We had an interesting failure in one of the closet light fixtures. We flipped the light switch, heard a loud pop, and the bedroom went dark and the emergency flashlight came on because the breaker tripped. When we looked at the light (because who looks at the light fixture every time they turn the light on?), it was just dangling from the ceiling.
When I got up there to investigate, it seemed pretty clear why the light was dangling. When I got the light fixture down, these two blue pieces fell down.
These had broken off the plastic electrical box for the lighting fixture wiring. It’s where the bracket for the light fixture screws in to. You can see where the pieces broke off in the areas circled in red.
The electrical box looks cracked and broken in a few other places along the top and sides as well. It’s looking pretty bad.
I also found a tiny piece of melted metal and a little bit of exposed wire poking out of one of the wire nuts. So it looks like what happened was when the plastic broke, the light fixture fell, and the small strands of wire poking out of the wire nut and the ground wire were touching the bracket that held everything up. When we flipped the switch, there was loud pop from the short circuit, and the breaker tripped. Fortunately nothing smoked or caught fire.
After seeing the condition of this box, now I kind of want to look at all the other electrical fixture boxes in the house to see how they look.
This is the first new addition to my Lowcountry Dog Park Tour since 2016. After we moved the closest dog park was at Wannamaker County Park, which was a bit of a drive. The dogs were getting older, slowing down some, and also got a fenced-in back yard, so trips to the dog park became less important. After the dogs died, there really wasn’t much reason to visit dog parks anymore.
This weekend, I’m dog-sitting Cooper. A perfect excuse to go visit a dog park! A couple years ago Goose Creek opened up a new park, John McCants Veterans Park, with a fenced in dog park. If it had opened a few years earlier, dog park trips probably would have made it back into the routine. Cooper and I decided to go check it out.
Getting to the dog park is pretty easy. It’s just off a major road and a short drive down a residential street. Two parking lots on either side of the street provide plenty of parking for people using the park itself, or the dog park. The dog park is a fenced off area off in a corner of the park.
The dog park at John McCants Veterans Park
The dog park has a standard dog lock set up with an outer gate and two inside gates for the large and small dog areas. A water fountain provides water for dogs and people. A poop bag dispenser is provided in case you forget to bring some along. Bathrooms for people are in a picnic shelter just across the field from the dog park.
Dog lock entry gates
This is a new park, so there’s not much in the way of shade for people. Some small trees provide a bit of shade for the benches. It will be a few years before they get big enough to provide more shade.
A bench with a small tree for some shelter for people to sit at.The large dog park area at John McCants Veterans Park dog park.
There are some agility type fixtures on both sides for dogs to play with and play on. There aren’t any tennis balls or other toys (yet), so you’ll have to bring your own.
Small dog area at the John McCants Veterans Park dog park.The large dog park area at John McCants Veterans Park dog park.
Each side has a couple of largish hills, one of which has two tunnels going through them. Good for running through, or maybe a nice shady spot for dogs to rest in.
A hill with two tunnels in it for dogs to run through.Small dog area at the John McCants Veterans Park dog park.
There are also a couple of fake boulders. I don’t know if they’re hiding or covering up something, or just another feature for dogs to pee on.
A fake rock for dogs to pee on.
It’s a pretty good sized dog park, but since it’s split up into a small and large dog area, it’s effectively two small dog parks. Personally I think separating large and small dogs at a dog park is unnecessary and ends up wasting a lot of perfectly good dog park space. At all the split dog parks I’ve been to over the years, all the dogs regardless of size end up in the same space anyway leaving the other half empty.
For people who like trains, it’s a good place to watch them go by.
Artwork at the dog park.Dog park at John McCants Veterans Park. A CSX locomotive is passing by the dog park.
There was a lot less activity at the park than I expected for a Saturday morning. Cooper and I were the only ones at the dog park today, so I don’t know how busy the dog park gets. There were a few other people and kids in the play area of the park though.
A few weeks ago, the stove top light bulb in our microwave burned out. A trip to the local big box hardware store yielded a bulb that looked like it would work, but turned out to be too long to fit.
Connie was putting some stuff into a drawer of her mom’s sewing machine table, and I noticed there was a light bulb in the drawer. It was still in the original packaging and unopened. I stared at it a bit, and she knew exactly what I was thinking. Looked about the same size as the microwave bulb. Got the old light bulb to compare, and they were pretty much the same size.
Put the bulb into the microwave and it worked perfectly!
Talk about a serendipitous find. Never know where you’ll end up finding something you need.
After a year in containers, it’s time to put some of the plants we got last year into the ground.
After making some plans, changing some plans, getting suggestions from friends, we decided to try the raised bed route so I built some boxes. Gardener Scott has some great YouTube videos covering raised bed gardening.
A trip to the nearby big box home improvement store (and a call to the wife after I discovered the boards I just bought wouldn’t all fit into the car) got me what I needed to build two 8 foot x 4 foot boxes for the raised beds.
We’ll dig up the grass down to the “dirt” (heavy clay stuff) underneath and fill up the boxes with other dirt that the plants will hopefully like. Haven’t figured out where the new dirt is coming from yet. It will either be lots and lots of bags and several trips from the nearby big box hardware store, or maybe get a few cubic yards of dirt dumped on the driveway from somewhere.
The plan is to eventually have six raised bed boxes (three on either side of the tree). Four of them we’ll use for the blueberry and raspberry plants that are in pots right now. The other two we’ll use to try our hand at growing some veggies.
