Wednesday, September 23, 2015

Westport Hurricane Planner

Nothing should be West of Westport, but I didn't draw this map....

There are no imminent storms, Westport is just next up to bat in our ongoing series.

We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting Westport at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

Red = Get Out.

Yellow = Get the f*** out


Sorry about the map, but you can see a better version by using the links

Bone up on some cool, hurricane-related information!

Hurricane Inundation Maps

Evacuation Maps

Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

List of all hurricanes to hit New England



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    1.  


      There are no imminent storms, Dennis-Yarmouth are just next up to bat in our ongoing series.

      We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting D-Y at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

      The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

      The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

      Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

      Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

      Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

      Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

      Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

      Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

      We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

      Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

      With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

      Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

      The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

      Red = Get Out.

      Yellow = Get the f*** out.




      Hurricane Inundation Maps

      Evacuation Maps

      Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

      List of all hurricanes to hit New England



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    2.  


      Chatham is, if you view Cape Cod as a big fist being shaken towards Europe, the Elbow. Like any other elbow, it's gonna get banged off things now and then. In this case, instead of a table, its a Hurricane.

      There are no imminent storms, Chatham is just next up to bat in our ongoing series.

      We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting Chatham at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

      The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

      The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

      Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

      Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

      Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

      Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

      Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

      Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

      Zoomed out... blurry, but anything unshaded is flooded....
      We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

      Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

      With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

      Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

      The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

      Red = Get Out.

      Yellow = Get the f*** out.






      Hurricane Inundation Maps

      Evacuation Maps

      Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

      List of all hurricanes to hit New England






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    3.  

      Sandwich is a town with a funny name, even in a state that has a Marblehead and an Athol in it. Sandwich is also a town with gorgeous beaches and marshes, which are awesome for 364 days a year. Those beaches and marshes become a problem when a hurricane comes to town.

      We come to you today to talk about hurricane maps. These maps come from FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and NHC. The map at the top of the page is a Hurricane Inundation Map.

      Here's how it works:

      Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

      Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

      Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

      Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

      Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

      Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.

      Yes, that's Duxbury, and yes, that's from a nor'easter and not a hurricane, but it is Inundation.
      "Inundation" is a big word for "storm surge," which are two small words for "saltwater pushed ashore ahead of an incoming cyclone." Feel free to develop more colorful terms like Deathwash or Liquid Doom if that gets your people serious. Flooding is the big killer in hurricanes, sort of what artillery is to warfare.

      This map is based on the zany-weatherman-titled SLOSH model for storm surge inundation. It depicts the inundation that FEMA thinks will occur with a direct-hit hurricane arriving at mean high tide. It does not account for freshwater flooding. It also shows what intensity (on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane intensity scale) of storm would be needed to soak certain parts of Sammich.

      I have written this very same article for every town in SE Massachusetts with a coastline, and many towns are tricky with flooding. Pembroke, which isn't even near the ocean, will get some salt water in a bad enough hurricane. Mattapoisett floods several miles inland, while New Bedford should- in theory- hardly flood at all.

      Sandwich isn't even a little bit tricky. Most of her flooding will occur very close to shore, and you can pretty much guess where it will happen if you take a Sunday drive through town. Granted, someone with my job has looked at a lot of hurricane inundation maps and gets sort of jaded with coastal destruction, but nothing on the Sandwich map makes me say "Damn... who woulda thunk?"

      That's not snow, it's, uhm, stubborn hurricane wave foam...
      Now, don't look at that map, see that your neighborhood isn't colored (FEMA is very egalitarian, and "colored" neighborhoods on FEMA maps are generally populated by less swarthy, waterfront-property-having folks... towns with significant minority populations usually have them in the White neighborhoods), and think that you are off the hook from hurricane damage if one comes up on us. No.

      You can get Ended in an innumerable amount of ways if a hurricane hits Sammich, only a few of which involve saltwater inundation. You could step on a downed power line, get the Charles I treatment from flying debris, drown in pond flooding, have a tree fall on your car, get crucified by purging looters, get swallowed (either up into a cyclone or down into a whirlpool), drown in your attic, suffer summary execution by the National Guard, stumble into a sharknado... trust me, I'm just scratching the surface here, player.

