There are some who cut and stack firewood, take delivery of heating oil or propane to keep them warm through the short days and long nights of winter. If you peek at my wood pile, you’ll see that I am not one of those, but I once was. Our wood pile now just provides fuel for our backyard fire pit and grill. Instead of stacking wood, I pack in the necessary resources to keep me well stocked with plastic models and accessories to wile away the long winter months. Yeah I said months!

What prompted me to pen this post?  The weather we have experienced this year here in Wisconsin. Our summer…all two days of it is now but a memory. We only had two days with temperatures of 90 degrees or higher. August wasn’t even over when our day time highs only reached into the low 60′s!  September made a cold arrival with area temperatures dropping to a low of 39, that’s just five degrees above freezing! It does serve a good purpose…kills off many of the pesky insects like our non official state bird…the mosquito.

It’s now October, the trees have turned on their autumn neon colors, birds are flocking together and they are starting to head south. This all before many of the crops here are able to be harvested due to the weather. The birds rely these fields to feed to fatten up before their long trek to warmer climate. Jack Frost has already paid us a couple visits as well, he is expected to be back on Friday as our expected low will drop down to 32F…that’s F for FREEZING!

When you start weighing the economy and the weather, winter starts to look colder in more ways than just temperature. Gets one thinking of ways to overcome their grasp. One such way is through our hobby of scale modeling. Fortunately opportunities do arise that defeat both!

I managed not to spend much of my hard earn money at this years IPMS Nationals. Though there were many things I would have purchased had I had the cash to do so. Fortunately, I made the right choice of holding onto what little cash I had with me. I was enroute back home from the Nats, sitting in the Columbus airport thinking that I should have picked up this and that…when I got a phone call. Seems my cousin was preparing for a garage sale and his stash of kits was going to be included. He thought I might be interested…I WAS!

To make this story short, I arrived at the sale the next morning took a quick inventory of what he had. I decided to negotiate a deal to take the whole lot as others were walking up to scrutinize what kits were being offered for sale. A little haggling and a deal was struck, the kits were quickly whisked away by my wife, cousin and myself. We filled the trunk and back seat of my car. The additional stack of wood plastic to the pile stash is comforting to see.

Just the other evening I made a quick inventory of the supplies I’m either out of, or getting precariously low on. Can’t run out in the middle of a crucial step during assembly now can I! With my list in hand I’ve begun sourcing what I need. So instead of stacking wood, I have started stacking plastic kits like chord wood, ready to heat the scale modeling soul over the course of a long cold winter. ;0) Winter now isn’t looking too bad after all.

Now is a good time for you too to take an inventory of the things you think you’ll need for those winter scale modeling projects! You might as well get them now, think about those poor delivery folks slogging through the ice and snow! ;o)

Happy Modeling!