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BS: Cranberry harvest is today

09 Oct 09 - 07:58 PM (#2742490)
Subject: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: GUEST,mg

They are harvesting right outside my office right now. It is a beautiful sight on a beautiful day. it is a shame that people are stuck in dirty offices under flourescent lights while others get to stand in sunshine and clear water and rake pretty cranberries. It is also a shame that people have to do excessive amounts of farm labor while we sit in comfy offices. It is too bad we can't get more balance...say 4 hours of indoor work for most of us, 2 hours of non-back breaking outdoor work for most of us and the rest of the day off. We would all be healthier and happier I think. Well, some people would like all day outdoors doing heavy work and thrive on it, but you know what I mean. mg


09 Oct 09 - 08:03 PM (#2742493)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Desert Dancer

NJ? Maine? Mass.?


09 Oct 09 - 08:12 PM (#2742496)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: maeve

The talented mg is on the other coast, Desert Dancer. Harvest has started here in Maine already, too.

Mary, I do like your idea. I'm on the farm work all day group and I need music, writing, and painting time. You want to write that in for me, please?

maeve


09 Oct 09 - 08:30 PM (#2742502)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: CarolC

While I have far more work to do than I can actually handle, that's about my indoor to outdoor work ratio. That's one thing I like about how my work is arranged. I just would like soon for my indoors work to be more of the making furniture variety and less of the bookkeeping and office type work variety.


09 Oct 09 - 11:44 PM (#2742590)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Desert Dancer

That right, she is isn't she. I didn't realize they grew cranberries in Washington state, but perhaps that's just my (former) New Jersey bias. (They grow almost everything fruity there, nowadays, I guess...)

~ Becky in Tucson


10 Oct 09 - 12:30 AM (#2742607)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Stilly River Sage

She's in the coastal area of Washington. They grow them along the coast in Oregon and Washington.

SRS


10 Oct 09 - 08:52 PM (#2743195)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Charley Noble

I never could figure out cranberries. Some years we'd get an incredible crop in the wet spots in our fields on the farm and other years there would be nothing.

Mary-

Do compose us a cranberry harvesting song, if you haven't done one already.

Cheerily,
Charley Noble


11 Oct 09 - 12:19 AM (#2743278)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: open mike

* About 600 acres of cranberries are grown on the peninsula, and the Cranberry Museum and Gift Shop is open on weekends at the Washington State University experiment station and cranberry research center.

Jim Campbell is regional team leader. Reach him at (360) 792-9219 or at jecampbell@thesunlink.com.

**************************

http://www.cranberrymuseum.com/

***************************

http://longbeach.wsu.edu/


is there a Cranberry festival, too?


11 Oct 09 - 12:33 AM (#2743283)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: katlaughing

yummy! I love cranberries!


11 Oct 09 - 12:58 AM (#2743293)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: open mike

every year since 1971, NPR has published correspondent Susan Stamberg's mother-in-law's cranberry relish recipe which originally came from the N.Y. Times.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=844268

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4176014


11 Oct 09 - 12:41 PM (#2743529)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Stilly River Sage

She openly admits that this cranberry sauce is exactly the color of PeptoBismol. That may be off-putting to some folks.


11 Oct 09 - 01:23 PM (#2743555)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: gnu

PINK? Oh my. My condolences. >;-) But, if it tastes like cranberries, and walks like cranberries, and quacks like cranberries... it's a Canada Goose.


11 Oct 09 - 03:11 PM (#2743625)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

STATE OF NEW JERSEY
AN ACT for the preservation of Cranberries [c. 1846]

Be it enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the state of New Jersey, That is any person or persons shall take or gather from the vines at any time after the first day of June, and before the fifth day of October, cranberries on the common or unlocated lands within this state, or on any lands not their own property, or for which they pay no tax, such person or persons shall forfeit and pay, for every such offence, the sum of six dollars, and also the further sum of four dollars for each and every bushel so taken or gathered, within the times aforesaid, to be sued for and recovered by action of debt, in any court where the same may be cognizable, with costs of suit, to be applied, one half, if on the common or unlocated lands, to and for the use of the county where the offence shall have been committed; ....

