The week between Christmas and the new year are frequently very quiet at many businesses. Pine Island is no exception, though in this case it’s due once again to heavy rains in the area.

Regular readers, of course, know that the number one question to ask when growing cranberries is “where is the water coming from, and where do you want it to go?” Right now, the answer is “Everywhere, and somewhere else!”

The winter flood is complete, so right now it’s just a question of keeping water at the right level in each bed. That can be tough when you don’t know how much rain you’re going to get on any given day, so our team is frequently pulling and replacing boards in order to keep the water at the optimum level.

It’s also holding up this year’s sanding project; while rain doesn’t delay the process the way cold weather does, it’s hard on the dams when we’re running heavy equipment in heavy rain. This also causes delays on our current bog renovation. The good news: with this much water, we save on fuel costs, since we don’t need to run the pumps.

In the meantime, our team is doing as much indoor work and maintenance as possible! It’s all about flexibility.