Cranberry Bog!

Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?


It's Cranberry Harvest time in New England and we went to visit the AD Makepeace Farm in Wareham, MA, near the Cape. We learned lots of things, like it takes 4,400 cranberries to make 1 Gallon of juice - and Ocean Spray is a Co-op of local farmers - and it is cheaper (and prettier) to wet-harvest cranberries (flood a bog and make them float). The wet harvested berries make juice and sauce and anything processed, the dry harvested are what you get when you buy fresh berries since the natural waxy coating remains intact for a longer shelf-life. Guess whose kids were NOT crying on the school bus tour?!


The kids on the bus go up and down. Mommy, why am I on the blanket all alone while you all are at the picnic table eating? Because you are cute! And content with a plastic spoon, and can't eat a sandwich yet!

What?! Someone is taller than Daddy?

Finally, some cranberries!

Frogfoot Bog - looks like a frog foot from the air, which you could see for a $35 helicopter ride. Look close in the water below to see the farm doggie, Rizza. She chases rocks that her owner throws in the bog. She charges in and feels around for the rock with her paw and then head dives to get it. Is that a hair in my cranberry juice? The hoses on the side of the burm suck the cranberries into the truck in the background. In the next picture we are standing above the truck platform watching the cranberries up the conveyor belt to the truck bed.



Elliot & I want to dive in.


Elliot ponders a future vocation.


Alas, the sand mountain - also mentioned in Charlie's blog...and surprisingly deceptive in the photographs. Elliot conquered the mountain while Daddy & Samantha slept in the barn watching a cranberry video - where they also missed the great helicopter attack on the sand mountain.




Now picture, rising in close range above Elliot's head, one of the aforementioned helicopters. Completely unexpected. The sand storm that rose up around it was worthy of a B-movie. At first we froze and stared at each other. Ellie confused, and me thinking it was just a wind gust. Then I dove on her to bury her face in me until it passed. Really, it was like we were in the 4077th. No harm, no foul. We laughed down the hill back to the barn. And am still getting sand out of my scalp.