Rib Mountain and a Cranberry Tour - Color Galore

Well, I was not able to narrow the pictures down enough to post all on this blog. So I'm posting one each for these two locations and am including a link to a slide show which has 'the best of' of each trip.

Rib Mountain is one of (if not the highest) mountain in Wausau, Wisconsin. Not even 2000 feet (1,924 to be exact) hahaha some mountain, but a mountain non the less. They say this location is a billion-year-old hill which is one of the oldest geological formations on earth. It is also one of the best places around Central Wisconsin to go see fall colors. Even though our day was with overcast skies the pictures really give an idea of the masses of trees around the area and all the color variations that come with Autumn in Wisconsin. The hiking here was incredible and we all enjoyed it very much.

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Click here or on the picture below for the slide show of more of our day

One of our other favorite days was the day after our first snow fall when we went to Glacial Lake Cranberry to do a cranberry tour. It was incredible and we got to go to two different cranberry bogs owners property. We first went to see them in action, haresting at Potter and Son's. This was a true treat to see, as they had two men pushing or coralling the berry up into a loader and dumbing them into a truck. Then in another bog over they had four men riding beater machines, which knocked the berries loose from the plants hidden below the water. Apparently these beater machines are a dying breed as with new technology a new method will soon take it's place. Most of the vines in these blogs were over 40 years old. You will notice two close up shots of only cranberries, one of them you will see alot of white berries. These will most likely become one of my favorite juices Cran-Apple Juice.

Now over at Glacial Lake Cranberries, their crop of berries were almost all red in color and these will be the variety that goes to the markets and sold as Fresh Cranberries. You will also notice in the picture how many berry there were floating on the top of the blog; it's an incredible crop this year for them and they almost lost it due to the freezing temperatures and snow. They had to submerge all their plants with water to protect them from freezing.

We bought 10 pounds and today Clayton is making Cranberry Apple Preserves. The house smells wonderful as he didn't stop there he is now making Apple Butter.

Click here (or the picture) for the slideshow of the rest of these great photo's

OK and how could I not post our frist snow of the season; taken Monday October 12th, 2009. This is our back deck/yard.