The weather has been too nice lately to be working inside so I started landscaping the yard in earnest a few weeks ago. So far, I've planted over 225 plants and more on the way. This is a project I've been putting off for almost 5 years and it's almost done.
While waiting on the next shipment of plants to reach the local Co-Op, I decided to do a little work on the layout. I've done a bit here and there over the past month or so but just hadn't posted and hadn't spent more than an hour working on it. Today, I spent most of the day up there. The focus of the work has been centered on the TXI cement plant and getting all the roads in place. Those are all done and painted so I started adding a scenery base and getting buildings into their final resting place. I've got LOTS of glue drying right now so it seemed like a good time to post.
Also, one other development. Take a look at pp. 54-55 of the latest (June 2012) issue of Model Railroader. I've got my first article published in a major magazine on how I built the car loading platforms for Crawford Grain and TXI. More to come!
I'm continuing work on the TXI cement plant. The scene with just a blue backdrop made the plant look small and shallow. I really wanted to give the impression of the massive plant that it is. So, I thought of adding a photo backdrop behind the plant to hopefully give the illusion of depth. The backdrop photo is a quick mural with no adjustments I made in Photoshop combining about a dozen photos of the conveyor system to the bulk Clinker storage area. I like the idea and look of photo backdrops but I think this one needs some work.
First off, I think I need to lighten the image as it appears too dark with the layout lighting. Plus, I'd like the blue sky to be a closer match to the painted blue backdrop I already have.
Also, you can see that I have a photo backdrop behind only half of the cement plant. I feel that I need to have a photo behind the whole plant but I'm not sure what would look good behind the kiln. I've got some more photos of the plant that I'm going to try to work into those area. 