      We want you alive. Beyond base reasoning like "If you actually looked at this article, we cherish you and cannot fiscally afford to lose your potential site visits," we also have a sort of "If they utilized the article properly, they live" professional pride thing going on. We also want you alive for regular, nice-person reasons. You're our kind of people.

      This leads into our next map, the Evacuation Zone map. This one is much less nuanced than the Inundation map, in that there are only two colors.

      They basically break down to:

      Pink = These people should leave.

      Yellow = You should leave, too.



      Here are a few things that my highly trained eye sees with these here maps of ours:

      - Storms will be very, very capable of washing out Route 6A in some spots. This makes Scorton Neck into an island.

      - Add that to "the bridges close when the winds top 70 mph or so," and you have a Trapped Sandwich.

      - Marylou's of Sandwich is vulnerable to Category 4 storms, a problem I expect them to have solved before the next Category 4 storm hits. I need Marylou's, as I don't like Red Bull and this site doesn't make enough for me to afford cocaine.

      - The Sandwich fire and police stations are vulnerable to even a minimal hurricane.

      - You're safe off Route 130, and I'd encourage coastal people to befriend someone off 130 well enough to be granted asylum from the storm.

      - Even a minor hurricane will at least temporarily end Sandwich's above-water presence on the mainland.

      - The Canal would only spill over in Category 3 and above.

      - The power plant is safe from flooding in all but the worst storms, according to FEMA.

      - Ridiculous shoreline change is likely, with much sand loss into the marshes. Thanks to the Canal jetty and certain legislative failures, no replenishing sand will be forthcoming.

      - We'll leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader. You can use the maps on the site to zoom in to your very home. We'll link you up at the end of the article, no worries.

      - Seek out and question whichever old-timer has lived in your neighborhood the longest. Ask him or her what happened in Hurricane Carol. Find out how bad the road flooded, what happened to your house, how impossible escape was, and all that. You should never fail to utilize the Old School when planning your personal emergency response.


      Bone up on the Hurricane Information with these handy links:

      Hurricane Inundation Maps

      Evacuation Maps

      Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

      List of all hurricanes to hit New England


      Sandwich Flood Mitigation Plan

      (pictures by FEMA, Stacey Moreau and Carter Malpass)
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    4.  





      9/20 1:00 ET At Carolina -3 Houston 39.5

      MC Mallett (comes in at 0:25) takes over in Texas, with predictable results.

      Carolina, 20-10


      9/20 1:00 ET At New Orleans -9.5 Tampa Bay 47

      Tampa had about 40 points put up on them by the QB they passed over in the draft to get a guy named Jameis.

      NO, 41-14


      9/20 1:00 ET At Pittsburgh -6.5 San Francisco 45.5

      San Francsco ran right over Minnesota, which is sort of disppointing because I went to (Teddy) Bridgewater State University and want to get one of his jerseys instead of the uglier BSU one. I don't want to get his jersey if he's inept.

      Pittsburgh, 28-20


      9/20 1:00 ET At Minnesota -2 Detroit 43.5

      I already used my BSU line, so we'll just point out here that the last RB to play Minny ran for 160 yards and 2 TDs. I'm sure that Detroit has factored this into the old game plan.

      Detroit, 24-21


      9/20 1:00 ET At Buffalo  PK New England 44.5

      Not related, but the last Pick 'Em tip I got for a game ended with me watching Bourne go down 42-0 last Friday. Fortunately, I don't bet on high school football any more... very often.... in large sums.

      New England 24-21


      9/20 1:00 ET Arizona -2 At Chicago 46

      I like Chicago for absolutely no logical reason at all.

      Chicago, 21-17



      9/20 1:00 ET Tennessee -1.5 At Cleveland 41.5

      Everyone hates Johnny Football, but I'm rooting for him. I want him to win without giving up his evil ways. "Weird heroes and mould-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who need it that the tyranny of 'the rat race' is not yet final.”

      Cleveland, 24-18



      9/20 1:00 ET At Cincinnati -3 San Diego 47

      I've been writing about the NFL for 12 years now, an I still have to double-check when I spell "Cincinnati." Just did it right there, you see. I also can not memorize the spelling of "Apponequet," but that only matters when I write the high school columns.

