm!!!!!")

And then I had a Dremel "oops".

While cutting a piece of wood, I hit "Something".

Something so hard, that it bent the shaft on the Dremel and messed up the handset.

So replacement parts was necessary...

(Ouch...)

And I was able to FINALLY get some updated pictures of Display Case #1. There are over 600 miniatures in the upper section of this case, with only approx. 8 of them not painted by me.

It's getting a bit crowded in there!

(Display Case #1)

And we continued playing....

And yes there was yet, MORE FOOD involved!!!!

And camaraderie around the table as the temple was explored and many secrets were discovered....

(A much needed planning break, with assistance of delicious Chinese take out... Dang this group eats a lot...)

Investigating the temple....and suddenly....CHAOS!!!!

(Right in the middle of mid-day services...)

(Let the bodies hit the floor!!!)

And for the next meeting, there was KRINGLES!!!!

Yes! The official pastry of the State of Wisconsin, (where functioning alcoholism is a way of life!)....

(Mmmm...More food....)

(And Kringles!)

And the party discovered secret tunnels, and explored them....

Which (naturally), led to a battle....

And TREASURE!!!! WOO-HOO! Payday!!!!

(Look at alllllllll of that filthy lucre...)

And then it was June...

And I was finishing up some more figures; more townsfolk, and a few critters....

(Ella, an angry woman villager. Her emotions are running just as hot as that torch she is carrying and with her fierce yell, she is ready to use the rolling pin to dispense justice and vengeance upon drunken husbands, tax collectors, murder hobo characters, elected politicians and French Aristocrats as the need requires....)

(Ed, the Villager. He's not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he works hard and does what he is told. Unfortunately I expect him to be killed by either a monster or a group of wandering murder hobos in the future...)

And of course, always "that girl..."

(Tessa, a village maiden. Each village has that "one gal" that you don't know whose side, or which side she is on, or if she is just playing both sides, and looking for a husband in the process. This one has the look on her face of "I've got a secret."  Another Reaper Bones Villager figure.)

And a couple of critters....

(Another case of a too glossy finish that required a serious flat spray to reduce it....)

And play continued.

The party moved back up to the temple via a hidden tunnel and sprang forth from the floor entrance, to find the evil priestess, BGIA (Bad Guy in Armor), a couple of flunkies in the room.

And the fight started. 

The flunkies were easily dispatched, while more came down the hallway. Evil priestess was wounded severely, but dragged to safety, and BGIA, held off the entire party for almost THREE HOURS in real game time, simply due to the party's inability to roll high enough to hit him, and the amount of fumbles that they rolled.

But first....MORE FOOD AND DRINK PICS!!!!

(And the party planned their course of action, which was "KILL KILL KILL!!!!"...)

(First wave in! Knock, knock! Guess who???!!!)

(And the battle is joined!)

(Pre-battle plotting and planning. Are they planning and plotting against the enemy, or are they plotting and planning against the DM? Hmmmm.....)

(Big Guy In Armor, (aka: "BGIA"), holds them off while the evil priestess begins to cast a spell...)

(Fortunately, she goes down in battle, as her flunkies drag her body through the door....)

(The ranger player shows her disdain for having rolled three fumbles in a row....)

(A wise break over Chinese take out....)

And I finished up the month of June, by starting back to work on a long overdue project....My 28mm Western town!

I had started some of these buildings back around 2016 with the beginning of the town of Rimfire, (Arizona Territory), and did a few buildings and then just...stopped.

Suddenly I had a desire to finish up some that I had started.

And I started working on some of the Arnica Montana stuff I had...

(Laying out the Arnica projects...)

(Painting up the boardwalks....)

(Building the hotel and finding a design flaw...)

(The assembled and primed building that will soon be "The Chinese Laundry"....)

June left, and July slipped in like a nighttime prowler. Suddenly it dawned on me that the year was already halfway over.

July was here...

And we celebrated our version of our nations "Independence"...

("From sea to shining seaaaaaaa.....")

And I had watermelon!!!!

(Indeed!)

