Dead trees

They certainly have possibilities.

Thanks, Always  looking for a bargain. And I enjoy the Walking Dead TV show so I am going to add some Zombies.

Are you sure these trees are really dead?  Given what else is one sale, maybe they are zombie trees . . . .

Forum Sponsor Scenic Express tree armatures.  Part of the Super tree kit.

That is a particularly nice tree: it looks like a real dead tree, with the limbs cracked off and the farmer has just gathered them/pushed them aside a bit - I've seen read dead trees on real farms just like that.  Excellent eye for detail. 

This is a great scene by the way.  I love an uncluttered country look once in a while.  I tried hard for a moment to make up a nice pun here about "until the cows come home" but it's way too early in the morning to think that hard.  

Sagebrush from my favorite spot outside Grand Junction CO. It's very similar to Super Trees material. It may not be cost effective, but it's a lot more fun driving there than to my local hobby shop.

Jim

Absolutely beautiful Jim!!!  You are a master at creating outstanding scenes....

Alan

Thanks, Alan.

Jim

Cutting the large base off and planting that tree will make it look much better.

My HO layout has tumble weeds with twisted bark as dead trees.

Very realistic and natural!

Those are the best dead trees you will find for modeling any MRR.

Anyone traveling to the S.W. should pick some up.

Or, if you aren't traveling to the S.W., you can buy them here:

Tumbleweeds For Sale

Geez - people will try to sell anything!  When I was a kid we lived outside of Farmington NM where my Dad was running an experimental type of new drilling rig for Standard of Indiana.  We had tumbleweeds piled up at and around the front the door every morning.  My job was to cbring in the milk if it was a day when it had been delivered, then gather up all the tmbleweeds on the porch and and take them around back so they could blow on away into someone else's land.

LOL, share the joy! So, Lee you were a Tumbleweed Wrangler! Did the milk come in bottles with a a little cream at the top? That's how I remember it! Yuck! Hated that stuff at the top!

Yeah, it was left on the porch around 7 AM in bottles, with a kind of cardboard cap insert that I have not seen in years - no doubt not good enough for modern standards now.  Anyway, we had the stuff at the top, too, but we always poured that out.  it was only a little bit and my Mom said it was not good to drink it.  I certainly did not argue.

Some dead wood mixed in amongst the greenery is always nice.  Fall is coming so after the leaves fall there should be ample opportunity to harvest some in all neighborhoods.

Scenic Express has a ground cover product called Dead Fall that is heavy with tree parts.  There are several forest blend products.

I sometimes use small branches and twigs. After all, they are parts of  real trees and shrubs. 

As for the milk, I made it a point to get to the milk box first, just so I could get the cream at the top.That was in the days before homoginization. My family owned a dairy, and we lived directly across the street. Needless to say, our milk was delivered first. We too had the short wide bottles with tapered necks. The caps were wax coated paper with the cardboard insert bearing the dairy name and type of milk. The cardboard inserts were called pogs. It was a popular kids game to flip pogs. 

Don

Wow.  You brought back a memory with that.  I never knew they were called pogs, but we surely played with a bunch of them! 

Off topic.  But on the other end of milk before bulk pick-up at the farm.  As a high school junior/senior I  would haul the raw milk to the local dairy/creamery.  Pick-up truck and 10 gallon cans.    One of the cans that survived.  Eventually when I was off to college there was bulk milk pick-up at the farm. 

Some of my wife's art work.