Enjoying the Seasons of Mattamuskeet

Whatever the season, Keith and I have learned to participate in it. When it's moose season you hunt moose. When peaches are ripe you harvest them. When a hurricane comes and knocks down all the ripe sweet corn in the fields, you harvest and freeze it. I may have grumbled a bit while processing it all because if you look behind me in the house pictures we were still living out of boxes, but the boxes could wait. The corn could not. And in the winter when corn is not readily available I will be thankful that I did all that work while the boxes waited. We have a freezer full and I now I don't have to buy any canned corn for a while. I am not a person that stresses over being all organic but it sure is nice to have fresh, hand picked, hand processed food in my freezer. I am slowly getting back into my "Martha Stewart" groove of jarring and creating my own food. I am still behind on blogging but that is only because it is taking me a while to get everything done. As long as I get my kids schooling done, dinner on the table and taking on the seasons, the blogging will come when it comes.  So bare with me as I am still 3 months behind, I will catch up..... Eventually. But here are some pictures of our little farm life in Mattamuskeet. We are very thankful for friends that share their fruits and harvest with us! Thank you! Here are some of the seasons we have enjoyed while being here in Mattamuskeet.

 After the hurricane a lot of the sweet corn got destroyed. So a co-worker of Keith told us to go harvest what we could. The stuff standing behind us is Maize and is stronger it took on the hurricane better then the sweet corn. But we got a freezer full of sweet corn.

 

 

 One of our harvests, we made a few trips when we had time

 

 Thankfully I had 2 little helpers who helped me shuck a LOT of corn. 

Well one of them ate a lot while Kaden and I shucked, but it was fun.

  My 2 boys who NEVER liked corn before gobbled up the fresh sweet stuff!

 Processing corn while trying NOT to think of all the unpacking I needed to do

 We also got to blueberry pick at a friends farm. I have NEVER SEEN so many blueberries! I got about a gallon from ONE bush.

 

 

 I sent Isaiah to his own bush because I knew most of his ended up in his mouth, but that was OK with me!

 Yep in his mouth!

Another season we are in is Crabbing season.  Mattamuskeet NWR has some of the biggest Blue crabs on the East Coast. People drive hours to come crab here and we can do it out our front door. Our boys were super excited when we became residents of North Carolina and were able to go crabbing. They are quite the pros now and can crack and eat them with the best. Here is our first crabbing expedition. I was sitting on the front porch enjoying the view.

 

 Isaiah caught the first one followed closely by his brother. I don't have a picture of Kaden because I took videos of his catch.

 Here are the boys with their first crab catch.

 Daddy, even though allergic to them, was the only one who knew how to cook them. So he cleaned and cooked them.

 Then the boys and I enjoyed eating them

 YUMMY

July Fourth attempt #2

Since Arthur messed up our plans for July 4th, We decided to make up for it 2 days later. We drove to Roanoke Island and to the beach and explored around there.

Roanoke Island- Virginia Dare, first English child born in America

 Alligator River NWR Visitor Center is awesome!

 Red Wolves

 Discovered one of Keith's picture he took was used in one of the displays!

 Neat place!

 Guy Ate Here..... So did we! Ortega'z Southwest Grill

 Manteo Harbor

 Keith in front of the Colonial Ship in the Harbor

 Exploring the Harbor

 Brodie Island Light House

 Flat Stanley visits the Light house too! Do you see him?

 Our boys were so excited to go swim in the ocean

Watch out for Snow-machines? On the BEACH? ( I think they used the wrong sign)

 We got to see our first fireworks in 4 years! In Galena July 4th is in the summer which means 24 hours of daylight, which means fireworks are absolutely pointless! And in January.... Freezing to death at -30 degrees just to watch them explode was not something I really wanted to do! So it was REALLY cool to enjoy fireworks sitting on a beach in the warm sand while the fireworks explode over the calm ocean. It was the best 5th of July Fireworks I have ever seen! Hope we can make this a family tradition!

Happy Independence Day!!!..... Here's a Hurricane to help you celebrate!

 Independence day. The day most Americans wake up, go watch neat parades and fireworks and celebrate the great country that we live in. Most of the time that is the way I celebrate the day too. But this year our fireworks were a little brighter and the Booms were just a little louder then the norm. Hurricane Arthur decided to remind us of the "fun" of living on the coast in hurricane season. Thankfully we have done this drill before living Texas and Florida and we were some what prepared. But I was hoping NOT to have to do it with none of my disaster stuff unpacked, like flash lights, camping stoves, lanterns, generator. Thankfully our new house had amazing storm shutters and a generator that we did have to use when the power went out. With just a few trees down around the house we weathered through well. Sadly many farmers crops of corn were NOT so fortunate. Fields that were beautiful lush green corn were completely wiped out. The morning after the storm we took a drive around. The sunset was amazing and you would have never guess with the calmness that we just had a giant hurricane go over the top of us!

This is the fortune cookie I had the night before the hurricane.... kind of hits home.

See the blue dot? That is us and that eye went right over us. 

This was the last picture I took before the electricity went out.

 But the sunset the next day was amazing!

 The calm after the storm. The bay was like glass

 WOW!!