      Cincy, 28-24


      9/20 1:00 ET St. Louis -3 At Washington 41

      The last time these two teams played, the Rams sent out every guy they got in the RGIII trade for the coin flip. It was like 8 guys. RGIII's job this week is to make sure that no one steals the bench by holding it down with his ass.

      St. Louis, 24-3


      9/20 1:00 ET At NY Giants -2.5 Atlanta 51

      The best pass rusher in NY has like 2 fingers on his dominant hand, so what's not to like?

      Atlanta, 31-24


      9/20 4:05 ET Baltimore -6.5 At Oakland 43

      I want a cigarette every time I say "Joe Flacco" for some reason.

      Baltimore, 30-10


      9/20 4:05 ET Miami -5.5 At Jacksonville 41.5

      Only warriors in the Amazon- none of whom I can contact, and none of whom follow the NFL- can tell you if a Dolphin or a Jaguar would win in a fight. Unrelated: Why doesn't the car company pay Jacksonville to use their car logo on the football helmet?

      Miami, 24-14


      9/20 4:25 ET At Philadelphia -5 Dallas 55

      Dez breaking his foot doomed like 5 of my fantasy teams in Week 1.

      Philly, 35-21


      9/20 8:30 ET At Green Bay -3.5 Seattle 49

      Jordy Nelson doomed the other 5.

      Seattle, 20-19


      Monday Night Football Line
      9/21 8:30 ET At Indianapolis -7 NY Jets 47

      Indy looked butter-soft last week, but NY looks weak pretty much all the time.

      Indy, 31-20


      FANTASY

      We took an L last week, although it would have been closer if DeSean Jackson didn't tap out of the game after one friggin play. Our other WRs combined to score 5 points. Those same guys are starting this week, because Alshon Jeffery is taking the day off as well. Andre Johnson will be on Revis Island, too. We do have Chris Johnson, unemployed a few months ago, rising up into the flex spot.

      CJ2K is a gut call, as my other options are Bishop Sankey (may have had his one good game of the year already) aand LeGarrette Blount (first game back after suspension).

      I'm up 20-11, as my defense put up 20 on KC, while his WR1 (Thomas) got 11 points.

      Magnanimous Sunni Chieftans

      QB Andrew Luck
      RB Marshawn Lynch
      RB Joseph Randle
      WR Andre Johnson
      WR Anquan Bolden
      TE Duane Allen
      FX Chris Johnson
      D/S Denver Broncos
      K Steven Hauschka

      Our honorable opponents, Deez Nutzzzz:

      QB Russell Wilson
      RB Adrian Peterson
      RB Alfred Morris
      WR Demaryius Thomas
      WR Brandon Marshall
      TE Greg Olsen
      FX DeAngelo Williams
      D/S Houston Texans
      K Stephen Gostkowski

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    5.  


      Barnstable is in a position not unlike that which Germany faced in the World Wars. They have a two front battle going on if a hurricane arrives.

      We have two maps from FEMA to check out today. The map above is a Hurricane Inundation map, and it depicts storm surge from a direct hit hurricane visiting Barnstable at mean high tide. It also shows what sort of storm would be needed to soak certain regions, which we'll get to in a minute.

      The map is from the combined efforts of FEMA, MEMA, NOAA and the NHC. They use the funny-weatherman-titled SLOSH model of storm surge estimation. They do not depict freshwater flooding.

      The colors relate to the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, and break down like this:

      Light Green = Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Gloria was one of these, and the offshore Halloween Gale was, too. Although not a tropical system, the Blizzard of '78 did Cat. 1-style damage.

      Dark Green = Category 2 hurricane. Hurricane Bob was one of these.

      Yellow = Category 3 hurricane. We've only had five of these hit New England since the Other Man arrived in 1620, the most recent being Hurricane Carol in 1954.

      Pink = Category 4 hurricane. We've had one in recorded New England history, and it struck in 1635.

