Historic Yates Mill County Park

Today we went to explore Historic Yates Mill County Park.  It's about 15 minutes from from our house (the good news).  The park is located on a wildlife preservation site, which meant Sarge could not come today (the bad news).  

Inside the visitor center, there is a beautiful hands-on exhibit showcasing the history of the mill and the traditional process of water milling.  The boys were most interested in the dress-up boxes.

After exploring the museum, we decided to walk the Mill Pond Trail, which was a little over a mile around the lake.  There are three trails but due to our late start and the heat of the day we chose the shortest of the three for today.  The forest fauna was different than that at Hemlock Bluffs and Bass Lake Park.  There was a greater variety of water plants and animals in particular.  The signs mentioned the presence of eels and beavers but all we saw today was a big bull frog and a turtle; maybe next time.

The end of the trail dumped out by the old Mill.  Its a beautiful scene with big rocks and the historic building. It reminded us of the Smoky Mountains.  Lance even caught a minnow by hand.  Chris took Amber to the top of the dam and was lifting her up and down joking "Now your over the lake, now your under the lake." till she, in her special way, told him to "Sssssttttttop Daaaaaaddddy".  

The Mill was not open for tours while we were there but we got the schedule and will be coming back soon to see inside and explore another walking trail.

PROJECT NEWS:
In the yard, Chris and the boys finished stair-stepping the landscape walls for the garden.  The boys all enjoyed helping dad cut the wood beams.  With that done I can say the walls are now ready for us to add all the good dirt for our spring plantings.  Only thing left beside dirt is to build the one planter box near the house and the supports for the blackberries.

In the house, we had been trying to figure out what smelled so off in the boys bathroom all week.  After much spraying and cleaning all we could figure was that the old toilet just needed to be replaced.  We did some research after our hike today and decided on the right toilet for us (AS Champion 4, that could flush 20 golf balls, if you were curious).  Online they said you had to buy the seat separate but when we got to the store the "No Slam" seat was included.  If you know my boys, a "No Slam" seat is going to be a nice feature.  Another nice surprise was that due to some signage issues, we got it for $40 less than advertised online (BONUS!).  

The boys helped/supervised the replacement.  Turned out the old toilet really needed to be replaced.  Beside the obvious nastiness, the wax ring had completely disintegrated, a leak was just a matter of time.  From what we saw when removing it, we are pretty sure its the original toilet, making it 28 years old.  As a result, I think we'll recoup the toilet costs in water savings rather quickly.  So for all those reasons, I'm glad we replaced the toilet.  However, after the installation the smell was still there.  Strangely, the smell had moved to around the sink now, instead of around the toilet.  After more sniffing, we discovered the smell was coming from the boys kick boards for swimming!  Chris had moved them away from the toilet to the counter during installation :-P  .  The kick boards are now in the garage.