PACIFIC + PINE

It’s wet, it can be cold, and it’s absolutely beautiful. For the past few years now we’ve made it tradition to pack up our rain gear each October and head to the coast to help with the cranberry harvest on my uncle’s farm.

The bogs are flooded and the berries are beaten off the bush and float to the top, waiting to be corralled by hand and pushed onto a conveyer belt. They pile high into the bed of a 1940′s Power Wagon, one of the many farm trucks Jordan dreams of one day owning. Truckload after truckload tote the berries off to be weighed and sold, and the bogs are drained back into the pond that filled them.

Afterward, we feast in the barn on a massive meal my aunt prepares. If we’re lucky, evenings are spent at a bar singing karaoke or sipping one too many ciders with cousins, laughing through the night and playing board games. There’s not much that can compare to a good harvest.