Cranberry Season and the visit to HRH

Something about Cranberry Bogs fascinates me.  Maybe it is how they look like quilts, all divided up into contrasty squares.  Maybe it is how they are (sometimes) flooded and the floating berries are rounded up and scooped away in crates by helicopters. 

Flax Pond Farms has been around well over 100 years.  80 something year old "Dot" runs the place with various family members and off spring. We heard a great history lecture from her grand daughter.

Even though most of FPF's berries are threshed and dry harvested, they have channels of water from which they can mist the berries if there is a frost predicted.

The bogs have temperature sensors to warn of freezes and frosts and even heat or dry spells.  Apparently foxes like to chew on the wiring system.  Whey they do, the reading says 140 degrees.

I plan to use a lot of these photographs as painting inspirations.  I like the angles, mottled colors and complimentary hues.

This is a mini water tank with all sorts of pumping equipment.  Loved the reflection.

FPF had a VERY friendly gray cat.  While I was snapping photos she climbed into the car with my husband.

She found a neighbor man's cane handle to be a perfect plaything.  He had questions about low-sugar cranberry sauce.  He had been making his own, but thought it was a lot of work and wondered if you could buy it.  Dot and her grand daughter were going to try some recipes and offer him some.

Another view of their local pond.  Photoshopped.

We also drove to Wareham and discovered A.D. Makepeace Farms.  Apparently they are the largest in the state... largest cranberry farm AND largest land owner.  Their "Bog Frogs" and Dark Chocolate Truffles are recommended!

I felt fortunate to discover one of Makepeace's bogs in a flooded state with the berries all rounded up within a boom.  When we were leaving the farm "store" (above) as had to turn short because there was a 50 foot tractor trailer filled to overflowing with cranberries.  That is a LOT of berries.

After our berry explorations my phone rang and we were extended an invitation for pasta with my son and daughter-in-law and HRH.  We picked up extra salad and dessert.  Must remember that DIL does NOT think cakes should have vegetables in them:  i.e., no carrot cake!

Teaching physics to highschoolers can make one grumpy.  Or maybe it is mothers with cameras that does it.

HRH was happy in her princess car!