It’s one of my favourite things to do this time of year. Get out and pick some cranberries.
I like cranberries, but I don’t eat them often enough. My mother loves them, so I usually try to pick enough to get her through the winter. Which isn’t easy. She eats them every day. That ends up being a lot of cranberries over the course of a year.
And I try not to pick too many. There are years I have gone to the shores of Lake Rossignol where there are spots that are covered in cranberries. I have spent a surprisingly short time filling a five gallon bucket with cranberries. Meanwhile, there are commercial harvesters raking them to be sold, and you may also find large, black, furry harvesters who are just there for the food. But it’s fun to get out for the day.
I like to try to find spots that aren’t quite so popular, both with pickers and the wildlife. Not that I have seen a lot of bears while picking cranberries. But I know they have been there. There are things the bears will do in cranberry patches that they also do in the woods, just to let you know they have been there. But since the bears are usually a bit taller than the bushes, they are pretty easy to spot from a distance.
Spending time in a cranberry bog I find relaxing. Even on cool fall days you can often find a spot in the sun out of the wind that can get pretty toasty. And having the chance to see what else may grow in a bog can also be fun. I just find it a good way to relax. As long as you remember to stand up and get the kinks out of your back every so often.
And when you get in an area that has a lot of berries and you can fill a container rather quickly it does create another problem. Like how do you use a five gallon bucket full of cranberries.
So lately I have tried to scale back. I used to go out with a nice little homemade rake I had for picking berries. That gave me far too many berries and it was a big job to clean them all. Now I tend to pick by hand. I get smaller amounts, but cleaner berries that I can cook up easier, so I don’t end up with a freezer full of cranberries I don’t know what to do with.
Although with cranberry bread, cranberry tarts, cranberry sauce and even some cranberry juice, it’s not really tough to get rid of them.
Really though, the cranberries are an excuse to get out and enjoy a nice fall day.
Just keep an eye on that black rock over there. I think it just moved.
