I am a bit of a railfan. I sometimes
joke that when I was little, I wanted to grow up to be a railroad
engineer. 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 local
Edaville Railroad
for a long time. And as a bonus, I got a taste of cranberry
country while I was there.
Well, it turns out that Edaville is
geared to kids. What's that you say? Yeah, I know, I'm still
a kid. I mean it is geared toward little kids...
Holiday decorations and stuff for the kids riding around on the train
with their parents. So, I felt more than a little out of place
there. But it was still interesting to learn more about
cranberries.
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.
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. Yet cranberries are special - kinda rare and
different.
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.
The cranberries grow on the vine, and are harvested by flooding the
fields (bogs) and threshing the berries loose with a mechanized
harvester. They are then packaged up and shipped to consumers
throughout North America, who then make cranberry sauce once a year.
And they only eat it 'cause it's got so much sugar in it...
Personally, I prefer to make cranberry
sauce with as much apple as cranberries. Kinda dilutes the
tartness of the berries enough to be more palatable, and reduces the
need for sugar. I also like to add strawberries, even if that is
less than traditional.
Anyway, back to Edaville... On my
train ride with the kiddies, I spotted a fox, a crane, and then a hawk.
And following the birds skyward, I also saw a helicopter. Screw
the kiddie rides! I wanted to go on this one!
So, I bought my ticket and went on my
first helicopter ride, getting a front-seat view of cranberry country
from the air. It was a short but sweet (and loud) ride, and I
liked it a lot. I can see why Charles (currently working on
copters in Afghanistan) would want to fly...
Enough writing. My attention span
has expired. Here are my pics. Hope you enjoy.
~ Lee
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