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Thanks guys! Life is good in the Hoosier state, the Livingston clan is doing well. This past year's maple syrup season wasn't the best, weather wise, but I had built a new high vacuum collection system over the summer and it allowed us to salvage what is generally being described as one of the worst seasons in recent memory. Oh well, that's farming. Hey Bill Cody: you can indeed make syrup from a hickory, but unlike traditional maple, walnut, or birch syrup, you don't collect any sap.... hickory syrup is made by boiling the bark and adding sugar. It tastes good, but the thought of needing to add sugar to make it sweet just sits sideways with me, so we've never made any. The HBG are still very much a big part of our pond life here on the farm, I feel like I've got a really good handle on what it takes to raise these fish without suffering the dreaded GSF apocalypse that so many seem to fear as inevitable.... Spoiler alert: it isn't! I tied into what I think was my personal best YP a few weeks ago, got it up clear of the water and eyeballed it before it came unbuttoned and splashed its way to Freedom. I hardly think about it now, except whenever I'm awake. It was huge, a trophy for sure. But I'm not bitter. Dang that was a big fish.
I believe I mentioned a year or two ago that we had purchased a sawmill. After owning one for some time now, I can wholeheartedly endorse it as a surefire way to use up all that extra free time that we all struggle to deal with. Scouting trees, cutting down trees, bucking trees into logs, skidding logs out of the woods, loading logs onto the mill bunks, milling the logs into lumber, and stacking the lumber for drying. Then you get to actually build the whatever-it-is you needed the lumber for in the first place. All kidding aside, I get tremendous satisfaction from being able to mill our own lumber. Very satisfying. If you're on the fence about buying your own sawmill, i recommend you just do it. I'm betting you won't regret it. And, it might help take your mind off that day you hooked and lost a new world record YP. Dang that was a big fish.
I think that just about wraps it up, I really appreciate the birthday wishes and I hope you all are doing well!:
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