No Receptacle?

We went to a park today with my niece and nephew, to get some fresh air and wear them out a little before dinner. First, I apologize for the quality of these photos, I didn’t have the camera with me and these are cell phone shots… it doesn’t do a great job but it’s passable.

It seems that this park is a popular place for picnics, and hence has become a place for hungry ducks and geese to congregate looking for stale bread and crackers. When we were there the flock of hungry birds was quite large, but once we didn’t make with the food they mostly left us alone. Geese are one bird I’ve never really understood… they’re very aloof and with their size more than a bit frightening.

Where the cell phone cam is bad in general, it’s really bad for small objects. This is a four leaf clover that was in the walking path at the park.

The park sits next to a local elementary school and we wandered over to the playground there. The playground equipment was quite nice and the kids really seemed to have a good time with it.

I’m cynical and jaded of course, so along with watching the kids I was noticing the leavings of those who had been there before us. There was more litter about than usual, oddly enough… and there were no waste baskets in sight which I found very very odd. I know you can’t see it in the photo above, but behind the tree near the fence is a whitish blob that was…

It bothers me that of the litter around a playground at a school building, a disproportionate amount was beer cans and bottlecaps. Wouldn’t you leave the alcohol at home if you were taking your kids to play at a public place? Something else is wrong in this picture too… I assume from the playground that this is a school for younger kids, and kids are notorious for spreading out and doing their own thing. If those kids were to get anywhere near that fence though, they’d be knee deep in poison ivy… the fenceline around the entire playground area was covered with it. I know I had some bad experiences with that plant as a child, and it just seemed really strange to me that it hadn’t been cleared from the area.

But the park was a good time, and it was nice to walk about and get a little sun for the hour or so we were there. Tomorrow ends the vacation, unfortunately… and I’m back to work monday morning so not much time to get back to a normal schedule. Hopefully everything will go smoothly, and then it will be back to EQ2 news for next week.

Good night, everyone!