Cranberry Marsh Tours....(are coming to an end)

Technically speaking, cranberry harvest has come to an end.  A couple of truckloads of fruit still need to be hauled in and the trash rakers will still work a few hours and all the specialized harvest equipment will be put to rest for another year, but the cranberries have all been harvested and the harvest party is over.

I still have plenty of pictures to share and plenty of recipe posts in my draft folder waiting to be finished up.  Today is a mish-mash of pictures as cranberry harvest comes to an end.

These two boys enjoy one of their last days on the marsh during harvest.  It's one more chance to walk in the water with boots.

Running water down to the short beds.  Our own little Niagara Falls.

And yet another picture of a cranberry bed being boomed (corralled). 

A look at the berry cleaner getting set up.  Only has to happen a couple more times before the end.

Climbing up to watch the cranberries fall into the dump truck never gets old for Joseph.  He would stay up there all day if I'd let him.

Peter loves being just like dad with his hip waders, even if they have to be folded down to fit right.  

In the spring the irrigation pipes get put out for the growing season.  Before the bed is harvested in the fall all the pipes have to be pulled and placed along side the bed up on the dike.  It's a very unglamorous job, but Amber and our friend keep a good attitude.  Their motto is "pull the pipes, to get pipes".  We've had many a harvest worker quit after the first day (and more wishing they had) of pipe pulling because it's hard work.

Look at those smiles.  They are so happy to be pulling the last bed of pipe.

And Joseph is super happy to have something to jump over.

Another beautiful day of cranberry harvest in the books.

Cranberry Cleaning & Binning Station - Field Trip

Yesterday I had the opportunity to ride along in the dump truck to the cranberry receiving station.  Dump trucks are not luxury vehicles.  They are loud and the ride feels a bit like jumping on a trampoline, not something I'd want to do all day.  And getting in and out requires a bit of skill when you're only 5 feet, 3 inches.

Once at the cleaning station, the berries are dumped into a pool.

The cranberries are elevated into a washing station where a pressure washer rinses/blows away any leaves.  The fruit also moves over a "bouncing" machine.  Fresh, ripe berries bounce, rotten berries do not.  The good berries continue on while any rotten ones drop into a waste box.

 The cranberries make their way to another hopper where they are metered out into large wooden boxes - 1000 pounds at a time.

The forklift operator picks up the boxes and transfers them to a semi trailer which in turn drives the cranberries to a freezer until ready to be made into sweetened dried cranberries or juice.

It was a fun outing.  Just me and the hubs alone in a dump truck.  It was almost a date.

Today on the Cranberry Marsh

It's cold out there today.  And windy, too.  And I'm not feeling well, came down with some sort of flu-like bug yesterday.  Still recovering today.  So our walk was short, but I still want to share a bit of what we saw.

Enjoy a look around at cranberry harvest from my view which is at ground level and sometimes from the top of a dump truck.

And for a look at cranberry harvest from drone's view click here.

Recycling Water....(it's an important step)

Cranberry Harvest is well under way, which means it's time to start moving water from one bed to another.  Our style of marsh is completely reliant on gravity to flow water from one end of the marsh to the other.  In a perfect world the cranberries would be harvested from the high end to the low end.  I don't know about your world, but ours is not perfect.  Each bed is assessed based on color, variety, and age of bed.  These factors determine the order in which they will be harvested.  Sometimes a bottom bed will have to be harvested before and upper bed and that's where the ability to recycle water is crucial.  We are blessed with a huge water supply, but we still need to be stewards of our natural resources.

Water from the bottom beds flows into the pump back ditch where we then transfer it back to our main reservoir to reuse.  The means of transfer is through an above ground/under ground hose.  The pump below pumps 12,000 gallons/minute.

A couple of farm boys wait for the hose to fill up with water.

Watching the water empty into the main pond.

After a couple minutes of watching, the boys settle into their favorite pastime - throwing rocks.

I can't help but look around at all the fall textures in nature.

Rural life and working outdoors affords us plenty of time for seeing the little things nature has to offer like this grasshopper Peter spotted in the sand.

One more look at the giant stream of water before heading back home.

I hope you enjoyed another tour around our cranberry farm.

For more on cranberry harvest 2015 click here

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Suzuki Violin & Piano Recital - #14

First the musicians performed.

This was Emily's senior recital - #14

Recital #5 for Sam.

Then came the party.