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The husband’s brother and nephew stopped by yesterday to check out the man cave. (They hadn’t been in the barn in years and were suitably impressed.) Of course we heard them coming from half a mile away because they drove in with the nephew’s new toy.

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His favorite past time is buying and restoring old cars and this one is looking pretty good so far.

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Although I can’t say the same for the nephew. Pre Covid pandemic? He looked like this…

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Now?

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He’s sporting a Grizzly Adams type beard. But he brought us a jar of homemade maple syrup….

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So I guess I can overlook a little ( lot! ) of facial hair.

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He and his family do it the old fashioned way, tapping 32 trees with metal buckets.

He even built an honest to God sap house.

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Where he boils. And boils. And boils…

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In case you’re wondering, it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of syrup. No wonder it’s so bloody expensive. ( Good stuff can go for $100 a gallon )

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