And I worked on the Western buildings...

(Size comparisons of two Arnica and one of the old Knuckleduster buildings...)

And the Chinese Laundry was done!

Good old "Wun Hung Lo" was in business!

(You want extra starch! You pay extra money!)

And some shots of the laundry...

I'm really quite happy with the way this turned out.

However, as technology advances, I do see resin buildings becoming " a thing of the past".

I also started back to work on the ERTL barn conversion that I actually began back in 2012...

Yes a project I started 10 years ago, is now making headway.

What is it about this hobby that makes us this way?

(The livery stable for Rimfire, is owned (named), for my friend Dan Merchant...)

And I took stock of other buildings I had to build....

And I cried.

(It takes a lot to make....a town....)

And I was able to finish the bank....

(The bank...ready to accept deposits, or endure withdrawals; the legal or illegal kind...)

As July started to wind down, I also was able to finish up Widow Morley's Bluebird Cafe and Bakery...

(The widow serves lunches and suppers, fresh pies, and hot coffee...)

(Henry Plunkitt, Ollie Olaffson And Winston Sinclair, (with his hands behind his back), hold a casual conversation outside of The Bluebird Café before it opens for lunch. The conversation continues and meanders between "What kind of pie will Widow Morley be serving today?" and "Do you think she is looking for a suitor?" )

(A comparison shot of The Bluebird, and Wun Hung Lo's Chinese Laundry. The laundry and boardwalks are from the Arnica Montana line, the fence, barrels, and barricade items are from Acheson. The figures are a mixture of Pulp Figures and Dixons.)

But all was not right in "Casa De Murphy".

Back in May, our town had suffered a series of sharp, sudden storms.  Like a domino effect they hit our town with hard winds and rain, Each storm would hit for about 5-10 minutes and then pass. We'd get 10 minutes of semi-calm and then the next wave would hit.

This ended up damaging our roof.

So we filed a claim to get it taken care of.

With this, before we could get the roof taken care of, we had to remove some trees and tree limbs.

The first target was our ginkgo tree...

And here were the storms....in the day....

And later on that evening....

(The 100+ year old ginkgo tree...about to come down....)

And the ginkgo came down.

The the half dead tree in the front came down.

And the big tree in the back was pruned back.

And July rolled into August...which plowed into September....

One of the most awesome things was to finally see the Battleship Texas move out of her berth at San Jacinto and get towed to the shipyard in Galveston. She's gonna be overhauled and a new place will be found for her.

(History, right there....)

And during this time, I got a chance to get a group pic of most of my Western stuff, but then also realized that there is still sooooooo much to still build. 

(Smile everybody! On the count of three....one....two.....)

And one again that evil man, Mr. Bob Murch, of Pulp Figures pushed out a KS that I backed.

(I don't really need to have more figures to ...oooooohhhhh....I NEED THESE!!!!)

And things were A-Okay in life.

Until this happened...

(Well crap....)

So I was down for two weeks.

As a result of this I am still suffering from Long Term Covid. As of this writing, I still have no sense of smell, or sense of taste.

And September rolled around...

And I hit a local bakery.

(Much goodness here...)

And the game continued....

The players explored the upper level of the temple, and planned for "the final assault".

(Getting ready to get in on the action...)

(Exploring the temple and what do they find?....A mysterious magical portal....and....)

(The Evil Priestess yet again!!!! Looking a bit worse for wear but still standing, thanks to numerous healing potions...as she stands before the portal and taunts the characters!)

(Battle is joined! Get her before she escapes yet again!)

(Oops...too late....dangit!)

(The party plans their next course of action....)

(And pizza was had by all....)

And suddenly, it was September....

And I suddenly remembered that 40 years ago this month, a young, stupid, 18 year old kid found himself on a bus to Fort Knox, KY.

(From a small town in Texas....)

(To this....)

(And this...)

(And this...)

And then October rolled around.

October is a special month for me in so many ways, and it also seems to be one of my "busy months".

The seasons change, and the leaves change to glorious colors, and Halloween is coming, and then followed by the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

And things started great by me finding....Raspberries!!!!

