Viburnum trilobum

High bush cranberries are hanging in heavy translucent red clusters behind the cabin. The bears, who love them, will go to their dens well fed this fall.

The berries can be turned into beautifully coloured jelly with a distinctive flavour that's a nice accompaniment to pork or poultry. The aroma of the berries boiling into juice is distinctive too. It's reminiscent of dirty socks being boiled without benefit of detergent. Many years ago while my Mom was out for the afternoon I helped my Dad turn some that he'd picked into jelly. Despite farmhouse windows being open to the late fall air the house reeked when she got home. For as long as she lived we continued to hear comments on our enterprise. In fact, the story grew until she had us, in an ultimate demonstration of thoughtlessness, making the jelly on Christmas Eve. (That's not true but it is possible that the house smelled bad almost that long.)