Texas State Railroad

Today we continued our fun on the rails at the Texas State Railroad in Rusk!

 

 

During the month of October the railroad is having a themed train ride - "Charlie Brown and the Great Pumpking Patch".  Brazos has the movie, so we thought he would really enjoy this special event.

 

The morning started out early.  We left the house at 7:00 am, although we were shooting for 6:30 am.  We drove for three hours to Rusk with only two short stops for potty breaks, breakfast, and buying Sandy a new outfit because she poohed on herself.  Our goal was to make it to Rusk by 10:30 so we could drive through the Cherokee Trace Drive Thru Safari before our train ride.  We made it to Rusk by 11:00 and started searching for the animal adventure.  Our GPS wouldn't recognize the address and we couldn't get internet signal for Mapquest directions.  We stopped at a local hotel to ask for directions, but unfortunately the girl told us that she had lived in the town her whole life and had never been to the drive thru safari.  So after driving around for two hours searching, we just decided to get a bite to eat and find something else to do.

 

We found this great little restaurant called Legends Old Time Burgers.  The food was delicious and they made homemade french fries just like our local restaurant Santa Fe. Yum!!  After ordering our food the girl told us, "The beans are over there."  We looked at her in a confused manner wondering which of us ordered beans with our salads and hamburgers and she told us, "Oh, it's all the beans you can eat."  A restaurant with an unlimited buffet of beans! 

 

Rusk claims to have the longest footbridge in the nation, being over 500 feet in length.  The bridge was built in 1816 for country folk to get to town when the creek flooded. Of course the bridge has been rebuilt and maintained since then. We found the bridge thinking it would be a great release of energy for Brazos to run all over the bridge.  I was imagining something a bit larger, but the quiant bridge did just the purpose of letting Brazos run with freedom after sitting in the car for five hours.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our train departed at 2:30 so it was time to head to the Rusk Depot!  When we arrived we saw the beautiful red train parked on the tracks awaiting it's cheerful passengers.  I went inside to retrieve our boarding passes while Brazos found the toy trains to play with.  It wasn't easy pulling him away from his beloved Percy.

 

 

 

We finally convinced Brazos to head outside to see the big steam engine.  Matt was a bit disappointed when all he saw was a diesel engine, but it was still big and upclose, so it would do.  A worker told us that the steam engine had just left to head to the Palestine Depot.  Oh well.  It didn't matter to Brazos, he was in awe of the train parked in front of him.

 

 

 

 

The conductor yelled, "All aboard the Peanuts Express!"  Brazos was such a big boy and handed the conductor his boarding pass.  We loaded the train and we were off!

 



 

 

 

Our ride lasted about twenty minutes, and then we pulled into the Pumpkin Patch.  A handful of Halloween characters welcomed us as we unloaded the train.  They really were a friendly group of people, and they made you feel like they were so happy YOU came to visit them.

 

 

 

We had an hour to roam the pasture filled with fall activities for the kids.  There were hay rides, a petting zoo, small carnival games, a train bounce house, a roller slide, funnel cakes, and of course the pumpkin patch. 

 

Brazos first hopped in the bounce house, but as soon as a kid dressed as Spiderman hopped in, Brazos froze and was done jumping.  He had never seen Spiderman before and the kid was covered from head to toe, so Brazos wasn't sure about how this kid's face looked.  Jumping time was over and it was off to the next activity.

 

 

I love those facial expressions!

 

There was also a sandbox filled with deer corn.  The kids jumped inside to dig for small prizes.  Brazos dove right in while Sandy wasn't quite sure what to do.

 

You want me to do what?



 

There was also a local man playing his guitar and singing kid songs for everyone's entertainment.  He did a great job and he thanked us all for coming and said, "When the weather turned cold I thought I would be cold and lonely today, but it turns out I'm just cold.  Thank you all for coming!"  One of the workers tried to get Brazos to do the Hokey Pokey with him, but Brazos wasn't in the dancing mood.

 

 

 

 

The final excitement for the stop was to let the kids knock on each door of "Trick or Treat Street" for some trick or treating.  Brazos was very excited to get candy and small toys, especially from Scooby Doo.  Sandy even got to meet Snoopy!

 

 

 

Our hour of fun had ended and it was time to board the Peanuts Express to head back to the Rusk Depot.  Brazos enjoyed his twenty minutes of staring out the train window watching all the forest trees go by.  {The train runs through the Texas Pineywoods Forest.} 

 

When the train stopped Matt and I decided it would be best to go straight to the car to begin heading home, but our little man remembered what was inside the depot...TOY TRAINS!  He threw a short fit, but we finally got him strapped into his car seat and we headed home from another fun day on the rails.  ChooChoo!!













Thomas the Train

Brazos is obsessed with Thomas the Train just like a little boy should be.

When he was an infant he wasn't attached to any toy, such as a teddy bear or even a blanket.  He had toys he enjoyed playing with, but he wouldn't miss them if they were gone.  For his second birthday a good friend gave him a Thomas the Train play set, and ever since then he's been hooked on Thomas.  We have Thomas movies, Thomas blankets, Thomas pillows, Thomas trains, Thomas tracks, and we even eat Thomas snacks.

