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Easter is upon us

A cold Thursday, the weather here and in Strasbourg are nearly identical.  Our meat chickens have started arriving, they are coming in batches of 200 every few weeks (we actually pick them up from the hatchery).  More important the house is being readied for all the important guests...our children.  The whole lot, begin arriving this afternoon.  Our youngest daughter arrived this morning on the 11 am train, just in time for lunch.  She came "without her boyfriend"  as any father knows you don't ask questions about absent boyfriends...you rely on your wife for that task.  Our eldest daughter is arriving tonight with our precious granddaughter and her fiancee, that they were both able to be off this weekend is a treat. 

Their new lodgings here at the house are about ready, the permanent heating system and electricity have yet to be finalized, and an inspection or two are still required, to obtain the residency permit (I know it makes no sense, but it's an insurance thing).  The floors were installed and they are spectacular, it's a new British system, the parquet floor comes in 2"x2" slabs, is very easy to install, and looks amazing.  

The wine cellar is ready, for all the guests.  

In other news the farm is ticking along with few problems, at this time of the year before planting there is only limited activity.  We were able to start clearing out the first forest that the pigs rooted out.  The archeologist didn't find anything interesting, and the mini digger (Chinese) and the power-tracked barrows allowed us to demolish the stone structures and recover all the material.  The same architect that bought the old wooden barnes from the new farm is buying up all these stones for wall projects in the area.  Once we are done clearing out that first forest, it will be integrated in our cattle fields, it provides excellent shade during the hot and sunny days.  Cattle love hanging out in forests.  

Aside from that, the farm is on track.  As we near the end of the month we start to look at revenues and income, and we are on track with February, not that I am looking very hard, volume is similar and prices too, we are about 17% over the 2023 results, that gap will fall within the next two months, because we really started to use CO2 consistently in June 2023. 

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