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Not that there was ever any confusion on the subject, but I'm no expert. Ha ha! And I never played baseball, which I think would have changed, possibly avoiding altogether, my earlier dysfunctional relationship with failure. Now I embrace making mistakes, including the occasional complete failure, for what they are; grand opportunities. It's been said in a number of ways, "the problem is the solution," "breakdowns lead to breakthroughs," and of course as is attributed to some stoic, "the obstacle is the way." In any event, don't be stopped by the fear of failure.
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That'd be Maple, the latest addition to the menagerie
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Primal Woods
Aside from the goats and chickens, we have two dogs, three house cats, two barn cats, and now Maple, who not coincidentally calls the Sugar House home. It took her about two minutes to realize that the boxes of just-bottled Whiskey Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup made for a nice, warm sleeping platform. The syrup is between 190 and 200°F when bottled, so there is a good amount of heat rising from the boxes. The simple pleasures.
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The weather didn't cooperate, but we got the job done
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Portable Sawmill Services There isn't enough calendar left to wait for optimal weather, snow followed shortly after this image was made. The snow gave way to a light rain, and then overcast and generally damp weather. Chris engaged my services, while David and Tom did the heavy lifting in support of the milling. While I've had longer days, I think everyone was pretty well wiped out after dealing with the conditions for 7 hours. We put up a lot of beautiful Black Walnut 5/4 boards, and a couple of nice 8/4 live edged slabs. All in all a great day.
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Some of Henry's logs
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Next up is milling with Henry in Newago, MI, about two hours to the north. That'll be a long day, especially considering the four hours of travel time. I look forward to it, and am praying the weather comes in better than it did this week!
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Bottled 14 cases, 168 bottles, of the 2020 Whiskey Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup this week; it's a winner!
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Pure Maple Syrup After 6 months in the barrel, the Whiskey Barrel Aged Pure Maple Syrup was filtered and bottled this week. Of course the taste testing was obligatory, damn the bad luck. Ha! The barrel dolly (aka drum cradle) was really helpful in getting the syrup out of the barrel and into the pre-filtering tank. In fact it would have been very difficult and probably messy to have done without the dolly. This weekend and into early next week I have a lot of bottle dressing to do; front label, back label and hang tag. Meanwhile we still have WBA from last year on the shelf, so there's no need to wait!
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