A couple weeks ago, while sitting in a waiting room, another man came in and starting chatting, mostly about the rather wet summer he had. One thing he mentioned wasn’t really a surprise. He said that there wasn’t even going to be any cranberries to pick this year. At least not in his usual spots.
I had to agree with him, since my usual spots were under water at that point as well. And they are under even more water right now. And they have been under water for much of the summer.
It isn’t the first time I have thought of this idea. Starting a crowd funding program to make scuba suits for bees. But even that might not have produced berries this year.
But in early July, I remember standing near the edge of a lake, looking into the water at all the pretty little flowers. I like cranberry blossoms. They aren’t big, but in areas with a lot of cranberries it can be pretty spectacular to see them in bloom. Almost a carpet of little pinkish-white flowers along the edge of the water. Only this year, those flowers were under water. Which makes it tough for those flowers to get pollinated.
So I once again raised the idea of getting scuba gear for bees. Just so they could dive under and make cranberries. My wife thought it would be much easier to simply train small fish to do the job, seeing as how small fish were swimming amoung the flowers anyway. But I hate to take the job away from the bees.
Since I never followed through on either idea, the berries did not get made. So there are none for me to pick. They would be underwater anyway, but I have dealt with that before. Run a rake through the underwater plants, the berries float to the top and you just scoop them up with a strainer. But that only works when there are berries.
Every fall I look forward to spending time in a bog or two, picking some cranberries and looking at other things that might grow there. Guess I’ll skip it this year. Seeing as how it is all under water.
And I can always buy a few berries if I need them.