Autumn On Cape Cod

Our photographers have been after foliage for most of Autumn, but the search for foliage leads to other finds.

We never turn down a pumpkin shot.

This is the October storm that had already put a water spout down off of Falmouth. It was played out by the time it moved out to sea again off of Sandwich.

Turkeys are nervous as Thanksgiving approaches.

Lord of the gourd

First snow of winter.

Piles o' pumpkins

If you don't paint it brightly, it looks haunted.

Speaking of bright...

The very last of our foliage shots.

A full truck of cranberries

Prolly gonna need the tree guy...

This column provides 100% of the RDA of Vitamin A.

Wareham bog in the video below...

Cranberries

We'll be back tomorrow with a more focused article.

Back Acre Farms In Middleboro

Pumpkin patch? I'm in!

Ladies and gents, Back Acre Farms. It's on the Middleboro/Lakeville line, on the Middleboro side, I believe.

Specialty? Pumpkins!

They have other stuff, too.

As you can tell...

They will drive you to the patch on a sort of hayride. Here it comes...

... and there it goes.

You could buy your pumpkin from a bin at Wal Mart, but this website strongly recommends going to a farm. I have difficulty imagining Linus waiting for the Great Pumpkin near a big cardboard box in a supermarket.

It looks a bit like someone buried Donald Trump or Beavis up to his forehead.

The owner of the farm, who just took over for his father, was cool enough that he finished my sentence when I said, "You ought to get...". Yes, the end of the sentence was "a cannon to shoot pumpkins." He was thinking slingshots, but Visionary stuff is why I make the big money.

They are located off the Nemasket River, and here is their website.

Check them out!

South Shore/Cape Cod Leaf Peeping, 10/12-10/13

A warm autumn has slowed down the usual leaves-changing-color process. 

We traverse the region for this site, and have a pretty good idea of where color is showing.

It is a slow change. Most of Plymouth, Bristol and Barnstable Counties are still very green.

You may live in one of these areas, and you may be saying "Hey, I live in one of those areas, and I see orange/red/yellow up in some trees in my neighborhood," and I would agree. This picture, and the two above it, are from the Outer Cape. However, peak season isn't here yet.

If you go up Route 3 from Bourne to Quincy for whatever reason, the trees will be almost 100% green until you get north of Duxbury. By Weymouth or so, you have color, and if you go inland, you have even more color. It hasn't peaked there either, but you escape that Sea Of Green vibe that Plymouth has.

Eastern Massachusetts is pretty flat, and it is loaded with pine. You can't get those views of foliage that you see in New Hampshire, where you are looking down on a wide valley where the colors suggest that some mammoth supreme being has poured Lucky Charms on top of a forest.

Nope... You are pretty much after individual trees here. As you can see in the first picture at the top, we even settle for individual branches of trees, especially early in the season.

These pics are from Wellfleet, Eastham, Brewster, Weymouth and Braintree. We do a lot of leaf peeping, and will share our findings with you as the season progresses.

A Visit To Sauchuk Farm In Plympton

Autumn is here, and that means harvest festival time at area farms.

Sauchuk Farm in Plympton is a fall first round pick. The farm becomes an autumn family fun fair every weekend between now and November 4th. They are open on Columbus Day, just a bit off of Route 58 in Plympton. 

Pumpkins are everywhere, as you might imagine.

No, I don't know what that is...

One must fortify oneself with hot dogs and fried dough.

I saw girls wrestle in cream corn once on the internet, but this was more family friendly.

Speaking of family friendly, I wonder what the artillery is for?

Shooting pumpkins and apples out of a cannon? Sign me up!

I wanted to reenact the machine gun part of the Do Long bridge scene from Apocalypse Now with this cannon, but there were too many kids around, so we shot this video instead.

That mouthy guy from the Vietcong would have run if we started shooting pumpkins at him.

1936 tractor, runs great!

Who hasn't broken a few cornhole rules, right?

Regrettably, we arrived either too early or too late for the Hillbilly Pig Races.

This looks promising...

They haul you and the kids around in cow or bee themed carts. Of course I went, all 250 pounds of me.

I can't recommend spending a crisp fall day out on the farm under blue skies strongly enough, especially for my more urban readers.

Sauchuk Farm has been running a corn maze (maize?) since 2007. They carve art out of corn, meaning they have had a JFK maze, a Snoopy maze, a Tom Brady maze and so forth... this year appears to be Douglas Adams themed.

One could act out the labyrinth finale from The Shining in here if God would provide some October snow. 

In case you think that the corn stalks are props, we popped a few open.

"Don't panic"

Onward through the corn...

If a giant Orville Redenbacher sauntered by with a big pan, Cranberry County Magazine scientists estimate that he would need 5836413 gallons of oil to Jiffy Pop all of this potential popcorn and feed Senegal for a week.