Notes from Ukraine

 Seems like life in the village just keeps on, in spite of the terrible photos you see from the cities of bombings. I've been waiting to get a photo of Nikolai, since he arrived for his first home leave from the army a few hours after Garry left the village, but I haven't seen any. 

Garry got this photo of Andrey when he came back to the village for his a few days before Garry left. Angelina was happy to see her papa. 

Garry gets regular updates from Max about the feed ration and how much milk they are making. This week the are up two cows to 96 cows milking and continue to make more milk. On November 19th , Max reported 1420, on December first it was 1523. I believe that's liters. Garry says they are up about 35% since he changed the feed ration when he was there. 

They were able to get 700 tones of the beet pulp to bag, there's no more available, I guess they are done turning sugar beets into sugar. Hopefully it gets them through the winter. 

Catching up

 Hey, just thought I'd update the blog. Garry is slowly getting over jetlag, he's close to being in this time zone after a week. I'm starting to feel more normal, the meds I'm on has dropped my heart rate about 10 beats a minute, so it's taking some getting used to. 

Garry had a message from Max today, the changes he made to the cows ration has the herd giving even more milk than when he left last week. Garry figured out that milk production has gone up 25% since he made the changes a couple weeks ago while he was there. They have got more beet pulp and bagged it up, too. 

Here's a photo of the bigger better milk tank that was installed after Garry was in Ukraine last spring.

This is a photo Garry took at Max's house before the two of them took a couple hour drive to visit a dairy farm on Tuesday before Garry came back. They had heard about a German Kontakt missionary farm and made arrangements to see it. They have been in Ukraine for a long time, not milking many cows (20, I think Garry said) and are making cheeses also. Unfortunately, neither Max nor Garry remembered to take photos there. 

Garry was in Dnipro a few times while he was in Ukraine, the last Saturday he went to the meeting that the Morningstar church has for an outreach, I can't remember who was speaking, maybe Daryl Porter, but afterwards Garry went to the Most City mall downtown. 

He said there were two guys playing piano downstairs, most stores were open with minimal lighting as there were rolling blackouts often the last weeks he was there (and still now because Russia keeps knocking out power plants). He said there was a big cheer when the power came on while he was at the mall. Probably because Mc Donald's would reopen with the power on, he said they were lining up to order, even though it was still closed when he left. 

Sorry about the delay

 Quick update from us! Garry arrived home in the middle of the night, as scheduled, about 28 hours after he checked out of his hotel in Moldova. He traveled with Daryl until Toronto. 

 I haven't been able to update the blog since last week Wednesday evening because I got the boys to take me to ER where my heart was beating 190, which was under control in a couple hours, but I was there for a week while they investigated my heart. I now have pills and a follow up plan, but the tablet I brought along couldn't sign in to make blog posts... until today when I could verify the log in on Garry's phone! Luckily, I got home on Thursday afternoon before he got back on Friday night.

So here's some of what happened the last two weeks in Ukraine. Garry was working on fixing a few problems on the farm, with the drought they didn't have enough food on hand to to feed all the cows this winter. So Garry picked some unprofitable cows to sell, they used the money to buy beet pulp, which they will bag up to help stretch out the hay, grain and corn silage on hand and the brewers grain they can buy. He got our son Matt to balance some feed rations to use. 

That's 27 tons of beet pulp in the photo.

They are working on using the whey left from cheese making in the feed ration, adding nutrition and not just letting it smell up outside, where they had been pumping it away in a pit.  He emphasized the importance of getting the cows pregnant and watching to find cows in heat. It's been four years since we've been there most of the time to supervise what is happening day to day with the herd, and some things were not going as well as before. 

Finishing work on the shed

 Garry has been busy, he's sent photos of the work they have been getting done to finish the shed. I'm think that's Max's brother Andrey welding gates and the headrail.

They got the steel on the end of the roof too. Garry's been cooking for the girls in the house, Friday they had pancakes for breakfast and he made pizza for dinner. Saturday he cooked spaghetti he said. 

He's been missing sleep in the middle of the night trying to watch the Blue Jay playoff games, but I guess he'll be sleeping better now. Too bad they didn't win after he got up at 3 am. 

A Haircut and Rain!

 Garry went to church in the village Sunday and got his haircut in the afternoon, along with Max. He forgot his wallet, so Max had to pay for them! He sent me before and after photos.

Here's one last photo of the BC team before they left that Oleg put up on Facebook, hopefully they are recovering from jetlag and their trip now.

When Garry got back to the village on Saturday, he was excited to see puddles. Even though it rained at some point almost every day the team was there, it never rained enough to help the very dry conditions.

How dry? Remember I posted this summer that wells dried up in the village? The winter wheat had been planted but is not coming up consistently, so they are hoping more plants will start to grow and they will be able to plow the corn and sunflower fields, as the ground was too hard to plow.  

Sunday afternoon/evening it was raining and it continued Monday, Garry messaged me they had two inches of rain. He said it was as much rain in the last three days as they have had over the last eighteen months, so it looks like fall plowing can happen. 

So Monday they didn't work on finishing the shed, but Tuesday they started working on making the railing for the front of the building. It was raining again in the afternoon. Garry didn't take photos of either, but here's one of buying diesel for the tractors on Monday, the sky looks gray. They use one of the old vans for this.

Garry's shoulder is feeling better, he tells me. 

A little update, you remember the two vans that had to be fixed because of using bad fuel in them. Max now tests the fuel they buy for purity. The higher the float goes, the better the diesel.

They're off

 

Well, the team is on their way home, Garry dropped them at the border crossing Friday evening (night?) and their ride materialized on the Moldovan side. I'm now dependent on Garry for photos, but Phil posted the sunrise as they landed in Vienna, I heard they had a layover in Toronto. 

Garry stayed overnight in a hotel before returning to the village Saturday. He said his shoulder wasn't bothering him, but he had a stiff neck. He's looking forward to church in the village and a haircut (also in the village). He said that there was a rolling power blackout when he got back, there was one the day before the team left. Russians are hitting the powerplants again with winter approaching, so that's what happens. 

So here's Garry's photos from the village, he's having fun with the kids in the house. Looks like everyone is wearing sweaters. Danil has gotten eyeglasses since spring. 

Watch for haircut photos, but I probably won't be posting as often. 

Thursday

 Thursday the guys finished work by 3 pm, then celebrated with pizza and cakes. They got everything done.  They actually had the steel on the shed Wednesday,  but I just found a photo.

The welding guys will get to work soon on the head rail for the front where the cattle eat.

The summer kitchen at the church is done, there is a fridge and stove to come yet.

They even did some repairs to the house they have been staying in.

The plan for Friday is to get the guys to the border for their Saturday morning flight. After breakfast, a van is supposed to arrive for Garry to drive them. Garry's shoulder is doing better, if you were wondering. Our white van is out of commission, apparently both it and the milk delivery van got diesel fuel with water in and needed extensive engine repairs. The milk van is fixed, but the white van is still being repaired, so they are borrowing one.