The past week has been absolutely beautiful, and couldn't ask for better weather. I got a ton of work done in the garden and will post on that tomorrow, but today I'll focus on the 4th of July! Since getting so much work done, we played hooky on the last day of nice temps to go and explore our area and have some fun! We have such a variety of places to explore all within 20 minutes of our house, unfortunately the heat, humidity, and snakes keep us from enjoying it to the full extent! We have the ocean, bay, salt marshes, woods, and swamp. We tried to do it all yesterday! We started out Saturday night by camping in the tent in the backyard. Sunday morning, I packed lunches, bikes, hiking shoes & snakebite kit (no joke!) and decided to see if hubby and I might start being able to "get our life back" a little bit by seeing how much the kids could handle LOL! We biked a little, hiked a little, and paddled a little, although we had to rent a canoe since I can't load ours by myself and the kids are still too little to help.
Loaded & ready to explore!
Crossing bridge over brackish marsh of Back Bay headed to the swamp
Beautiful drive with no traffic - it seems everyone flocks to the oceanfront, which is fine with me!
Finn ready to try out his new bike
There they go! While this camp road sufficed as a "trail" for today since it's the first time they have been off the pavement, I intend on exposing them to a little more "trailness" in the future. Singletracks get a little hairy around here, not because of the difficulty, but because of the swamp sucking you in or snakes in the trees and trail!
A little redundant, but daddy will enjoy the video, they were barely off of training wheels when he deployed.
Lunchtime break near the boat launch
Finnegan is about to discover why I told him not to feed the animals...
Northwest River
Heading towards the swamp
Heeeeree, snakey, snakey!
The views and sounds of the swamp are absolutely amazing
The kids have a ways to go yet on stamina, but it was a good day and we were all tired! No water moccasins dropping out of trees today, no bandages required, and we must have used enough bug spray because we emerged intact and still happy! It was home for a couple of hours and then to the beach on the Naval Base for fireworks. I gave up years ago trying to take pictures of fireworks displays, but I will show you the sights on our hike out to the beach:
Atlantic Ocean
Unspoiled beaches not on the resort strip!
I'll leave you with this morning's harvest:
Orange Wellington tomatoes, 4th of July tomatoes, cucumber, raspberries, blackberries
Nice goin', Mom! You made a really nice holiday for you and the boys. (Can't believe how brave you were to take them canoeing into the swamp by yourself!) Our 4th was pretty low-key. Heavy rain the first half of the day but it did clear up for fireworks in town in the evening. Now back to "work" today!
ReplyDeleteLoved seeing the pictures of the non-resort beaches!
I can't believe your bravery. I probably wouldn't canoe into a swamp, but I would canoe. . . I just object to poisonous snakes. I didn't do well in the South.
ReplyDeleteFun! Love the peanuts, wish i would have planted mine...maybe there is still time.
ReplyDeleteYes, Erin, it is funny how just 2-3 hours can make such a difference in our gardens. I have to admit to a few blackberries that have ripened early and they seem to disappear before making it out of the garden. They seem so much sweeter this year.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait until Jonathan is a bit older and we can do some more physical activities. I'm sure the kids got great exercise.
ReplyDeleteGreat pics of the Atlantic. Resort beaches are the worst.
Snakes????? The back of my neck is tingling as I type.
We are really looking forward to the peanuts too, hopefully they will "peanut out" LOL!
ReplyDeleteWe have 3 poisonous snakes here Thomas, the Canebrake Rattler, Copperhead, and Water Moccasin (or cottonmouth)... yeah never a dull moment out there. Of all, the water moccasin is the one to be worried about, they are aggressive and don't try to hide at all! I hate snakes and can't wait to move back north where we didn't have any such nonsense!!
What's up with blogger? Some comments are emailed to me, then I see they aren't on here - anyone else having that problem? Of course I deleted them being a big dummy and trusting blogger!