Small trees, attacked from above, now from below t

This year, I planted potatoes and most root crops in sorta raised boxes, shallow boarded in containers with hardware cloth bottoms. Too successful this year, tons of fingerling spuds, even after selling some, my fridge runneth over. I got off my lazy behind and made some cages to go around some young maples I had planted over 10 years ago, or what the deer left me after all this time. They seemed to find every tree and nibble the new growth, killing some trees since they then had no leaves. Most of the trees did very good this year, but. This Fall I've noticed a couple trees disappeared, gophers are all over my acre, even down by the creek that flows thru my place. Can't win.
Duane

I've heard spuds make good moonshine. Not that I'm advocating you illegally distill spirits or anything.

Well at least you had one crop come out successfully. With regards to the gophers, a friend of mine uses a solar gopher deterrent. I think it is called The Solar SafeGuard (don't hold me to that). It repels gophers, moles, and snakes among other things.

Creek flooded, but no loss of my trees.
Duane

I'll take note of this. This may come in handy in the future.

It's only illegal if ya sell it or make more than 200 gallons yearly.

In Florida that's the rule for beer, but spirits require a license for any amount. As I recall the license runs $4000. Ridiculous! There is an exemption for biofuel but you'd better have an engine running on alcohol to make your case.

According to a cop friend of mine it's like blocking your license plate with a bicycle on a bike rack. Technically it's illegal but practically cops have better things to do with their time.

Of course you are selling the spirits they get upset for not getting their taxes and then cops do get interested.

You can still find moonshine here that's homemade. It's usually not for sale, technically, but you can find it. Some of what I've tasted is pretty darn good too and now there are a couple small distilleries here that sell it legally. One of my daughters worked at the first one that opened here and we all learned a lot about how it's made then.

One of the things we learned is you can take any old `shine and run through an activated charcoal filter a few times and you have really good `shine. This is not so different than "double" or "triple" distilling, and actually even better. Same with Vodka, which is pretty much `shine made with potatoes instead of corn.

So, if you go to the liquor store and buy cheap vodka and filter it a few times you now have pretty much the same thing as "Patron", and more money in your pocket.

This is where my daughter worked.

When I toured the Jack Daniels Distillery 20+ years ago they talked about the wood they charred and used for filtering and how they didn't know how why this made a better whiskey. My friend and I, both chemists, laughed and offered to explain it to him.

It's a common misconception that vodka is made from potatoes. Most vodka is made from grains. I learned this touring the vodka museum just outside Moscow a few years ago but I'm sure google can verify.

Ultimately if one just wants ethanol and water whether for whiskey, moonshine, vodka, etc. just about any plant that can be fermented will do.