{"id":65,"date":"2006-11-15T07:00:11","date_gmt":"2006-11-15T11:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/?p=65"},"modified":"2006-11-15T07:00:11","modified_gmt":"2006-11-15T11:00:11","slug":"cranberry-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/?p=65","title":{"rendered":"Cranberry Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a bit of a railfan.\u00a0 I sometimes joke that when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a railroad engineer.\u00a0 Yet, when I got my engineering degree, I was surprised and more than a little disappointed that I didn’t get to work on trains.<\/font><\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve wanted to visit the local Edaville Railroad<\/a> for a long time.\u00a0 And as a bonus, I got a taste of cranberry country while I was there.<\/font><\/p>\n

Well, it turns out that Edaville is geared to kids.\u00a0 What’s that you say?\u00a0 Yeah, I know, I’m still a kid.\u00a0 I mean it is geared toward little <\/em>kids…\u00a0 Holiday decorations and stuff for the kids riding around on the train with their parents.\u00a0 So, I felt more than a little out of place there.\u00a0 But it was still interesting to learn more about cranberries.<\/font><\/p>\n

One of only a handful of native fruits, the Pilgrims called it the “craneberry” because the blossoms reminded them of the head and bill of the Sandhill crane.<\/font><\/p>\n

In my travels, I’ve seen crops like corn, soybeans, sunflowers, corn, rice, strawberries, beans, grapes, corn, olives, peaches, apples, corn, wheat, cabbage, corn, tobacco, corn and… more corn.\u00a0 Yet cranberries are special – kinda rare and different.<\/font><\/p>\n

New England is not well suited to growing most conventional crops, but the cranberry is unusual in that it thrives in the wet sand and peat found in southeastern Massachusetts.\u00a0 The cranberries grow on the vine, and are harvested by flooding the fields (bogs) and threshing the berries loose with a mechanized harvester.\u00a0 They are then packaged up and shipped to consumers throughout North America, who then make cranberry sauce once a year.\u00a0 And they only eat it ’cause it’s got so much sugar in it…<\/font><\/p>\n

Personally, I prefer to make cranberry sauce with as much apple as cranberries.\u00a0 Kinda dilutes the tartness of the berries enough to be more palatable, and reduces the need for sugar.\u00a0 I also like to add strawberries, even if that is less than traditional.<\/font><\/p>\n

Anyway, back to Edaville…\u00a0 On my train ride with the kiddies, I spotted a fox, a crane, and then a hawk.\u00a0 And following the birds skyward, I also saw a helicopter.\u00a0 Screw the kiddie rides!\u00a0 I wanted to go on this one!<\/font><\/p>\n

So, I bought my ticket and went on my first helicopter ride, getting a front-seat view of cranberry country from the air.\u00a0 It was a short but sweet (and loud) ride, and I liked it a lot.\u00a0 I can see why Charles (currently working on copters in Afghanistan) would want to fly…<\/font><\/p>\n

Enough writing.\u00a0 My attention span has expired.\u00a0 Here are my pics.\u00a0 Hope you enjoy.<\/font><\/p>\n

~ Lee<\/font><\/p>\n

Edaville Railroad – colorful cabooses
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Edaville Railroad
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Cranberry harvester
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Cranberry bog
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Cranberries
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

More cranberries
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Cranberry bog from the air
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Cranberry harvest viewed from above
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Marshlands like those where the cranberry originated
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

Edaville Railroad from the air
\n<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n

Links:
\n– Edaville Railroad<\/a>
\n– Cape Cod Cranberry Growers’ Association<\/a><\/font><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a bit of a railfan.\u00a0 I sometimes joke that when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a railroad engineer.\u00a0 Yet, when I got my engineering degree, I was surprised and more than a little disappointed that I didn’t get to work on trains. Anyway, I’ve wanted to visit the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal","category-pics","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lee-toma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}