Yes our vines produced a bit. Not a lot but enough to cover some waffles for breakfast!

(Tasty raspberry goodness!)

(Yessssss......eat them all....)

And our quince bush produced fruit also!!!

And from quince fruit comes....quince jelly and quince paste! All courtesy of my wonderful wife, (Gawd bless her!), and her kitchen sorcery.

(She works magic in the kitchen....I swear....)

(Quince paste. I had never had this before, and it's like a slightly tart cranberry sauce...It goes really good on English muffins.)

And the Halloween was right around the corner!

(No Linus! Nooooooooo!!!!!.....)

And with that, we prepared Halloween treats for our group and our October D&D game...

My work at the table had slackened off a little bit but I did get a couple of female ghost figures painted up, and started to work on the Reaper Overgourd....

(Some ghostly ladies...)

One of the issues with painting is the frustration of painting using yellows and oranges. In this case, I had taken some helpful hints from Reaper folks and did a base color of pink to build the orange color up on. It's incomplete so far, but seems to be working quite nicely.

(A good pink base coat...)

(Followed up by the orange basecoat...)

And with Halloween coming, my wife and I wanted to do something, "a little special" for the players.

So we first started out with making "Trick or Treat Bags".

The bags were filled with a good serving of various candies, and had some unique artwork on them, courtesy of yours truly.

And once the bags were filled, they were placed...

To include spooky lighting, and they quietly awaited the players....

And we also decided to do Halloween Monster Eye Deviled Eggs among the other tasty treats for the game...

(All sorts of tasty goodies!)

(The cupcakes and the monster eye deviled eggs... These went very quickly!)

(And the party made plans to enter the swamp and into the forbidden caves...)

Perhaps though, this October was highlighted by my 10 year anniversary  to an amazing and lovely lady.

And for our anniversary dinner, I took her to our local Japanese place and we had sushi....

(Banzai!!!!)

(A nice tasty selection right here...)

(And another nice and tasty selection here...)

And then November rolled in.

Things sort of slowed down during this time period. The house started getting the major roof replacement project going, and while the gaming had wound down for the year, I did a little more work on the Overgourd. 

(He's a slow work in progress...)

And I hit the Applebees after the yearly Veteran's Day ceremony...

And for the Thanksgiving holidays, my wife and me made up some "Cajun Shrimp Deviled Eggs"....

And November rolled into December.

And I got a chance to go Lunting...

And I did "The Christmas Card thing"... Approx. 120 cards. Over 75 dollars in postage stamps!

And I ordered some season pipe tobacco from The Country Squire.

Truly wonderful service and products!

And I got to meet Tony Katz and get a signed copy of his book and have some cigar bar fun.

(They actually let us be in the same building at the same time?!?!...What were they thinking?!?!)

And even though we didn't get a tree this year for the house, (the roof thing has become an ordeal, that as of this writing we are going into week five of a one week project), I did put up some "almost obligatory" Midwest/Indiana Christmas Decorations....

(It's a major award!!!!)

And we then got the first snow of the season, (soon to be followed by the bombshell winter blast)....

("And may alllllllll yourrrrr Christmasessssssss.....be whiiiiiiiiiiiiitttteeee....")

And then Christmas came, and it was good...

And then that evening my sisters husband, (my brother in law), passed away.

And the year quietly came to an end.

Things got slow and solitary, and quiet towards the end. My neighbors both have cancer. My wife has some medical issues. I have my own problems. My family is a mess, but overall, there are worse things and situations out there, and I thank The Lord for all the blessings he has given us in these days.

And even though the supply of Mezzo Mix is less and less, I hope that 2023, sees better days ahead of us, and good things also. I hope for health, and blessings for my wife, my family, my neighbors, our town, country, and our armed forces.

And that my friends and fellow readers is a quick run through of 2022 from me to you.

Here is wishing that you have a good year, good times, good gaming, and good blessings given to you.

And may your Mezzo Mix, never run out....

(Truly a rare treasure....)