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Cranberry Picking With the Kids

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red cherries in two hands

First of all, if your name is Kevin, just stop reading so you won’t be sad or envious. I’m sorry.

Secondly, we all know that once I get going on a project, there’s no stopping me and I kinda,um, overdo things once in a while.

This is not one of those cases.

Newp.

Listen. I can’t take any more of my children begging for cranberry jelly and myself zealously hoarding it for Christmas gifting, all the while denying my own flesh and blood tasty jelly for their toast and sandwiches.

And fine, ok? I like to overdo things once in a while. Big deal.

I threw the kids bikes into the back of the van, picked up the boy from school and headed over to Rundle again to pick up where I left off the other day.

kids picking cranberries from bushes

The kids were in seventh heaven, we headed into the bush a bit and in there, the cranberries were at their level in a few places.

There are so, so many cranberries just waiting to be picked. If anyone wants to know where, drop me an email thekitchenmagpie at gmail.com and I will certainly let you know where they are.

lots of cranberries to be pick

The lovely part is that the actual picking only took maybe 45 minutes-longer due to helping little ones trudge through the brush, and then we enjoyed bike riding and walking and just seeing everything there.

My daughter turned to me and said “I’m tired from all that bushwhacking!”

I think she watches OLN too much.

a kid in a wood fence looking down the lake

I noticed a color difference between the ones deeper in the bush than the ones exposed to the sun, salmon red compared to a cherry red, of course the sun exposed ones being riper much faster.

close up of fresh red cherries

So my house smells like armpits because I am boiling the last of them up, all 18 cups of them. Yes, armpits. Cranberries are the armpits of the forest. Useful and keep you healthy, but stinky.

So I challenge you guys to get out there; get out to the River Valley, take the kids, go for a walk-with something to put berries in- and go see how much the kids love picking them.

You don’t have to even use them, just donate them to Kevin.

Or just make your own juice instead of jelly. Add sugar to the boiled strained berry juice until it tastes good!

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Karlynn Johnston

I’m a busy mom of two, wife & cookbook author who loves creating fast, fresh meals for my little family on the Canadian prairies. Karlynn Facts: I'm allergic to broccoli. I've never met a cocktail that I didn't like. I would rather burn down my house than clean it. Most of all, I love helping YOU get dinner ready because there's nothing more important than connecting with our loved ones around the dinner table!

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  1. A Canadian Foodie says

    I am going tonight with Kevin… and he will show me a place. I am SOOOOOO excited. These look extraordinary and I have NEVER even seen high bush cranberries and have lived in ALberta all of my life. Berry picking for much of it, too.
    Gorgeous pics!
    🙂
    Valerie

  2. Karlynn says

    Maybe this will spur some donations for you, in thanks for all the hard work you are doing on those videos of the local farms! Of course, it’s the actual processing of them that is the real time consumer, picking them is the easy part!

    Mary, no problem, overdoing it is my middle name on occasion.

  3. Kevin says

    I read on anyway. I couldn’t resist.
    I appreciate the motivation – I may actually be able to get out today to pick…I hope. Otherwise, I may have to trade goat cheese for your jelly!

  4. Mary says

    I was out picking cranberries about 6 weeks ago near Emily Murphy Park, and they weren’t quite ripe yet, and not nearly as big as your looked! But there were certainly LOTS. I’ll have to go again soon and give the jelly another try. (I had read that incompletely ripened high bush cranberries contained enough pectin to gel…unfortunately mine didn’t.) Thanks for overdoing…it makes me feel normal for my food related obsessions 🙂

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