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Monday, March 30, 2015

Happy Monday!

Today was the first day of Spring Break! And the start of Holy Week! I have a feeling this is going to be a great week!!
We started out our morning peeling and breaking up old crayons to make new bunny shaped crayons for some little people!  The bunny tray is only used for crayons. I have another one for edible treats.

While the boys were making crayons, I was busy making bunny cookies.
A happy lunch break. The boys released all the bunny crayons, and divided them up.

Decorating Bunnies!
Did you know the sprinkles in the Peeps colors have potential nut allergies? They have a warning on the label!   We could not have that! I had some sugar that I had colored earlier, in green, yellow and purple.  It worked out great!

Cleaning up a little, even though they were not done yet.  We did use some of the Peeps colors too, but we will have those marked as potential nuts.

(there are some nut allergies in the neighborhood)

After some out side playing. We got ready to go to the Seder meal at St. Theresa's!
The Seder was the last super, and our heritage. It is a good thing to learn.

We have a potluck meal during the seder.  I brought broccoli slaw and a kosher for passover apple almond cake.    There was so much yummy food.
Getting ready. All the men are given yarmulkes to wear.
I was so proud of Lon for trying everything. He was not a fan of the horseradish, but he smelled it.  He nibbled the bitter herbs, he ate the matzo and the haroseth.
He had apple juice, not wine.

A great start to what is shaping up to be a great week!

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Beidler Audubon Center

Today I wanted to get out of the house.  Mark suggested we see what Cane Bay was like.  We checked it out,  There were lots of houses and some shops, and it is getting bigger. We did not stop to see anything there but continued on to Holly Hill. Another town we had never seen !
Traveling down the road

Holly Hill. There was not much to the town
An interesting building in Holly Hill

Near the industrial area, we passed this.  A purple port a potty. I had not ever seen a purple one.  And I got dared to put it in the blog.

Swamp


At this point in our drive we were still just going to to see what Harleyville was like and head home.
Until we saw this!  Looked like it would be a great way to get some energy out!

The road to the center. It is marked slow. I could not see how anyone could go fast on this dirt road.

Going to go see what we could see

Two snakes that were happily warm in the center.

All the different nests in the Four Hole Swamp

We learned the swamp is called Four Hole Swamp. Why it is called Four Hole Swamp, no one has any memory of.

 this feeder is right outside the center.
The boardwalk through the swamp was a 1 3/4 miles.  It was all on a boardwalk, it made it an easy walk and protected the swamp.



swamp! It was not smelly.  I thought swamps were bad smelling places. This was not.
Lon got the book from the naturalist. It had a list of 20 stops along the way. Each stop had a page in the book and Lon read them aloud to us.   We did learn a lot about swamps!


There are going to be pictures of the swamp. It was beautiful



Reading us the book !

We thought it was really cool looking how they made the fan pattern as the boardwalk curved.



A three point cypress knee


A large downed tree and a part of the old boardwalk.  We wondered why the boardwalk was left in the water.
Hurricane Hugo ripped through the area 25 years ago. It tore up the boardwalk, knocked down trees, and since this is a natural swamp, they left things were they lay.

lizard!

Lon loves lizards


We were told these can change colors.
Funky looking knee

another lizard

Why Cypress knees? The answer is no one really knows. They grow up from the roots, and pop up out of the water.  We like them.

A hollow stump.

 more knees



The lake

On the board walk out to the lake, we saw some otter scat. It was the only smelly thing in the swamp!

We did see two splashes in the lake area and we are going to believe those were otters!





On the end of this chain was supposed to be a cup for people to pour out some water. It is a black water swamp, but the water is not black, it is surprisingly clear.  The water is clean and moving.

We wondered what did this

The tree grew into the old boardwalk railing. When they built a new one, they built it around the tree.







Lon thought the item 1462 Columbus was playing with boats in his bathtub was one of the funniest lines in the whole placard

the tree was too big to all fit in my camera lens



the biggest spider we have ever seen in South Carolina. We need to find out what it is. We left it alive as we walked by

Mark spotted the cotton mouth in the water under our feet.
One of the poisonous snakes in South Carolina.
He was not a danger to us, nor us to him.





A yellow back slider turtle
 We caught him just before he slipped into the water.

Lon reads the whole book to us, a section at a time.

Back at the center!  We took our time, it was really fun.

At the center, the naturalist brought out a stainless steel travel coffee mug that an 8 foot alligator got a hold of.  He brought out an alligator skull to show Lon.

Lon thought this was really cool !

The naturalist thinks Lon has a future as an alligator forensic scientist.

Even though it was bit chilly, in the low 50s, we had a great time!  It was such a cool place.

We want to see what it is like in other seasons.