Last weekend Matt and I decided to take Brazos on an extra special train ride in Burnet.  He got to ride on Thomas the Train!  He even took his picture with Sir Topham Hat the train conductor and got to go shopping in the Thomas gift shop.  He was in wonderland.

It was crazy seeing little boys, and some girls, of all ages yelling, "I see Thomas!  There's Thomas!"

The day was rainy, but luckily Matt made us go by ponchos at Wal-Mart the night before for "just in case" purposes.  We waited for train ride in the rain, which was a bit miserable for Sandy.  Her car seat was soaked.  Brazos loved riding the train, although it only goes back and forth down one track.  It was a short 25 minute ride, but to Brazos it was perfect.  He stuck his head out the window to watch the tracks go by and he was even given a Junior Conductor certificate.

 

 

 

 

 

What a great event for our little conductor!

We also walked to downtown Burnet to eat at Tea-licious.  They claim to have the #1 "googled" recipe for sweet pickles.  They were delicious!  We even bought a jar to bring home and they're almost gone!  I loved how they served our food on vintage china plates and the pasta salad and other side items all came in their own tea cups.  It was a sweet treat to end the day.

As we were driving off, Brazos saw Thomas rolling on the tracks and from the backseat we heard the most sincere, "Bye Thomas".  It melted my heart.

Planting Grass

Last week we fulfilled one of Matt's items on his long list of "Things To Do".  We planted grass in the back pasture.  He has been working on this for a looooonnnnggg time.

When we first bought this land, it was covered in trees and brush. With one small sweep at a time, Matt pushed a bulldozer around until most of the brush and wanted trees were pushed down.  This process happened over several years.  There were many nights that I didn't see Matt until dark because he was ALWAYS out on the bulldozer.

Some of the trees Matt cut into firewood and the rest he burned.  You would think that burning the brush would be a quick way to get rid of it, but it doesn't happen so fast when you have to wait for burn bans to be lifted.  The piles of brush sat for a long time until Matt was allowed to burn them. 

Matt worked for weeks, maybe even months, cutting the wood into small firewood pieces.  He used his grandpa's old wood cutter, which I think gave him a sense of nostalgia and pride.  During the winter months we sold firewood by advertising on the local Country Store Radio.  We still have wood if you need it.

Two weeks ago, Matt finally finished clearing the land.  He pushed the last few piles of brush together and burned them.  He ran over the land one last time with the bulldozer to level the dirt.

Oh, and Matt had to do some work on the bulldozer, too.  I love this picture of him welding a cylinder for the bulldozer.

Two friends from work came over help Matt with the last preparations.  They drove their tractors with blades and tillers to till and level the dirt some more.  Matt doesn't normally ask people to help.  He really enjoys doing things himself, mainly because he's so darn particular about how it's done.  But I could tell he had an extra pep in his step when his friends came to help.  One of them even told me that they noticed his change in behavior at work after they said they would help. "He sure perked up the rest of the day."

Last Tuesday, Matt took off of work to finally plant his grass.  This grass will be used to feed our cattle and hopefully produce enough grass to sustain a few new cows, that Matt would like to purchase in the future. 

In the morning I took the kids to Mother's Day Out and Matt took the truck and trailer to Old Dime Box to pick up the grass from Hodges Hay Service.  When I came back home, Matt had already made it back and we had some helpers and observers.  Matt's dad came to help and my grandparents came to watch.  Matt's dad had asked them to come watch because I would be driving a tractor...history in the making supposedly.  Although according to my brother-in-law I can "drive the heck out of tractor."  It's nice to know I'm thought so highly of.

 

Here is the prepared pasture and the grass Matt has been working so hard for.

 

 

The first step was to keep the grass watered so it wouldn't die while it was on the trailer waiting for it's final resting place in the dirt.

 

 

To plant the grass Matt used a device called a sprigger.  He bought this sprigger at an auction in Sealy a few months back.  He had to do a few touch ups on it and he painted it black instead of it's rusty yellow color. 

 

Matt was ready to get the grass in the ground, so he picked up a pitchfork load of grass and dumped it into the sprigger.  He filled it about three fourths full.  His dad did this part for him the remainder of the day while he drove the tractor.

 

 

 

 

Matt was speedin' on that little tractor of his.  His reasoning was that supposedly the sprigger works better at a fast speed.  The sprigger has a blade that digs a trench, with another devise that allows some grass to drop in the trench, and then the red blades throw dirt into the trench to cover the grass up.  Matt made rows and rows of planted grass.  I do believe he was having a grand ole' time, even though he had to stop frequently to fix a part on the sprigger-ma-jigger.

 

 

 

 

 

I love this picture of Matt and his dad working on the sprigger together.

 



 

His dad even did a little posing for the camera.  He's goofy like that...that's why we love him.

 

 

 My job, other than documenting the day, was to drive the tractor with the packer attached.  Once the grass was planted I drove over the rows to back the dirt down to lock in the moisture.  It was fun, but made me very sleepy.  I get so sleepy driving for some reason, even when driving my car.  So going back and forth made my eyes very heavy.

 



 

 

 

After I packed it down, we were done. 

 

So basically, our field looked like this when we were done working for hours and hours.

 

 

Yep.  You can't even tell we were out there.  Hopefully in a few days we'll get some rain and see some grass poppin' through that desert land.