Cows and crops

The spring grain fields are up, the wheat fields are
 growing taller along the highway, some trees are greener too.

We went out on Sunday and took some crop photos- our first crop report of the year!

Garry’s recently planted alfalfa is coming up, you can see some green in the field across the highway- and it’s not all weeds! In the afternoon, we went out to the replanted field- they part of last spring’s seeding that they worked up last fall because there weren’t many (alfalfa) plants in it. As you can see in the photo, there are two old alfalfa plants growing by Gary’s feet, alfalfa has a very long root, which means some of them survived. Garry is pointing to one new plant that has sprouted, after Sunday evening’s rain; you can find even more of what was planted among the little weeds.

Garry says the new seeding across the highway  is turning green

can you see it now?

the new alfalfa in the field

and the old returns too!

The alfalfa field from last year should be ready to cut in a couple weeks. It looks really good where I took the photo, however there are a few barer spots. On Monday Garry started cutting a little fresh green alfalfa from the garden plot, to feed the cows instead of the straw they had been getting to eat with their brewers’ grain, corn silage, and ground dry corn mix. They are using the little blue trailer to pick it up and bring it home, much easier that lifting it into the high off the ground precept (wagon) with the pitchfork. When the little field is done, they will cut grass until the hayfield is ready to cut. 

Hunting for sprouts in the corn field

there's one!

We checked out the corn field, a few of the seeds that the planter had put in a bit too shallow have sprouted, you can see them poking up, I think there will be more to see in this field next week!

The further adventures of Tuesday...

Yesterday I asked Garry if the cows would be back early from the field on the first day, it seemed like maybe it happened last year, he said no.... and Maxim was not back yet to ask (in fact he called to say it would be Wednesday before he returned as he had just come back through the border from Moldova late afternoon.)  Garry and Andrei had dug their 10 metres of trench for the day (this is the water irrigation project where it crosses our yard- more on that in a coming post), Victor had come out and helped him put up two different fences.

Adding a post for the side of the yard fence

Garry was sitting in the living room watching TV after Victor left (and Andrei was lying down- he has a sore throat) when I glanced out the window just after five pm to see why the dogs were barking. I saw Polo walking back and forth looking very anxious in the driveway, and then saw a cow and a lady on a bicycle go by on the road--- “Garry the cows are coming!” “But it’s not seven o’clock!” was his replay as we raced outside, meeting up with Yana who had also noticed them going by at about the same time. She ran up the street after one of our heifers that had already past the gate and chased her back, Garry and I tried to pick out the rest and shoo them into our gate, one red one that was bagged up insisted on going in, although Garry told me she wasn’t ours because she was milking, we closed the gate after pushing the black and white cow with a sore foot through, she didn’t want to walk through the gate, and kept turning around. We tied them up with Andrei’s help, put four heifers back in the pen they had come out of in the morning, and Garry did a head count, since it was too disorganized to count them as we chased them in as we did last year.  Garry thought they were all in, so we went back to the house, and relaxed and ate some cake I had baked that afternoon.



As the sun was getting ready to set, we decided to go for a walk, I wanted to take a photo of the other fence they had put up, so we went to the right. The fence is across the yard of the new house Garry just bought, it may become one of the houses for the foster parents for the trade school. There was no fence, so Victor brought out a roll of cheap wire fence, since there were posts, but no fence, it keeps the cows from running into the yard, which is much appreciated by the people chasing the cows in and out of the village everyday!

the house with the friendly people

Tulip time in the village

That new fence

Polo helping look at the alfalfa field

We were taking some photos of the spring tulips blooming in people’s yards, when a big dog started barking in a yard and a man came out and talked to Garry, for a few minutes. Garry knew he was talking about a cow, and told me as we walked on checking out the onions the vegetable farmer planted recently, and Garry’s alfalfa field. Polo had joined us on the walk, you can just see him sticking up in the field as he followed Garry there.  We turned to return home as it was dusk, and Andrei was backing the car out of the driveway as we were almost home. Yana was with him, and they talked with Garry, he said there was a cow missing from our group and he would go with them to look for her. It turned out the people who talked about the cow, had our cow in their shed, she had come back up the road, after all the other cows had gone home and our gate was closed, so they had put her inside. It turned out she was harder to get out than in, she was bigger than their cow, and wouldn’t back out, so they had to take part of the shed apart to get her out! The wife told Yana that Garry just didn’t understand them when they told him about her, it would have helped if he had known he was missing a cow! He also said the man looked a lot like a man he talked to last week about buying his cow, so when he talked about a cow, he was confused because that cow was on the other side of the village.

Wednesday

the assistant with the bag of glass vials

This morning I got to take a brisk walk down to the pond with Yana and nine cows and heifers, (the cow with the sore foot stayed inside today) shortly after the herd went past the gate, they were at the end of the road by the time we got to the road with them. Our delay was caused by the district vet, they blood test all the cows in the village for diseases and vaccinate them, and today was the day (although they will be back to read the TB tests and do the vaccinations on Friday) all for 60 grivna per cow.




 They do them in the morning before they go out, and the ones to go out weren’t quite finished as the village herd went out.  They did all our milk cows, taking blood out of their necks and putting it into vials, which takes a while. Andrei was holding the cow’s heads for the lady taking blood, but they were moving around as she was trying to find the vein.

Meanwhile, Garry was busy....

Two milk buyers at once

Trying to get the last milk out of the tank

Garry was busy with the milk buyers, since Andrei had run in the house to say the pump had broken- the one that pumps the milk from the tank into their containers. They had to bucket the milk out of the tank instead, which was much slower. He told me that three of them were bucketing it out into the ladies cans, but she left right after I went out. 

We had the bull calf for the tractor licence guy born yesterday. Big and backwards (calves normally arrive in the world  front toes and nose first) Garry says it took four of them to pull it out of the cow, but he’s alive, as you can see in the photo. His eyes are a little bloodshot, and he has a little wheeze, which happens in backwards calves as they can breath in fluids as they are born, but he looks like he’ll be OK, he was walking around in front of the cows all day.

His mother was not the one Garry was hoping would have a heifer calf, Garry is still waiting for her to calve. The vet was very concerned that she had not cleaned (delivered the afterbirth) and wanted to do something with her, but Garry said no, as it is best to wait a couple days and it comes out easiest (a  little stinky, however.)  

Garry working on his good game -only one in shorts in the mall- Wednesday's high was 28C

Garry and I drove into Dnepro to drop the broken pump off at Victors house so he could get it fixed before coming out on his Thursday milk run, do some grocery shopping, and go bowling. Garry had a good game with four strikes in a row to get a 214, while I managed to bowl 107 almost every game, in spite of very few strikes!

We got home in plenty of time to help get the cows back in the gate, as they returned with the village herd about six pm on the second day, all nine made it in the gate, with Garry, Andrei and Yana out by the road while I guarded the garden in case they didn't go in the barn while the late ones were coming.