If you were to hire a crew to harvest your cranberry bogs, would you call up The A-Team, or Ernie’s Angels?
I use the term “hire” quite loosely here. Before undertaking years of preparation to qualify for a position on either team . . . learning the intricate hand signals of backing equipment into place, studying the Standard Operating Procedures Manual, followed by advanced studies on choke, throttle, hydraulics, then completing a thesis on lip-reading and hollering over loud equipment noises . . . listen up.
Membership on The A-Team is only available to male descendants of Cutts lineage. Currently, those positions are all filled. However, there are openings on Team Ernie’s Angels. The A-Team was activated during the first harvest in 1901. A short 96 years later, a female workforce took day shifts at Cutts Brothers’ Cranberries.
Great-grandaddy Ernest shook his head when he walked through his garden to find Dan teaching me to drive the harvesting machine behind the machine shop. “All the other farmers are going to think we’re going under. Everybody knows when the wives have to start driving tractors, it’s the beginning of the end for that farm.”
Dan just grinned at him and said something like, “It’s not fair she’s out for walks and picnics while we’re working.” I’m not sure he meant to blaze the trail as feminist farmer, but he was convinced I would do just fine trading in my Laura Ashley for Carhartt.
Those early days, I was the lone female, but other cousins brought along willing brides, and we bred daughters, and plopped them into farm life. Eventually, the landscape shifted ever so slightly.
The day crew mostly consists of four Cutts Brothers. Since other members of the “A Team” have off-farm work, Cindy started picking, Autumn learned the ropes of the other side of harvesting, and nieces Arielle and Jessica have been imported as well. Since retiring from teaching, I’ve been apprenticed to Autumn who patiently took me from standing around watching and asking, “How can I help?” to knowing how to hook up hoses, where to put the equipment in place, leveling the top of the cleaning machine, raising and lowering the elevator and adjusting its speed so the berries make a centered landing in the truck.
My father-in-law, Ernie, was recently heard to say, “Zeke, take the ladies and gather that next bog.” And later, my nephew answered someone who asked who he worked with at the farm, “Well, a lot of times it’s me and ‘Ernie’s Angels,’ ” which gave us a big round of giggles. So the weekday crew became, Ernie’s Angels.
Today is Saturday, and my husband asks if I can put in overtime in hopes we’ll get closer to caught up on the schedule. I agree and put my Bean Boots and waders back in the jeep. It’s a beautiful warm fall day. On my drive, I look for lemony leaves of an occasional hickory tree standing out among the patches of deep burnt oranges, reds and browns of maples and oaks in the piney forest.
When I arrive at the farm, the only other woman working is Cindy. She with her husband Shawn are running the picking machines one bog over. My husband and his twin brother are working with nephew Zeke, cousin Chad, and Colin, a friend from church, gathering the last large bog picked. All the berries are windswept to one side and most of the guys are over there using blowers and paddles to get the berries contained within the boom. I park, gear up, then walk to where my husband has rigged the blower onto the arm of his tractor and followed down the opposite side solo, following slightly behind the blue New Holland machine mirrored opposite so not to force more berries against the dam.
I feel pretty pleased with myself that I understand this part of gathering. I take his place, hop on the tractor and continue puttering slowly down the dam when its time, so that he can add his upper-body strength toward setting other equipment into place. I’ve come a long way, baby. I might impress my A-Team man with this increased skill level after my four-year training period. I won’t be embarrassed or feel in the way today.
I switch off the key while the crew in front of me inches to the corner where we’ll take the berries out. I watch them work, admiring the glorious crimson pool. After ten minutes, it’s time for me to haul the other end of the boom to the corner and complete the coral. There are bunches of berries against the dam between me and there. My husband’s twin brother comes to run the blower the remainder of the way. I lower the hydraulic arm and he starts the blower engine. Its loud roar forces me to push my ear plugs in a little deeper. Chris has the blower ready to go, so I pull back the lever to raise the arm before putting my tractor in gear. I fumble with the lever a couple times, but it only inches down. I can’t get it to raise. “My arm won’t go up.” I look around to see if something is hindering it.
“Did you start your motor?”
I burst into laughter at myself, turn the key, while Chris rolls his eyes at me. I’ve come a long way, I guess long enough to forget the basics. Step one: Crank it. I'll never make the A-Team, but Ernie's Angels will laugh with me.
You’re turn: When do you laugh at yourself, and when do you feel embarrassed at making silly errors?
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