Welcome to North Carolina!

The weeks have flown by and we are enjoying life in North Carolina to the fullest! Adjusting to the heat took a little while and I still have very frizzy hair with the humidity but we LOVE it here. Keith is loving his job. He says he is so busy with work that his day flies by. I don't know many assistant refuge managers that love to move grass in big tractors as much as he does but when he comes home with a tired smile on his face and says his day was wonderful, I know we made the right decision to move.  We have been here more then 2 months but already have had family visit, met new friends and traveled from coast to mountains, exploring this beautiful state. We love being able to road trip around with out a plane ride being involved! We love the simple life that we live on the refuge with nature out our front door and shopping over an hour away. The planning meals and grocery lists continues on down here and I love it! We are learning everything we can about the land and people around us. Here are some things about North Carolina:

~ North Carolina is the FRIENDLIEST STATE!! I have lived in and been to MOST states with the exception of Maine and Hawaii and North Carolina wins, Hands down! The hospitality here is good, southern hospitality at its best!

~ Everyone knows everyone. Living in Galena, this is not unusual, but when you drive 2 hours away to go buy furniture at a store and not 5 minutes after you walk in the door the owner walks out and asks "Are you the couple from Hyde County?" And we then find out a sweet lady we are now great friends with, called the store to tell them, to let us know that she left a basket of veggies on our doorstep. Everyone knows everyone and like I said above, they are the nicest people I have ever met.

 Blueberries we harvested at a friends house

  

~ The Blue crabs are giant here. We call the Lake crabs because they are salt water crabs that come to the fresh water lake and for some reason grow huge. To bad Keith is allergic to them, but the boys and I enjoy eating them when we get a chance and the catching is so much fun!

 ~Feeding Humming birds in the summer could almost be a full time job. with 35 around one feeder, you can fill the feeders about 4 times a day! Which is what my record was. And that is the big feeders that can hold 3 cups of syrup each! They are beginning to migrate now so the numbers are slowly going down but at the peak of the season there were so many we couldn't count them.

~The Milky Way and Stars are AMAZING here! Yes we miss the Northern Lights dancing in the sky but the stars here have proven to be stunning! Keith has had a chance to get some beautiful pictures of them!

~ Farming is a major production here. Local farmers grow Corn, Soy beans, Wheat, Potatoes and cotton in big fields, but also grow melons, sweet corn, okra, beans and different fruit. So far we have enjoyed many of the crops that people harvested and shared with us. my freezer is full of sweet corn to enjoy the rest of the year.

Our jeep full of veggies from a neighbor

 

~ They have the best fried chicken here. Ms. Hilda at Outta-da-box fries the BEST chicken ever. No arguing this fact! Trust me it is the BEST! Don't believe come try it yourself!

~ They have BIG bears here. With corn and soybeans available in the fields and with no hibernation, the black bears here are HUGE! I think the record is around 670 pounds..... yeah that is a big bear. When you see them in the fields you think they are giant bulls until they stand on their hind feet and you realize how big they are!

~ The video game Frogger must have been created in North Carolina! If you drive at night in this state you will realize why I say that. At night the roads become a hopping, dodging mess of frogs! Seriously, if the game was not created, I would have created it after driving the roads at night!

~The Highlands(or mountains) are amazing and we are considered Flat-landers. The Highlanders commented that they could tell where we were from by the smell of our breaks. Yep we forgot to use our gears to down shift in the mountains.

~ Spiders build webs fast here! Though the mosquitoes here are not even close to the ones we had in Galena, they do come out ferociously at dusk. And that means the Daddy-longlegs do to. They can build a web in the corner of your house quick. I actually go through the house weekly with a fuzzy brush to collect all the ones that build webs that week. I do however leave one above each of my outside doors to help collect the mosquitoes. I figure as long as they don't show up in my shower, I don't mind one or to helping me out at the doorways to keep the mosquitoes out of my house.

~You might need a translator for your first day of work. We all know my sweet husband has a Puerto Rican accent which many times gets people confused when he starts talking really fast. His first boss in Texas, Jack, on his first day of work listened to him for about 10 minutes before he stopped Keith and told him to repeat all he said and this time repeat it slower.  Well, the first day here, Keith came home for lunch and had just sat through his first staff meeting. When he got home, the first thing he said was " I think I need a translator" and I laughed. I told him now he knows what we all feel like when we look at him like we didn't understand a word that came out of his mouth. But he is right, we are adjusting to the "Hyde Tide" accent which they call it here. Just go watch a Shakespeare movie and take their Elizabethan accent, mix it with and Irish broke and add a southern country accent to it and there you have the Hyde Tide. Though most are more country here on the mainland, Keith has a hard time hearing it.  It gets even more Elizabethan when you go out to Okracoke island. Google it or click here "Outer Banks English" you will see a you tube video of it.  See if you understand it. You might need a translator.

~Cracker Barrel in North Carolina is like Starbucks in Seattle. It may have started in Tennessee but North Carolina has one everywhere(except Hyde County to my great sadness) It is seen more then McDonalds and we eat there every chance we get! That little country store draws you in just like the little girl who waves at the Bluebell Factory in Texas. You just can't say no!  And I am totally fine with that! 

We are really enjoying it here! In my next post I will post some things that we have been doing but I wanted to post some things we learned. Come see us, it's a blast!