on the canal
13.12.10
12.12.10
11.12.10
10.12.10
7.12.10
6.12.10
2.12.10
1.12.10
29.11.10
27.11.10
26.11.10
25.11.10
24.11.10
31.10.10
Reckoning
The harvest is a time for celebration, a time for work, and a time for reckoning. When it is done, we know how many berries we have, how many pictures we have, how many friends we have, and we wonder where we are going next. The day after the harvest, everyone is relaxed. The trucks are idle and parked neatly, the fields turn a bright crimson, and it is not so obvious what to do in the morning.
Of course, even as the last berry is counted, it is time to think of next year's berries. I met Henry on the bogs yesterday. He was leaning back in the leather seat of his SUV instead of perched on his berry beater. For once the gold chain around his neck looked like a decoration instead of a weight. He was smiling, he was thinking about his wife coming in from Puerto Rico, he was remembering kind bus drivers and explaining to me about whether to leave his car at Sagamore or Tedeschi's, and we were both agreeing that the bus was the best way to Logan.
He headed home to take a shower and get on the bus....but, on the way to the bus he was going to swing by the bog in Patuisset, check the boards of a dam against the high tide, and spread some fertilizer.
Til next year......best wishes for fruitful growth.
the end
A Walk on the Bog
Over Patuisset Marsh
Of course, even as the last berry is counted, it is time to think of next year's berries. I met Henry on the bogs yesterday. He was leaning back in the leather seat of his SUV instead of perched on his berry beater. For once the gold chain around his neck looked like a decoration instead of a weight. He was smiling, he was thinking about his wife coming in from Puerto Rico, he was remembering kind bus drivers and explaining to me about whether to leave his car at Sagamore or Tedeschi's, and we were both agreeing that the bus was the best way to Logan.
He headed home to take a shower and get on the bus....but, on the way to the bus he was going to swing by the bog in Patuisset, check the boards of a dam against the high tide, and spread some fertilizer.
Til next year......best wishes for fruitful growth.
the end
A Walk on the Bog
Over Patuisset Marsh
27.10.10
Workers
This experience has been about the work of the harvest, so I want to say a little about the workers. Perhaps one could accuse me of leaving them for last, but this is not so; they have been first and always in the pictures. All of these images have been about them; here I want to give their names and acknowledge what they do.
I could call them the "team", I could call them the "crew", the "harvesters" maybe, but what I saw them doing was work. Hard work. Constantly and with dignity. From 8am to 6pm -- every day. Through bright sunny mornings, glowing afternoons, and howling winds of our worst October weather, they were in the bogs gathering in the cranberries.
There are extraordinary smooth flows to their motions and I hope I have conveyed a little of that. In the water, the bulk of waders, the resistance of the water, and the ripples every time someone takes a step, create forms that we do not see every day. But in the dry harvest too, the careful pace at which the Furford pickers comb the berries out of the ground-hugging plants, the gentle burlap sacks in which the precious berries are first collected, and the need to tread carefully so as not to crush the plants mean that everyone is moving in the bogs in a careful, dignified way.
These pictures of the workers are not closeups, mostly. I do not know these men well, and I have no wish to intrude on their privacy with my lens and convey an impression that I have captured their souls. I am not trying to do that. All I want to talk about is their work. I think that their work and how they do it actually tells us much about who they are, but even more, it tells us about what is our connection to them.
Antonio
Edwin, Jayson
Pedro, Angel, Pete
Juan
Edgar
Jose
Raul
I could call them the "team", I could call them the "crew", the "harvesters" maybe, but what I saw them doing was work. Hard work. Constantly and with dignity. From 8am to 6pm -- every day. Through bright sunny mornings, glowing afternoons, and howling winds of our worst October weather, they were in the bogs gathering in the cranberries.
There are extraordinary smooth flows to their motions and I hope I have conveyed a little of that. In the water, the bulk of waders, the resistance of the water, and the ripples every time someone takes a step, create forms that we do not see every day. But in the dry harvest too, the careful pace at which the Furford pickers comb the berries out of the ground-hugging plants, the gentle burlap sacks in which the precious berries are first collected, and the need to tread carefully so as not to crush the plants mean that everyone is moving in the bogs in a careful, dignified way.
These pictures of the workers are not closeups, mostly. I do not know these men well, and I have no wish to intrude on their privacy with my lens and convey an impression that I have captured their souls. I am not trying to do that. All I want to talk about is their work. I think that their work and how they do it actually tells us much about who they are, but even more, it tells us about what is our connection to them.
Antonio
Edwin, Jayson
Juan
Jose
Hector
Raul
25.10.10
Seeker of light
Brian scoffed at me when I put this title on a picture of a worker pulling up sprinkler heads, but this is what Brian is, a seeker of light. A burly, straight-spoken, relentless seeker of light.
No light, no berries.
