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Saturday, August 23, 2014

Earrings 0174 - It's the berry, cranberries that is.

Today's road trip took us through some of Wisconsin's beautiful countryside in the cranberry area. This is located pretty much in Central Wisconsin (where we were - cranberry bogs are also in Northern Wisconsin). Didn't realize that Wisconsin is the largest producer of cranberries. They sure grow a lot of them. This website has great information on cranberries such as how they grow and how they are harvested. http://www.wisconsincentral.net/LandTOC/Land/CranberryFarming.html I know we were close to this grower before but not today.

Something else that Wisconsin grows in this area are potatoes. Amazingly, Wisconsin is the third largest potato growing state in the United States. There are fields and fields of potatoes growing in the same part of Wisconsin as the cranberry bogs. http://wisconsinpotatoes.com/about-wpvga/

Other vegetables grown in this area include tomatoes, radishes, and sweet corn. I can't forget peas and I think beans too. The soil must be pretty good to have fields of these vegies!

One of the things my brother and I talked about was our dad and his bee hives. Dad had bee hives on his family's farm. I can vividly remember him putting on his face covering and his big gloves. He wouldn't let us get close. However, my brother said he was able to go with dad until they found out he was allergic to bee stings. Then we talked about that. I can remember my brother's face after he was stung badly by bumble bees. My brother had a little garden of his own and somehow he was stung by many bees. I can remember how scared I was. At that time, I was probably about 3 or 4 years old. It's something you never forget.

One of the things I forgot to say about the honey was that it was delicious. Never did I think that the honey we ate as kids was the honey that my dad had harvested. To this day, I love honey especially if it it's in the honeycomb! The added bonus is you can chew the wax, which I did as a child and sometimes as an adult.

Today's earrings

These are definitely keepers!