Day 340, Year 8: Cranberry Harvest in the Bogs
Date: Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Weather: Still Sunny and Cool
Location: Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
Cranberry bogs are like beaches on Cape Cod. You don’t have to travel far to find one. It all started about 18,000 years ago during when the glaciers in this area melted leaving a sandy substrate. It is almost as if all of Cape Cod is one big sand bar with lots of low spots that have developed as ponds. Heather and Jed live one block away from Mill Pond and the adjacent low spot that has been developed into a cranberry bog. Cranberries are an evergreen dwarf shrub that can be dry harvested (hand-picked) or wet-picked with machinery as they are in ‘our’ bogs. And today was harvesting day. We didn’t know this, but due to a wreck on the main road, Jed and Jonah had to take the back road to get to Woods Hole. This took them by the bog and all of the activity. Jed stopped and called home to give us the heads up, so Heather, Ollie, and I walked down to check it out. Heather, Jed, Sam, and Jonah have seen this before, but not Ollie and me. Heather had to leave to go to an appointment, so with Ollie in his stroller, we spent the next hour watching the process. The bogs are flooded with water, covering the plants with about 8 inches of water. Then water reel harvesters run through the bogs, removing the cranberries from the vines. The cranberries float to the surface and are gathered inside a floating plastic ring that can be moved through the water. The corralled cranberries are moved near the edge of the bog where big trucks can literally suck the cranberries from the water. After an hour of watching, Ollie was getting cold, so we headed home. Heather was not back yet, so we played and had just the best time. Ollie is so much fun to be around. He has this deep belly laugh that is absolutely contagious. So we played and laughed until momma got home.
While Ollie had a nap, Heather and I continued our house cleaning projects. Today we attacked the basement and the second floor closets. We made great progress and have one side of Heather’s living room covered with boxes of clothing and bedding to give away. Our only problem is that there is no place in Falmouth that is accepting give-aways right now. So we either have to drive the stuff to Hyannis or store it until the local thrift shop can take it. In the late afternoon, Heather had to leave with Ollie for his 18-month check-up. Jed got home with Jonah, picked up Sam, and headed back to the bogs so Sam could see the process. They were harvesting until 6 pm, and when Jed and the boys returned they had a bag of cranberries that they harvested from the berries that escaped the machines. When I left, Sam was using 2 colanders to try and separate the berries from the little leaves. They will keep the cranberries to use for Thanksgiving. Tomorrow I’m hoping to take time out of my day to return to the bogs and see if I can harvest some cranberries to take with me to Puerto Rico. I would love to have Christmas cranberry salad (Mark’s specialty) made from Cape Cod berries.
Tomorrow Mark and I have dedicated our day to working in our storage unit trying to find all of the things we want to take to Justin and Jo in Puerto Rico. Then we are dedicating the next four days (a long school vacation weekend here) to helping Heather and Jed with child-care and any other tasks they need us to do. Next Tuesday and Wednesday, we are in Boston and then on Thursday we could possibly be sailing away. But today the weather looks even worse than it did yesterday. We will wait until Monday to make a decision, but right now it looks like our departure date will be delayed until Sunday or Monday, October 20 or 21st. We just have to be ready and go when the weather dictates. And speaking of weather, after school today Sam found the first wooly worm of the season and Mark reported the landing of Canadian geese in Eel Pond as a stop-over on their way south. So I guess if you are going to head south, now is the time.
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| 131009 Day 340 Cape Cod, USA–Cranberry Harvest |
