Flora of Mill Hill

So, the center house is supposedly the best-kept with older couple having time to do some lawn and garden work.  Addressed the lawn first with white glue painted on the yard area and fine earth colored turf from Woodland Scenics:

Then sprayed some extra control hair spray and sprinkled with WS green fine turf; finished with another spritz of hair spray.  If nothing else, the layout got a fairly pleasant aroma!

With plans for a wooded area behind the houses, a few trial trees were thrown together.  Some branches from decorations from Michael's wrapped with brown florist's tape, sprayed with medium green paint and dusted with WS green ground foam:

Used some acrylic gray and maple paint on trunk, but will likely go back and cover better.  Foliage is a little sparse. . . .

Then tried something from Internet suggesting use of grape vine for "arbor" wrapped with florist's tape.  In this case, used WS clump foliage and white glue for leaves.

Clump foliage didn't seem to want to stick real well and grape vine was a bit whop-sided.

Last try was grape vine with most of the individual stems (one per grape) removed.  Applied white glue to stems in this case (dipped clump foliage in glue for previous tree) and added reindeer moss:

The second tree was a bit "green" so out came the hair spray and some WS fine burnt grass; the last tree was a bit pale so hair spray and WS fine green grass.  These will definitely be forest trees and not be planted as landscape items.  BUT, it's a start.  Maybe I'll keep looking for the perfect arbor -- but I was trying to avoid buying any!

American Graffiti Mill Hill Style

So, the granddaughters decided that the first house on the mill hill is owned by one of our Greasers' dad.  Seemed like it needed a little more to justify the hedge put up by those in the blue house next door.  Woodland Scenics to the rescue!  A couple more junk cars were added plus a rustier pick em up truck, a Model A frame with seats, and a couple of wheels in the back of the pickup.  Problem is, the best I can come up with for the truck is that it's a 1955 Chevy Cameo -- pretty nice ride in its day!  Since the date of the layout is supposed to be September, 1956, how in the world did that truck get is such bad condition?  Oh well, it is representative, right?

I guess that's Uncle Millner leaning against the house while Pops has just arrived in the truck.  Oh, and you guessed it, the Greaser over at Ebenezer Grill with the yellow Deuce Coupe has to be the character from American Graffiti with one letter added to his last name -- John MILLner.

OK, so nothing is glued down except the little 1953 Chevy scene picked up at a RR modelers' swap meet.  We'll do a little work on grass, bushes, and trees before everything is finally set in place.

Ground Goop and Families for the Mill Village

Always good to have grands visit, including the opportunity to have some fun with the layout.  We had two granddaughters visiting again and they responded well to the challenge of more Lou Sassi ground goop for scenes on the layout.  They seemed pleased with the results of the tobacco farm, so we picked the mill hill as the next scene.  My son was in the habit of calling the Styrofoam insulation we used to make a "hill" strawberry ice cream, so we really did need to do something.  This time we even had help from the DIL.

Granddaughter #1 was a little concerned with Granddaughter #2 using power sander to adjust the pink ice cream!

But there was little problem applying the goop.

Mom was a strong contributor, too!

We let the goop sit overnight after I added a little gravel for the drive up to the mill village.  Then we had to come up with the story behind the houses.  We had placed the "scene" of junked car in the goop, so it only seemed right that the closest house was owned by the father of one of the greasers -- haven't decided whether the kid drives the black '55 or the deuce coupe.  But we're pretty sure he's a high school dropout.  His dad is single and works at the textile mile.

We looked at the far house next and wanted to put up the close line.  The girls inspected what was on the line and determined the family consisted of father, mother, and two daughters.  We'll add some outdoor activities for them.  Maybe even tie a tire swing to a local tree WHEN we plant the tree.  Dad, of course, is at the mill; Mom is a nurse at the local Doctors' Office.

Then we had the middle house to worry about.  A slightly older couple lives here.  They worked hard to raise their children and saved as much as they could.  Their young folks are at college in hopes of a better life.  Now that they are empty-nesters, the couple have time to keep their lawn looking nice, feed a dog, and plant some flowers.  They are NOT pleased with the next door neighbor and have installed a hedge a few years back

Well, the hedge and lawn and flowers and tree swing need to be installed permanently, and a good bit more work is still needed. . . .