I do not know Brian well, but I have followed the harvest for two years now and I have gotten to see Brian at work, I have talked to him in the fields, and I have accepted his hospitality at the harvest. I have seen him start pumps on tractors, fix berry beaters in the bog, haul sacks off the fields in Pocasset, take umbrage at a worker who took a rest, help DNR inspectors find missing herring, admire berries glowing just under the water, drive his truck a hundred thousand miles in the bogs, lobby for pictures in the magazine, chat with neighbors walking their dogs, and trim saplings blocking the light from the bogs.
Brian always looks the same, is always arriving in his truck, moves with a broken step from some accident, always has at least one of his dogs in the truck with him.
As far as I can see, Brian has one goal in life -- to grow berries. If you work for Brian and you don't pay attention to the berries, you are gone. If you talk to Brian and you distract him from the berries, you are ignored. If you have some other agenda, at harvest time Brian does not know what you are talking about. This relentless single-mindedness can give Brian an abrasive edge or at least its appearance, but I think the world is a better place for this single-mindedness.
As I look at people around me, I wonder how many are as driven to do their work as Brian is to do his. I think we would all benefit from a little more of his relentless purposefulness.
...and from his stewardship of the land.
Berries need light to grow and Brian provides us with plenty of light. Stand out in the middle of the Cataumet bogs, enter free courtesy of Brian, and look up at the sun. Watch the hawks screech overhead, take a deep breath as a flight of geese coasts on their wing from the sky to the water on the flooded bog, and startle a duck or two paddling around the bogs. All of this wide open space with berries growing is under Brian's care. Although there are inevitable conflicts with other users of the land, I am hard pressed to point a single person who is more responsible for providing me with open space and fresh air and blue sky and sun streaming down than Brian.
Brian's grandfather grew berries, Brian's father grew berries, now Brian grows berries - there have been five generations on this land. I wonder who will do this next. Of course it is none of my business, but I wonder about the pattern. Will it break in this generation or will it not? I do not know. But I do know that if there is a next generation, we should hope it will be like Brian.
Brian in the Light
Morning Overview
Truck
No light, no berries.
I do not know Brian well, but I have followed the harvest for two years now and I have gotten to see Brian at work, I have talked to him in the fields, and I have accepted his hospitality at the harvest. I have seen him start pumps on tractors, fix berry beaters in the bog, haul sacks off the fields in Pocasset, take umbrage at a worker who took a rest, help DNR inspectors find missing herring, admire berries glowing just under the water, drive his truck a hundred thousand miles in the bogs, lobby for pictures in the magazine, chat with neighbors walking their dogs, and trim saplings blocking the light from the bogs.
Brian always looks the same, is always arriving in his truck, moves with a broken step from some accident, always has at least one of his dogs in the truck with him.
As far as I can see, Brian has one goal in life -- to grow berries. If you work for Brian and you don't pay attention to the berries, you are gone. If you talk to Brian and you distract him from the berries, you are ignored. If you have some other agenda, at harvest time Brian does not know what you are talking about. This relentless single-mindedness can give Brian an abrasive edge or at least its appearance, but I think the world is a better place for this single-mindedness.
As I look at people around me, I wonder how many are as driven to do their work as Brian is to do his. I think we would all benefit from a little more of his relentless purposefulness.
...and from his stewardship of the land.
Berries need light to grow and Brian provides us with plenty of light. Stand out in the middle of the Cataumet bogs, enter free courtesy of Brian, and look up at the sun. Watch the hawks screech overhead, take a deep breath as a flight of geese coasts on their wing from the sky to the water on the flooded bog, and startle a duck or two paddling around the bogs. All of this wide open space with berries growing is under Brian's care. Although there are inevitable conflicts with other users of the land, I am hard pressed to point a single person who is more responsible for providing me with open space and fresh air and blue sky and sun streaming down than Brian.
Brian's grandfather grew berries, Brian's father grew berries, now Brian grows berries - there have been five generations on this land. I wonder who will do this next. Of course it is none of my business, but I wonder about the pattern. Will it break in this generation or will it not? I do not know. But I do know that if there is a next generation, we should hope it will be like Brian.
Brian in the Light
Morning Overview
Truck
Tools
A Problem
24.10.10
Henry
Ebullience. There is no word for Henry but ebullience, unless it is friendly, hospitable, hearty, tireless, or responsible. Henry does not stop. He is always going. Problems are opportunities. If the gear teeth strip on a drive wheel of his berry beater in the middle of the bog, Henry has it under the welder within a half hour and back in the bog in an hour. If the pull cord starter of his Furford picker pruner pulls out, Henry dismantles the apparatus in the field, and rewinds it in the sun, his face glowing with his exertions. If a visitor stops at the bog, Henry hails them with a smile and a welcome, and goes back to work.
Henry knows every ditch and drain in the 180 acres of the Handy bogs. Henry knows what to do next. Henry knows what everyone is doing.
Henry is the foreman, and the harvest would not happen without Henry.
Henry in the light
Henry's hands
Popping Berries
Henry knows every ditch and drain in the 180 acres of the Handy bogs. Henry knows what to do next. Henry knows what everyone is doing.
Henry is the foreman, and the harvest would not happen without Henry.
Henry in the light
Henry's hands
Popping Berries
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