      Flesh = One Hundred Year FEMA Food Zone. This is the "100 year storm" you hear people speak of, but you have to go pre-Colombian to find them ("going pre-Colombian" means using salt marsh soil samples to look for sand layering associated with large hurricanes). New England has had storms in the Category 4+ level in the 1100s, the 1300s, and the 1400s.

      Sorry about Flesh, but my knowledge of color names was and continues to be heavily influenced by whoever was in charge at Crayola in the 1970s.


      We shall leave the street-by-street analysis to the reader, who can use the links I'll throw in at the end of the article to zoom in on their own house if it suits them.

      Note that you don't need to be in a shaded area to get yourself a quick and sudden Ending. You can have a tree fall on you, have your car washed out in street flooding, step on a downed power line, get purged by looters, enjoy the Robespierre treatment from flying shingles, be summarily executed by National Guardsmen, or even stumble into a sharknado. There's no shortage of ways for you to get Left.

      With that in mind, we now present to you the down-there-somewhere Evacuation Zone map.

      Remember, you don't HAVE to leave when 5-0 tells you to. Also remember that the cop you read the Constitution to before the storm may be the one who has to fish you out of the drink when the ship hits the fan.

      The E-map is easier to read, as it is made up of only two colors.

      Red = Get Out.

      Yellow = Get the f*** out.

      Notice that Route 28 washes out in a few spots.

      It's a big town, we break the maps down a bit to make it easier for you

      Egad! The Hyannis Port Compound could get soaked!


      Hurricane Inundation Maps

      Evacuation Maps

      Worst Hurricanes To Hit New England

      List of all hurricanes to hit New England







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    6.  

      Red skies at night...

      ...quarter mile visibility in the morning.

      Our fog fights their sun and almost wins...

      Cranberry Highway, heading towards the Seafood Shanty and Barlow's

      Fishing for some fog...


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    Tuesday, September 22, 2015

    Rural Exploration, And Our Fall Preview

    Middleboro, MA

    Autumn is here, and we're shifting gears into Fall Stuff.

    When I was teaching at a Charlestown charter school, we had a class called Urban Exploration. "Urb X" was a code word we'd use for "our lesson plan got fouled up for some reason, so we're going to take the bus around Boston and show the sights to the kids. Give me lunch money for 8 kids and 2 staff."

    To be fair... although I was most likely the one who had the fouled-up lesson plan, credit for the terms "Urban Exploration" and "Urb X" goes to a football coach named Mr. Cawthorne or something close to that. Left to me, the title would have been the less-smooth-sounding "We're gonna take the bus and drive around town for 3 hours," which program directors of charter schools probably wouldn't sign off on.

    Some of my better classes were from Urb X, and I tried to incorporate the same spirit into my career as a shabby-website content generator. We did a bit of Urb X yesterday... although, since we went up Route 105 and down Route 106, it was technically Rural X.

    As we said, Autumn is here, so we thought we'd trot out a fisherman's platter of what we'll be up to over the next few months.

    I'm thinking maybe Lakeville, MA, Fall 2014

    We have several trips planned to cover Fall Foliage. Ideally, we plan to catch some late September foliage in Maine, and then move down the coast with it until we are polishing up with Cape Cod after Halloween.

    Marlboros costing $4.95 a pack in small-town New Hampshire has nothing to do with the frequency of these trips. Everybody buys 180 packs at once, Officer.

    We also have a bee in our bonnet about stealing acorns from New Hampshire, planting them along the Cape Cod Canal, and turning the Canal into the Fall Foliage destination of 2075 AD or so, whenever the trees grow enough to turn Yellow regularly. We'll be pumping that article out after I interview a few experts.

    Cranberry County Magazine has road offices in Freeport, Maine, Bow, New Hampshire, and Jeremiah's Lot, Vermont. We're analyzing more spots than Matlock, and we've got this Leaf Game on padlock.

    In theory, we'll have a 4-5 fall foliage article run that starts in Maine in late September and ends up on Cape Cod after Halloween. Droughts, wind storms, low motivation and lack of money/free time may screw up this schedule, but we're looking good as of 9/22.

    We did go to Maine last week, but saw nothing foliage-ish of note. The locals told me two more weeks or so.

