I don't have photos of it, but yesterday I went to a small local hobby shop and found he had scenery stock from a now-defunct Canadian company. I bought a huge bag (which almost completely filled two tamped-down Woodland Scenics shaker containers) of ground cover which, to me, looked mostly like the dead stuff you find under any deciduous trees. I sprinkled some at the base of most of the non-pine trees on the layout (none for the background ones as I'm not a contortionist). I think it really makes a difference. All deciduous trees of course have this little pile of previous year’s leaves at the base unless they’re in someone’s raked yard. It’s the small things that make a layout look correct, I think. Many visitors probably wouldn't even notice, but I consider that big bag well worth the ten bucks I paid for it.
I talked with my folks late yesterday on the phone (they live at the opposite corner of the country from me) and both said that now I have all those trees in place, the layout is really looking like what they recall from their childhood (less the trains of course). I’ve decided I am going to put a small enclosed fenced 'farm' area, based on a neat photo I have of the ET&WNC in its final year. The gates around the area were all made of two posts on each side with slots, and beams would go horizontally across the opening. My parents tell me that having one or two (but no more than two) milk cows wouldn’t have been unusual back then, so I’ll make some scale cow pies and get a good ‘moo cow’ figure to paint to the correct breed.
