I could be a village elder instead of middle aged, and my wife might not have survived the first child.
We have real and different problems, but I would definitely take our current problems over those present through most of history.
Weekend activities! (old thread reanimated)
1 Like
Exactly.
I would have passed away meanwhile killed by cancer.
And @professor never would have survived that accident with his awful broken leg.
A discussion started meanwhile about the situation of german hospitals.
How is the quality of our health care here in Germany?
I can not compare it to other countries.
But I think, living in München our situation is a good one.
Many hospitals and physicians.
I am sure its much worse on the countryside.
But this is the normal situation in every country, I think.
About that time of year here in Michigan, so I tapped my sugar maple in my backyard and can’t wait to make my own syrup for the first time this year. Have been living here 6 years and never realized I could.
6 Likes
Oh wow that’s so cool please let us know how it turns out. I went to a maple syrup farm a couple years ago (pre COVID) and it was really cool to see the whole process it goes through
2 Likes
I know this can be done with birch trees as well.
But not such a tree in my garden here.
I have a maple tree in the garden, but this seems not to be such one to get juice from.
Acer saccharum, Acer nigrum and Acer rubrum
those are the best.
2 Likes
need good temperature swings to get the sap pumping.
i have some colleagues that tap their birch trees and say about 40l of sap to get a gallon of syrup.
have you done before and how much have you been able to get?
2 Likes
Seems important to find the right time when the juice “climbs” from the roots to the tree trunk.
Of course this must be done in spring after the resting period.
But this has to be done careful ,
not “stealing” too much sap (learned a new word, thank you! 
)
and killing the tree.
Same as in German -> “Saft”.
May be I should try this with my maple tree.
1 Like
That is pretty cool as well. Hope it ends up being pretty good.
I will say my wife’s grandmother is still living and she is 99 years old. One of the things she makes when we do go down to visit is a coffee syrup.
I have never tried it as I do not enjoy coffee but I do know they all enjoy it. I have been tempted a time or two to just try to just see what it tasted like…
3 Likes
What a party when she will get 100!
Let us know, there will be congratulations from ALL regulars here.
From all over the world!
btw : 
I will get 7x tomorrow!
But I don’t expect much, no party.
1 Like
If we had 2023 technology - computers, storage, genomics, physics, chemistry, etc - but had say a 1823 population, we’d be finding ourselves quite happy I suspect.
Admittedly there’d be three jobs only: farmer, scientist, doctor. There’d be no money, just either smart enough to be scientist, or a doctor, or otherwise by default you’re a farmer. Doctor is 1/3rd placebo, 1/3rd luck, 1/3rd science.
In 1823 the dumbest member of the family became a priest.
Grats… my father is 7x but his is Christmas Eve. 
FYI… I got you what I got you last year.
2 Likes
Gosh you’ve said your age a few times but it varies slightly. So I reckon 75 or 76?
Tomorrow is going to be the day it seems. Checked it earlier and it was about 4/5 of the way full, but it was too late to get going on boiling it. It takes around 4 hours outside to boil down 5 gallons of sap to around 16oz (473ml) total. We usually (from what I’ve read) start tapping in March, but the temperature this week starter to show it swinging from above freezing during the day to below at night for about 10+ days, so it seems it is going a lot sooner. We’ve lived here for 6 years now and I never once thought to do it until I saw a neighbor with around 12 buckets hanging from his trees. As soon as I drilled into mine I knew it was going to be good because it was running out immediately. Tree is roughly 50ft+ in height and has a huge trunk, so it hopefully gets me a bunch.
All in all it is going to be about a two week hobby from what I’ve come across. It took about 3.5 days for this bucket to fill, with each tap dripping about a drop a second on average. Each 5 gallons taking 4 hours to boil down enough to take inside (it produces a huge amount of steam) due to needing to boil off 98% of the water. Once it is inside it will continue to boil until it is 7.1F above boiling point (mine is 211.5F) before it is dropped to 180F and canned immediately. If it turns out, great. If not it was $35 to have fun and potentially get me a small win and something to bottle up in 2oz bottles to give to people. Might get me some labels for shits and giggles.
4 Likes
I’m actually planning on doing a bourbon for one to give to some friends, a vanilla bean for my kids and then some regular just to have. If it all turns out and all lol.
2 Likes
First time 
I ironically asked reddit on r/marijuanaenthusiasts (which is ironically for arborist type things vs r/trees which is for the opposite) and everyone confirmed it was a sugar maple. I went back to an old invoice I had from a tree doctor who looked at it years back and saw the same. Waited since September to be able to do it much to the hatred of my loving wife because it is all I have been talking about for the past 2 weeks.
1 Like
Hm, it must be something with a 7 as decimal place.
But the rest?
How was the disease called?
Alzinger, Alzmeier.?
Today the dumbest member becomes a politician. A green one!
Oh yes this is a beautiful tree.
As beautiful as ours here.
(neighbours garden).
A huge beech tree planted in 1936.
(same age as the houses here were built)
Only one of this tiny houses is still there.
All others torn down.
When we bought our house it was a modern one, built in 1980.
Now its an old one.
Will be torn down and replaced by a duplex house if we give it up
People don’t need garden in the city any more.
Properties are “overbuilt” to its borders in our days.
Land and ground is expensive and tight.
1 Like
Ended up taking close to 8 hours total because of a rookie mistake and trying to boil 22L at one time instead of incrementally. Live and learn but the end product came out beyond amazing. Light golden color because of it being the first tapping of the year (and probably ever) so it has strong vanilla flavors to it with the maple. Already have another gallon in the bucket so can’t wait to do it again in a couple of days lol.
6 Likes
Seems we have some talented fellows here
A beer brewer and and syrup boiler.
Perfect.
the only thing I made this week were self made Gnocci.
Its a lot of work, but these are so much better that those pre-fabricated.
Yesterday I found an old clarinet at the the flea market,
But I will not start to play it. 
3 Likes