Faa 22022021

Another year has passed, and well it was a special one I think we can all agree on that. In this news letter I will start where the last one from 22/2/2020 ended.

Introduction

So what did happen since the last February 2020? I guess you all know the main news but I've to say or good or bad the last year covid situation did not actually affect me too much. During the spring lock down or "confinement" as the French say around the April I've been busy with bottling the 2019 cider season, which some of you supported through the last campaign, again once more thanks! Instead of few days it took me around a month because I could not ask my friends for help and I've done waste majority of the 7 000 of 75 cl bottles alone. Also since January I had issues with my knee which prevented me to get a job, it was actually really bad, I had issues to walk. During the late spring and beginning of summer I came back to Czech Republic where I got help with the knee, which improved a lot, it was caused by muscular disequilibrium. At home I've also progressed with work on family house, which garage I plan to use as cider storage for Czech Republic and surrounding regions. In June I came back to France and within few weeks I've actually started to feel physically very bad. Long story short, I had a Lyme Disease, which was twice wrongly mistaken for allergy even when I was mentioning the tick bites and my suspicion, well it was ignored. I got really bad, at the end I've managed to get appointment in hospital department specialized in infectious diseases and was immediately hospitalized. I stayed there for a week, did lots of tests, god inter venal antibiotics (for one month), later on corticoids and was send home. All in all I've been out very sick for nearly two months. Still when taking medicaments I've managed to get a job in my field in cidrerie Les Vergers de Ducy as a seasonal worker. I've managed to keep the job, now it is my sixth month there.

Cider Season 2020

For the details of the 2019 cider season, please have a look here. The 2020 season, which started around mid of September, came early this year, was very very challenging. I have been working around 200 hours per month for money so I money to invest into my activity and I did around another 100 hours per month for my micro-entreprise artisanal, Cidrerie Jara. Since the mid of September till mid of December I had around four days off, I can say it was way too much and I do not want to repeat this again. However because of lack health condition to work during the spring and summer to earn money to have treasury for the 2020 season, I had no choice except forfeit and I did not wanted to do that. Well at the end I've managed to process around 18 tonnes of apples, from which I've manually harvested around 6 to 7 tonnes, bought another few of manually harvested and the rest I got from a friend who uses small semi-automatic machine. The cider is fermenting, had to do all what I could to slow it down because it was quite warm during the autumn and winter but it seems I will manage. This year I'm newly trying to completely avoid filtration, lets hope it works. For more information about the season please have a look on the crowd funding campaign combined with the presale/prévente.

Over all

Despite all the complications of 2020, I've progressed but lets be honest the toll was high and it reconfirmed to me that I have to make sure that at least from September till December I have to focus on my cider season only. One of the things which made me happy is finally starting to use my caravan as home so really live in it not just sleeping spot. I'm working on "deplacement"/displacement so during the week I'm in the caravan which is connected to electricity, toilets and showers are near by. I've to say I'm happy with the set up, it confirmed to me that especially when I get bit bigger caravan, my one is nice but just medium size, I could actually stay in all year long, comfortably and importantly on a very low budget. This will be crucial for progress of the business because as soon as I can I need to limit my work for money elsewhere and dedicate it to my principal money earning activity.