Hey Bill.
Here is a video of a gathering we have down here each year.
Handling these big rattlers is kinda like castrating a cat. Make sure you got a good hold and don’t let go until you are ready .
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Wayne, I’ve seen fun, it didn’t look anything like that. 
The fair and all looked fun, just not handling the snakes. I would even eat a snake on a stick.
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My son kills snakes when he sees them. ( since he was a boy )
This bothers me, I don’t like to see any animal that does as much for us die for no reason ( even the rattle snake a new comer around here is fine by me )
I thought more than once I should skin one and make him eat it.
Clearly that cruel to both boy and snake…
Phazer II is the sled, once they were very common, still are around but Yamaha stopped selling parts for them.
Snow this year has been about normal.
Temperatures have fluctuated but not to wildly ( no Siberian express… yet )
You want to see it stay bellow freezing but warm as possible, but you still need about two weeks of deep arctic cold -25 to thicken the ice on the lakes and …
AND…
And this is the important point. kill everything.
Brown deer ticks can’t take the cold, a good freeze keeps them at bay.
Non native stuff just can’t deal with it
In one of my pictures behind the dogs you see the bush is growing back after 100 years of industrial activity killed everything.
But its not normal or healthy regrowth.
Bio diversity is low and lots of non native stuff in there ( Norway maple for example ).
If the climate is changing and the natural environment is disturbed you have no idea what to expect.
That bush is fine example in warm years full of rattle snakes and deer ticks and things that do not belong
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Bill, for some reason l stayed allmost a year behind this topic. I had a problem with notification settings earlyer last year but never had the time to readtrughwhat l missed. Last night l wake up at around 2 and culdnt sleep till morning, so l poured some left over champange and read trugh your topic.
All l can say is my hat is off for you sir. The fact you put a quality life in front of money shows what kind of a person you are. I wish l can gather the balls to do the same when time comes, dump the torturous poisonous job l do now to provide for my family, and go on the exact same track you went; liveing off the land. But till then, l gather knolidge (from generous people from this site-includeing you!) so that when time comes, l will be reddy to become a full time life enjoyer and l know lm not the only oneon the site thinking so.
This sayd, l have a question. I was thinking to do some birch sap collecting this spring. Any tips?
We did collect sa pwhen we were kids but we cut of a branch or a bundle of twigs and tyed a bag on. It produced loads of sap but my question for you guys is is this any good for syrup? Since the sap passed allmost the whole tree before being collected…
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It was a dairy farm in Grand Isle, Vermont, about 60 miles south of Montreal. And, no, we didn’t have it to burn. But we would go ice fishing, play hockey, go to farm shows, make maple… all durring snow. Of course you had to feed and milk the cows, clean the barn & etc… chores.
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Hello Bill…good to see you are enjoying life. My sister moved back to here to Coffeyville, Kansas the other day bringing her 5 favorite goats with her, and no place to keep them. I was cleaning out our old horse barn for her so she would have a place to feed and milk her goats. I had not been in the barn for sometime and there was the pile of hydrostatic drives that I had promised to send you one of some time back. So I have one up to the house now so that I won’t forget again. Hope to get it shipped in the next few days. Good luck and be safe my friend.
Gary
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Great to hear from you again Gary.
I sure hope to see you at Argos. If so, you can bring it then.
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Really good to hear from you @racer3g arry!! Argos this year promises to be a hum-dinger. Would love to see you there.
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Hi wayne nice rattle snake, vidio, Thanks for posting. i dont eat pork so snakes are out of my menu rang for food. intertretations of bible food too eat.
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Hi Bill,
I thought of you and syrup when I saw this. It was not designed to evaporate syrup but could not resist posting this on your Topic. Three fuel magazines, interesting.
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About 6 gallons of maple syrup (sirp for the southerners) made so far. 14 more gallons to go to reach my goal.
Trying something new to separate me from other producers. We’re infusing other flavors in our maple syrup. So far we’ve tried cinnamon, ginger, vanilla beans and coffee beans. One more thing I want to try is jalapeno peppers.
Cinnamon
Coffee
Ginger
Vanilla
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Mouth watering BillS,
Just had to buy a new replacement bottle of Maple-Gold. Ran out. Used up the last on Sunday’s morning true free range egg-french toast.
Used up the very last of some really special made-in-Mississippi wildflower honey too. I do like wildflower honey on my morning bread-toast floating in real cows butter. Made-in-Oregon wildflower honey was the new go-to.
Nothing like indulging in the very-Best-in-Life’s.
Best Regards
Steve unruh
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looking good bill, that certainly is quite a process too make, should be well worth is healther than all the fake surup., how long will it keep, can it be frozen.
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It can be froze. I’m not sure how long it is good for when bottled properly. A friend of mine has one that has been bottled for 15 years and he states it appears as it did when he bottled it.
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A long time as long as the seal doesn’t break. Usually, you break the seal, then condensate from humidity creates enough water that mold can grow. Mold is what turns it cloudy.
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Realistically this is the earliest we should really be planting up here. We have another week or two of possible overnight freezing. So far the forecast says tonight will be the coldest at 36F (2.22C).
I will try and get the root veggies planted before Argos in the big garden outside.
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We had slightly warmer down here during the night 
JO and Kristijan
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I’ve been watching the national news and seeing how hot it is done there. Really makes me appreciate northern Minnesota weather. We are at the 47th latitude which usually keeps the tonadoes away too.
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