AUTUMN in ONLEY–the EVENT!

WE FINALLY HAD OUR AUTUMN in Onley mini Country Fair… our testing the waters event, as it were. Everything is a learning experience. Someone has an idea, you don’t know if it will work or not until you have tried it.

Our main purpose is, of course, to save the old building, but that takes a lot of time and money. We were so lucky to have had 2 grants, one from the Town of Onley, one from the Eastern Shore Foundation, that enabled us to get some serious carpentry work done and then a new roof put on. But our other purpose is to share the joy of model railroading with others, and use it as a means of teaching kids – not just how to play with trains, but eventually teaching math, art, history, physics, carpentry, the list can go on and on, by setting up trains and building layouts. They will also learn a lot about patience.

In celebration of the new roof, we held a big Bake Sale, Play with Trains event, and a couple fun things thrown in for the kids. The sheriff’s department came and set up to do Ident-a-Kid – a great program, free to anyone who brings their child.

Friends and neighbors brought all kinds of delicious looking baked goods. What a time to NOT be allowed to eat anything with sugar or white flour. I did manage a half a cookie before someone rescued me. (swiped my bag of cookies right out of my hand, she did!) sigh.

It was a deliciously cool day, too. Most folks had on light jackets except for the tough MEN and teenaged boys in their short sleeves. In spite of the threatening clouds, the rain stayed away and we even had moments of delightful sunshine!

Ed enjoyed helping the kids make scarecrows. That seemed like a lot of fun. The kids also had fun painting pumpkins.

The big hit was, of course, the trains. Niall Finnegan, our president, was more than willing to explain how our unfinished layout was made, from bending, shaping, cutting, and soldering the track, to gluing the foam and shaping it into rocks and hills. The layout is unfinished so kids (of all ages) can see the various steps in making a layout. The scenery is left unfinished, one of the trees still has a paper clip holding a branch section in place for gluing. The plaster base is unpainted, no moss has been attached to make it look like weeds or bushes. The kids were fascinated. So was the sheriff! Our Sheriff, Todd Godwin, dropped by to see how things were going.

After a long day of helping to make scarecrows, member Ed took a well deserved break while waiting for someone to bring him some lunch! The guys at the Fire Station grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for us. If we do this again next year, Ya’all come see us, ya hear?

PS - blogger has decided NOT to let me line the pictures up the way I want them - sorry...