Keeping cranberry farming in the families
Alan Rink washes the cranberries as they're pumped into a semi-truck bed. Photos by Christian Uva
Dave Thomas, right, said he looks forward to the harvest every year.
Colton Westgate, 2, is itching to get onto the bogs, according to his parents.
The Angus cows at Angers Conway farm have a nice view of bogs ahead of their pastures.
Boards are used to corral the berries.
Around 21 tons of cranberries are pumped into each truck.
Vines, leaves and bramble are sorted away from and washed off the berries.
Alan Rink washing the berries, from below.
The entire cranberry harvesting operation requires a few trucks and a few families.
Alan Rink washes the cranberries as they're pumped into a semi-truck bed. Photos by Christian Uva
Dave Thomas, right, said he looks forward to the harvest every year.
Colton Westgate, 2, is itching to get onto the bogs, according to his parents.
The Angus cows at Angers Conway farm have a nice view of bogs ahead of their pastures.
Boards are used to corral the berries.
Around 21 tons of cranberries are pumped into each truck.
Vines, leaves and bramble are sorted away from and washed off the berries.
Alan Rink washing the berries, from below.
The entire cranberry harvesting operation requires a few trucks and a few families.
LAKEVILLE — Cranberry growing is a family affair at Angers Conway Farm — a multi-family affair, that is.
The nearby Thomas and Rink families, which operate bogs in the same part of town, have been helping the Conway family out since George Conway started his first bog in 1986.
“It’s kind of like an Amish barn building,” said Dave Thomas.
Throughout October, members of the families can be found in each other’s bogs corralling Stevens and Howes cranberries. They help their neighbors out during the harvest season, which they consider their favorite part of the year.
“You look forward to harvest every year,” Thomas said.
Thomas and other family members man the bogs every day during the harvest season, starting at around 8 a.m. “If it’s not frosting overnight, it’s sun up to sun down,” he said.
Angers Conway operates five bogs totaling 16 acres. The Thomas family operates around 30 acres right next door.
Each bog yields a different amount of cranberries depending on how well the cranberry vines did. But Thomas said that four or five semi-trucks were needed to collect the berries harvested from one eight-acre bog alone. Those trucks carry 21 tons of cranberries.
All of Angers Conway’s berries go to a Decas Cranberry facility in Carver, where they’re turned into craisins. The Thomas family sells them to Refresco Beverages in Freetown.
George Conway said that he only wet picks the berries, meaning he floods the bogs before harvesting them. He said there is less demand for dry picking, where the berries are taken straight off the vine without any flooding.
Despite the truckloads of cranberries they send out every autumn, George Conway said the cranberry farming industry in Massachusetts looks very different now. “The money’s not there anymore,” he said. “Wisconsin and Quebec, they’re putting hundreds of thousands of acres and they’re flooding the market.”
While times are challenging for each family, they continue working together. The Thomases can’t lend much manpower to the Conways, but they give the Conways their equipment after harvesting all their own berries.
Every generation does their part. Even the youngest, 2-year-old Colton Westgate, is “very, very involved,” according to his mother, Catie Westgate.
Colton is eager to get on the bogs once he’s older. His father Shane Westgate already takes him out on a carrier when he corrals berries.
Whether they like it or not, they have to contribute to the harvest. It’s the family tradition.
“There’s not really much of a choice,” Catie Westgate said.
