Helicopters, owls, old-timey string bands, pony rides, school buses, there was a lot more than just little red berries at the 7th Annual Cranberry Harvest Celebration held by A.D. Makepeace Co. this weekend.

"It's a perfect day to be out on the bogs," said Makepeace family scion Chris Makepeace, who was one of the nearly 300 volunteers who were working the event, and was identifiable only by a name tag that said "Cranmeistah."

The event had two main locations.  At Tihonet Village, visitors could browse crafts, grab a bite to eat from local vendors, purchase cranberry products, and entertain the kids with a moon bounce and activities such as painting pumpkins.  Also new as of yesterday, according to Makepeace Communications Director Linda Burke, were boat rides on Tihonet Pond.

Buses shuttled visitors out to the second location on Frogfoot bogs to watch the harvesting.

The bogs have been in production since the 1880s, and visitors were able to watch the cranberries corralled on the flooded bogs being sucked into a separator truck which filtered out the poorer quality berries.

Also at the bogs, helicopters offered rides for those wanting a bird's-eye view of the bogs, vendors set up informational booths on local farming and local land-preservation efforts, and hay rides departed for journeys around the bogs.

There were also six special visitors from Eyes on Owls, a live-owl program run by Marcia and Mark Wilson, ranging in size from just bigger than a fist to the largest owl in the world - a Eurasian eagle owl - that weighed eight pounds and was 40-inches long. (Harry Potter fans, this was the owl that Malfoy owned.  But the Wilsons also brought a snowy owl like Harry's Hedwig!)

"We had a couple visiting from Turkey, who told us that they have an owl like this who comes into a tree in their yard every night!" Mark Wilson reported excitedly, saying that he had never seen one of the Eurasian eagle owl in the wild.

But for many of the kids (and parents) the biggest draw was not the high-tech harvesting machines lined up on display, or the live creatures, or the many performers who wandered around with various juggling games. It was a pile of sand.

"Without a doubt, it's the number one draw," said Tarrah Preusser, of New Bedford, who was watching her husband and daughter climb up the approximately 40-foot tall mound of sand among many other kids.

"I'm hoping it wears them out," she said, admitting that the small risk of injury (although it's "very steep and very soft," she pointed out) and the sand-filled clothes were far outweighed by the benefits of an exhausted child.