Spring Cleaning the City

The city of Liberty held a community Spring clean up day this past Saturday to try and pick up liter along the main roads in town.

Cari and I felt like this would be a great event to participate in with the kids.  When we got down to the stadium Saturday morning we met up with the other volunteers.  Most of the city council members were there along with the police and fire departments.  The cub scout leader was there with a large group of energetic boys.

The mayor kicked off the event by describing the goals and the plan for the morning and then thanking everyone for coming out.

My family and I spent the next few hours collecting liter in town.  The police department kept cars near the groups of volunteers to keep traffic at a safe distance from us.  One of the highlights for our youngest was not picking up trash, but being invited to sit in one of the police cars.  The officer pulled up and asked her if she was getting bored.  She nodded and didn't hesitate to jump into the car.  I warned him that she talks a lot, which he confirmed twenty minutes later when I got her out of the car.

The group of volunteers collected a good amount of trash from all around downtown and toward the high school.

It would have been great to see more volunteers, but for our first event, I felt like we had a good turn out.   My kids asked me why we were doing this and I explained it like doing chores.

It takes everyone in our house to keep everything clean and updated.  That's why we all have chores.  It's the same way for the town we live in.  We all have a responsibility to do our part to improve the community.   

It was a worth while way to spend a Saturday morning.

Center Methodist Church

Exploring during lunch time is one of my favorite things to do while in a new place and I haven't been able to do much of it recently.  As I was driving toward Anderson recently I went through Townville, SC.   Just before Townville I passed by this church and noticed the large sign outside.

I made a quick U-turn and decided this would be my lunch spot.  The sign talks about how the site was used by the Pickens circuit of the Methodist conference for camp meetings prior to a church being built.

The building appeared to be locked up but I looked in the windows.  It was pretty typical for churches similar to this.  A very sparse room with neat rows of wooden pews.  At the front was an old piano and a a simple raised wooden pulpit.

I meandered in the cemetery for a while before leaving and came across some interesting discoveries.

This hand carved stone was hard to read but appears to be H. E. ????  Died June 1887.

There were also markers for veterans of various wars.

A marker for a CSA veteran.

An impressive marker for a WW1 vet.
"Sanford S. Cain Born July 23, 1896.  Wounded in France in the world war Sept 10th.  Died Sept 11, 1918.  Battery C 21st Field Artillery."
On the right side of the monument it says that his body was "Removed to the USA and buried in this cemetery May 30, 1921".

It was certainly one of the more interesting lunch breaks I've had in a while and I'm glad to have better weather so that I can get out and do more trips like this.

Family Photos

Here are some family photos that we took on Easter morning after church.

Taking them where we were standing on a million flower pedals was more than we could resist.

During our photo session we also took another fun shot.  It wasn't until I was reviewing the photos later with Cari that we noticed someone wasn't participating.

Caution: SKUNK

About a month ago I was greeted with a very solid warning as I left the house for work.  My hands were full and I used my back to push open the storm door.

As the door slammed shut behind me I stopped dead in my tracks.  The very strong and recent odor of skunk was in the air.  In the darkness I eyed the space between me and my car.  I hit the button to unlock the doors and the lights came on.

The coast appeared to be clear and I made my way to the car.   I hesitated before opening the door and checked my surroundings one more time.

I dumped my stuff in the backseat, hopped in, and slammed the door shut as quickly as I could.  It wasn't likely that the skunk was hiding under my car, but you can't take that chance.  Next I locked the door in case the stink tried to get in.

It is days like this that I wonder if the expense of a garage would be worth it.

Spring Break at the Park

We made plans to spend the end of spring break at the park downtown long before the actual break.  At that time we didn't know it was going to be a cloudy and cold day.  Not willing to let the weather beat us, we headed out to the park to find that MANY other people also were willing to deal with cooler temps at the park.

After spending some time in the field throwing a frisbee we decided to walk to Falls park.

Below are some of our adventures on our way to see the falls.

This was the boy's favorite road sign ever:

Rule breaker!

Riding the crazy train:

The rope climb:

Just before attempting some pull ups:

It didn't feel too cold once we got going and we ended up having a great day at the park.

Before heading home we stopped for ice cream and this happened. . . I'm not sure what she was doing but she was eating sugar.

I'm not going to allow anyone else to hold my camera in the future. ..

Happy Easter Egg

God's Not Dead.

The Underside is Broken

This is what the underside of my lawn mower looks like.

I'm pretty sure this blade isn't the right shape either. 

It's unfortunate that I'm looking at the underside of the mower, but I had to do it to identify what was broken (besides the blade).

It was one of those jobs where the more you looked, the more broken stuff you found.  By the time the ordered parts arrive and I get them installed the grass will be tall enough to get all the new parts broken in properly.  Just not too broken in I hope.

YouTube of the Week

Are you an expert?

Goats!

Our friends invited us to spend some time at their farm this weekend.  They have some baby goats and thought our kids would like to see them.  Our youngest chased the goats around the field but never did catch one.  She even baited them with some corn but couldn't get too close before spooking them.

Since the boy is on the verge of getting his learners permit, he made some practice in a golf cart around the property.

It was a great day on the farm and we appreciated the invitation!

Eat Mor Chikin

During a long drive home from work I stopped at a Burger King drive thru for a drink.  As I approached the window I saw a chicken roaming around on the side of the building.  

After I took the photo the lady waiting to hand me my drink said there are several chickens always hanging around the window area bothering drivers.  I guess because I didn't order a chicken sandwich they didn't bother me.

Statistics

Google provides some information for who is looking at this blog and I decided to see who you people are.

First of all let's talk for a minute about Duck Notes blog.

I've posted over 1,900 posts in ten years and Google has recorded over 107,000 page views.

By far, the post that drags the most people here is one about Murphy's Village in North Augusta and that's because apparently people are Google searching that term every. single. day.   That post lists over 44,000 page views since it was posted late in 2008.  Originally comments were allowed on that post but people started arguing about gypsies and then the gypsies started defending themselves there.  I had to turn off comments for that one.

The next thing I wanted to learn is who is coming here.  These numbers are for visitors during the past month.

It would appear that I draw a large crowd from Russia but I'm fairly certain that it's mostly just Putin.  He just can't wait for the next update and spends a lot of time refreshing his browser.

The 21 people from the UK are probably all people looking for friends living in North Augusta.

Next up is what kind of browser are you using when you visit Duck Notes.

Honestly, I don't really care what you use to get here. But you people on Internet Explorer need to try something else.

Since we're looking at browsers we might as well take a look at what operating system you are using.  I need to know how many people love their iPhones.  If it looks like a good chunk of my audience I'll probably hold off on trash talking Apple.

Woah.  Some guy is still living in the late 90's with that BlackBerry.  Leave me a comment and I'll put in for getting you a new phone Kevin.  Thankfully it looks like only 17% of you are using Apple software so I'll continue looking down on Apple products.

Finally I wanted to check out your addresses on Google maps.

Just kidding.

Thanks for stopping to take a look at the blog.  I'm going to keep posting so it's kind of nice knowing people are taking time to read.  Even if almost all of you are just looking for dirt on the Irish Travelers.

Get Outside

Finally, some great weather without a fully scheduled Saturday.  It was time to get outside!

This past weekend the girls and I headed over to the State Botanical Gardens in Clemson.  Last summer, they had a flood in the gardens from all of the rain were receiving.  While a lot of work has been done to repair the trails and gardens, there were still many trails closed while they complete repairs and rebuild bridges. 

Using the trails that were open we went exploring in the gardens. . .

With days like this it's hard to justify staying inside.  It's time to GET OUTSIDE.