More from the cranberry farms and bogs

I'm including this photo of a commercial cranberry farm to give an idea of how large the operation is. In the immediate foreground is the canal that surrounds the bog, just visible to the right is a gate used to control water flow in and out of where the cranberries are grown and harvested. Elevated dikes surround each bog. I think most farms flood their fields prior to harvest and leave them that way during the winter freeze to protect the cranberry plants. Most, if not all of these *wet-harvested* cranberries are destined for the juice market and I believe that the farmers are part of a cooperative that produces for Ocean Spray.
All of the equipment used in the harvest was at the far end of view, but if you use your imagination you can see that green machine with the yellow hose on it that is the *boom* used to corral the loose berries. I learned during the visit to Whitesbog Village that these booms were adapted from those used to clean up oil spills. It used to be that cranberries were harvested by people wading in the water and pushing the berries forward to a corner of the bog to be picked up on conveyor belts or the like, but the current method is much less labor-intensive. In the early days of cranberry farming, the berries were *dry harvested* by women and children walking the fields using metal or wooden scoops to pick the berries from the vines, much like blueberries, I guess.
Back to the abandoned bogs at Whitesbog - I took this pic of a few yahoos on motorbikes riding across the sandy dikes that traverse the bogs.
Here's the bird pic of the day - that speck in the middle is a kestral forced to flight by the motorbikes. When I first arrived they were perched on the scrubby sand piles along the dike and would occasionally fly from their perches to hover over the brush below.