    Plympton MA
    Massachusetts, especially the part of Massachusetts we work, isn't as known for her foliage/greenery as other parts of New England are. However, you can find some good 1700s stuff if you snoop around a bit and drive down the side streets.

    Between flowers and foliage and even us stumbling through some dude's farm, we'll try to go out among the reapers now and then.

    The harvest, formerly the occupation of just about everyone, is barely important now to anyone but farmers, craft fair hosts and the media. However, there is still a primordial recognition in most humans for the harvest season. At worst, it is perhaps the most powerful omen for the change of seasons that we have.

    I feel it, and I can't even grow old properly, let alone grow cranberries. We're looking at late October for the hard color pics.

    Speaking of which...

    Buzzards Bay, MA
    Another thing that we intend to pound into the mat is the local Cranberry haul.

    The mighty cranberry is in the title of this website, so you know that we're going to represent hard at the harvest.

    The compound in Buzzards Bay is just across the street from a cranberry bog, so we should be able to get this one done just by walking the Shorty out to the bus stop.

    The possibility of us going inland and upstate to pursue non-coastal cranberry harvests is there, although I shouldn't need to drive any further than Carver or Hanson.

    I'm a hack photographer at best, but even I can get some Ansel Adams work in if I snap enough shots at a cranberry bog with the sun shining overhead.

    There is also talk of scooping a few buckets of cranberries out of Mann Farm's vast pile, dumping a few bags of sugar into a big pot, cooking/chilling, and then seeing how much cranberry sauce I can eat in one sitting. The goal would be to turn my skin burgundy.

    Billingsgate Farm, Plympton MA
    You know we'll be talking about pumpkins, player!

    Pumpkins figure heavily in our harvest season, even more than the more ubiquitous cranberry. They are the premier decorative item for both the harvest season and Halloween, to the point where a great majority of the people who buy pumpkins have no intention of eating them.

    We'll use pumpkins for photos, articles about visiting pumpkin patches, articles about decoration, Thanksgiving pie recipes, Halloween vandalism talk, and even excuses for doing vintage D'Arcy Wretzky image searches.

    One thing we're kicking around is the idea of gathering (via a lot of Rural X, or from Facebook friends) a collection of pictures featuring the better Halloween displays. We'll do the same for whoever we see over-lighting their house at Christmas.

    Halloween is important to us, and we also plan to run our Expand The Bridgewater Triangle article during this season, and perhaps explore a few haunted locations in our coverage area.

    We also want to blow up a pumpkin with whatever fireworks we can gather up on our Foliage trips. This, and my idea to do a Diet Coke/Mentos experiment that involves tossing the bottle off of the Bourne Bridge onto the bike path below, is pretty much as deep into Science as we get here. I also have a great desire to film a pumpkin being shot by a high caliber weapon.


    We actually are in preliminary discussions with a gun-range owner in Texas about re-creating the JFK assassination with pumpkins.

    Me: I'm thinking that you get a pumpkin, fill it with Zar-Ex, put it in a suit, drive it around in a convertible and shoot it from 6 stories up out of a moving limo.

    Them: Huh?

    Me: Don't worry, I'll pay for the ammo, the pumpkins, the Zar-Ex and lunch for the shootist.

    Them: How do you plan to do this?

    Me: Don't worry about it. I can also provide the Kennedy accent for the doomed pumpkin. My girlfriend can do the Jackie O screaming. She's French, it'll be seamless.

    Them (from TX): What's Zar-Ex?

    Duxbury Beach, MA
    We also will have the photographers embedded for any nor'easters that may come up once October comes around.

    September and October have hosted some of our worst storms, including the Halloween Gale.

    If we get our ship tightened up some, we'll try to get into some other towns for our nor'easter photography. I've always wanted to do a storm in Scituate, the Outer Cape, and on the Grey Lady.

    I do have a press pass that, if I presented it to the cops and they called it to verify my vocation, would ring up my own phone. That should get me on the block.

    It goes without saying that, should we get the opportunity to shoot a nor'easter, it will most likely be caused by weather conditions that will effectively cancel the rest of our foliage articles.

    That should carry us through Thanksgiving...