Start With Just Today

In our 3.5 months here in North Carolina, we've had some very cool experiences and visited a lot of really great places.  Field trips abound here!  It's really fun to be somewhere new and have so many places to explore and discover.  Everything is an adventure when you are living somewhere totally different!

Unfortunately, I've also been very busy.  Aren't we all? It's no excuse. But I've been very slow to document all of the fantastic trips we've taken.  I feel the need to backtrack and catch up.  But not today.  Someone once counselled  me to always start journaling with Today.  Just today.  if you try to back up and catch up, you inevitably get overwhelmed and give up.

I think that was great advice and can apply to lots of areas of my life: Laundry, relationships, weight loss, pretty much everything.  Just start with making today better.  Then do it again tomorrow.

So I'm taking that advice and just starting with today.  If I happen to find time to backup and cover past events, I will surely do that.  But here's where we went today: Yates Mill!

What a gorgeous fall day to visit an old working corn mill.  The park was hosting a home school day and we were able to attend with the younger 4 kids.  Such a treat!  I learned a lot.  We started in the classroom (no pics) to learn about artifacts and archaeology.  The lesson and activities were very fun.  But the best part of course was taking the short walk to the mill on the other side of the lake and watching the hydro powered mill come to life!  Talk about living history!

Gorgeous!

After looking at the mill from outside, we headed up to the front porch for a corn shucking demonstration.  Very cool to watch the hard dry kernels pop off the cob when run through this old but very efficient machine.

Then we headed inside.

The kids waited in line two by two to take a look at this

And then they got to poke their heads in through a little window in the wall to see the inner workings and cogs and belts of the old mill. Pretty incredible!

It was pretty loud too.

That's under the mill! And the little window is original.

We sat down to learn more of the history and how the mill operated.  We learned that a group of boys  claimed the mill as their clubhouse in 1967 after it was shut down.  They called themselves The Church Keys and their graffiti is easy to spot.  There is also graffiti from the 1800s and early 1900s.  Kinda cool!

After the tour we took a moment to just soak up the sunshine and the beautiful view.  Gorgeous day! We also learned that local churches used these waters for baptisms up until the 1950s.  

Super fun day.  I would do it again. And what a great place to take family photos.