Back home again

 Garry arrived at the airport in Winnipeg shortly after 7 pm on Wednesday, the Salmon Arm team flew out of Montreal 15 minutes after he did, and thought they'd be home around nine Pacific time. Garry said a few of the guys were feeling sick on the trip home, so hopefully everyone is feeling better. Thanks to Jack, Jeremy, Phil, Dayton and Nick for going to Ukraine with Garry.

 I got some more photos from Jeremy, so I'll share some here. A few from the beginning of the trip.

Most are from the last couple days when they were working on the dry cow shed. There are more so I'll try to share more next week.

They put in long days of work to get so much done until about 8 pm when the sun set, and it was hot most of the time. I think this is the last photo of the shed before they left.

Here's a photo of all the workers, Canadians and Ukrainians, showing off what they did.

                                                                   Close up!!!

Finished

 

Max and crew were able to finish the roof on the building the guys were working on, he sent Garry some photos on Monday afternoon. It's Tuesday in Ukraine and Garry and the team are traveling back to the airport in Moldova by van. Praying all goes well and it doesn't take too long to cross the border. They will fly to Vienna, where they are overnight before returning to Canada.

Looks like the cows are enjoying the new place. 

Update- The van dropped them off at the airport six hours early, they crossed the border in an hour this time! They will board the flight to Vienna shortly and be on the way home, safe and sound. 

Church on Sunday

 

The guys slept in the church in Kirvoy Rog last night (and tonight) and Garry sent a few photos from the church service. He said there were 80 -90 people there. Jack spoke with Luba translating and he played with the praise band too. 

Garry thinks they are visiting some orphanages in the city before heading to the border for their flight to Vienna Tuesday... Wednesday they fly to Montreal before splitting up to fly to Kelowna and Winnipeg.

Videos from the farm

 Oleg sent me some more video of the guys working on the dry cow facility, so I'm sharing some with you. They seem to play better if you click on the small arrow that pops up after you click on the first one in the center, at least on my computer. 

You can see why they are tired after eight days of work! I'll update you as I hear from them over the next days, Sunday in Kirvoy and as they start the trip home. They land back in Canada on Wednesday.

Oh, and a photo of Garry talking with our friend Lena's English students in Dnipro Saturday afternoon.

Finishing up- updated

 The guys will be leaving the farm shortly, heading to see another EFree missionary and church on Sunday before starting the trip home. I got a photo of them working on finishing up the concrete and roof today. 

Hopefully I will get some of the finished work, Garry had to go talk at a couple places in Dnipro this afternoon before they leave. 

Phil shared some photos of the cheese delivery van that Oleg uses to make deliveries in the city.

I'll have ask Garry what he thinks about that close up. He's like Harlan Sanders, I guess.  

Heard from Garry, they made it to the city and are sleeping in the church tonight. They're all exhausted. They got the concrete poured, and all the lumber up for rafters, but the staff and students will have some steel to put on to finish up.

Photos

 Yesterday I had no photos, so no blog post. However, the team was doing the same thing yesterday and today, and tomorrow, so here you are. They are pouring concrete for the dry cow/big heifer lot. This is part of the building that was started in March to replace the old sheds. They are tying a lot of rebar, it looks like, too.

A big problem for these cows has been the mud in this lot. Especially during the cold wet winters, it would get so deep they were reluctant to leave the sheds to go eat at the feed bunk, and they would lose weight. Another problem was they would get mastitis, an udder infection caused by bacteria, because they would be wet and dirty from wading through the mud. So this new shed and concrete to walk on should help fix this problem. 

They did six truckloads of concrete today, 54 meters. And brought in fill, leveled it, and tied all that rebar. Four trucks coming tomorrow and the rest of the wood came today so they can finish putting on the roof. Garry said Jack was feeling better, not 100%, but was out at the building site all day. Jeremy isn't feeling good now. 

It looks like Phil has got my stove figured out, here's some cooking photos.

Looks like Phil gets help or an audience while baking and the guys get lots of treats, even watermelon.

Tomorrow, Garry will be in Dnipro in the afternoon for some talks he's giving and Saturday evening they leave the farm to visit Kirvoy before heading back to Moldova and home. Just 8 days at the farm but very productive.

Progress

 

I talked to Garry when he woke up Wednesday morning (10 pm Tuesday night for me.) He said they finished the roof on the dairy barn Tuesday and would be working on the heifer/dry cow shed roof.

 He sent me some photos at 2 am of them doing that. 

They were supposed to get another delivery of wood so they could finish, but I haven't gotten an update.