From American Memory.


11 Oct 09 - 03:57 PM (#2743645)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: gnu

I know where tere is a whack of wild ones in a secluded bog. Crossing the river is dicey, even when the water is low, but well worth it. Well, if you can swim... fast.


11 Oct 09 - 04:56 PM (#2743675)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: pdq

It would be interesting to know if mg's local crop is the native (faily small) type or if it is the large berry type native to the Northesast US (hence, cultivated or introduced in Washington state).

The American variety is the commercial standard and is mostly grown is Wisconsin, Mass. and various areas known for their abundance of natural lakes and marshes.

Ericaceae (heather family) has an amazing assortment of both ornimental plants (Azalea, Rhododendron) and edible ones (blueberry and huckleberry).


11 Oct 09 - 06:06 PM (#2743738)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

There are several species of cranberries that can be harvested:
V. oxycoccos, Northern Cranberry. holarctic in distribution (N. Am., N. Europe, N. Asia). Berry small, pale pink.
V. microcarpum, Asia and Europe, small, related to the above.
V. macrocarpum, northeastern N. Am. from Canada to S. Carolina; larger, apple-like taste.
(Some more southerly cranberries, not important commercially).
The 'bush cranberry' is not closely related and has almost no commercial value.

In British Columbia and Washington, the V. macrocarpum was brought in in 1872 and is an important crop.


11 Oct 09 - 07:18 PM (#2743769)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Art Thieme

This happens every year in Wisconsin too.

Check the DT for the song The Cranberry Bogs.

It's a Wisconsin gem---collected by Helene Stratman Thomas and Harry Peters.

Art


11 Oct 09 - 10:21 PM (#2743866)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Genie

Ah, Mary, I saw this thread title and kind of figured it was probably you, out there on the Pacific coast in Washington.   Your suggestion is a good one.   And the thread brings back memories of SunnyCamp.

Genie


12 Oct 09 - 01:07 PM (#2744240)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Wisconsin is the largest producer of cranberries in N. Am., it is the No. 1 fruit in the state (Massachusetts is second).
The first harvests of V. macrocarpum (the large fruit) in Wisconsin were about 1860.


13 Oct 09 - 12:34 PM (#2745027)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Art Thieme

As Bob and Ray have shown so admirably, these berries are often used in the production of glass. ;-)

Art


14 Oct 09 - 12:25 AM (#2745480)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Deckman

Mary ... me thinks I hear a new song springing from you? bob


14 Oct 09 - 04:23 PM (#2745886)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Genie

Speaking of cranberry songs, check this out:

Cranberry Bounce

It's not the greatest sound, just a video I made at a songwriter workshop at Singtime Frolics in 2008, but I like the song.

Genie


14 Oct 09 - 07:39 PM (#2746065)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Mingulay

I saw this thread title and thought "my goodness, they only have the one day to do all that"! Which reminded me of an old friend who had to go to North Korea many years ago to install diesel generators at an oil refinery that was being built on the waterlogged gravel of a river delta (bedrock? footings? health and safety?). On leaving the site one day all the contractors were told that there would be no work the following day. On enquiring as to the reason they were told that the day was set aside for the rice harvest. Lo and behold the next day the paddy fields were full of people harvesting rice, ready or not. At the end of the day what they got was what they got and the rest was left to moulder in the fields. I somehow don't think they power their rockets with any rice based bio fuel!


14 Oct 09 - 10:29 PM (#2746170)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: open mike

yum--i just baked a couple of cakes with dried cranberries in them.
one company....has copyrighted the name craisins for them. I have
also seen them called craneberries.


15 Oct 09 - 02:02 AM (#2746231)
Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest is today
From: Genie

Interesting story, Mingulay.