Second batch of aronia wine from 2022

We just bottled up our second batch of aronia wine that we started brewing a few months ago. This recipe had two gallons of juice compared to the first batch which had 2.5 gallons, plus we tried a couple of different things to assist in the clearing.

With each batch, we bottle some as dry and sweeten the rest to between a semi-sweet and a sweet wine. We sweetened it up a bit more in search of a good balanced recipe.

Most of my tasters prefer the sweeter end of the spectrum but I do like how the dry turned out last year. 

This seems to be the best batch we made from 2022 berries and looks pretty good through the light. Our third batch with another variation in the recipe is almost ready for second siphoning to clear the wine.

#1 son and I drank tasted the scrubs, what we call that last bit of wine that isn't enough to fill a bottle, and it's probably the best that we produced this year.

We might be getting close to the preferred recipe but I'm looking forward to finding out how our third one turns out.

From the shadows...

 I'm a little behind on reviewing the trail cameras and found this guy from September last year:

Goodbye 2022

The picture below serves as a metaphor of 2022 at the farm: not everything went as planned.

Sure, we expanded our popcorn planting but late in the ground because of a wet spring. A dry Summer hampered the yields and late rains ruined a third of the harvest.

We fell well short of our tree planting because of a meager acorn harvest of the fall of 2021 and this past fall was even worse.

While we had our best year at the local farmer's market, I'm reminded of one potential customer's opinion of my "overpriced" potatoes. "I'll take them all. How much?" she said. I told her to which she replied, "That's too much." My prices were less than the guy 6 tables to the north.

It reminded me of a Monte Python sketch.

Back to the tree:
During my end-of-year cleanup of trash trees like boxelder and dead elm trees, this 8" mulberry unexpectedly twisted on me, turned 60 degrees to the right and landed square on this post.
(No one was hurt, including the post)

Just as in this last tree cut in 2022, not everything went as planned. Is there a lesson to be learned? Will 2023 be better? Will the questions of the universe be answered? 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

We'll just plug away the best we can, feed some of our neighbors, and plant a few more trees.

Cheers!