After getting a new hip in early September, I’m finally starting to get around better. I was thinking going into it that I’d be at about 75-80% in 6-8 weeks, I was wrong, but I’m finally at about 80-85% after 18 weeks. The hardest thing at this point is lifting my new hip leg very high, just 7-8″ seems to be the max, and if getting out of the car, I still need to help lift the left leg high enough to get that foot out onto the ground lifting with my left arm. But the good part is that the last 3 days I’ve been able to walk on flat ground (and in the house) without needing a cane. Things are finally looking up.
I still have a little more Amber syrup to bottle, but ever since I’ve been on a blood thinner I get cold far easier than I did before the blood thinner. My sugarhouse is not heated when I’m not boiling. Just warming the syrup for bottling does little if anything to warm the sugarhouse, thus I need to wait until I get at least 40 degrees F before I can bottle syrup. Along with that I’ve decided this year will be my last year making syrup and my production will be much less than any year since about 2005, maybe only 250-300 taps max.
On the bourbon barrel aged maple syrup, I’ll have stock for a few years because I had 3 barrels (40 gal each) over the last 2 years that were labeled as dark, when I went to bottle them, they were in fact very dark (I sell very little very dark) so I put them in recently emptied bourbon barrels. I still have about 50-55 gal to be packed into retail containers. I do have a few customers who showed an interest in buying some bourbon barrel aged maple syrup in 2 gal pails. I don’t yet have a final price, but the 2 gal pail will be $150, for the pail and the syrup. That will be for 2 gal density verified brought down to under 2% alcohol (I can’t legally sell any at over 2% alcohol because I don’t have a licquer license) and filtered. Anyone buying one of those pails will need to either store it in a freezer or bottle it in glass. If you choose to store it in a freezer, it will need to be kept at 10F or colder, but it will not freeze solid. Packing it in plastic jugs would only be good for 12-15 months, in glass, packed at 185F+/- 2 degrees it will keep for over 20 years. I don’t yet have a shipper arranged, I’m going to check out UPS or FedEx but haven’t yet to see what regulations they would have, USPS will not ship them.