Friday

 

Today Garry worked with his unbred heifer group in the morning, I think he said there are eight yet. Hopefully they will be ready to breed on Monday. Looks like there's a few cats hanging out at the barn. We just had a short conversation today as he was heading to bed because I was shopping at one o'clock here. 

He drove into Zaporosia with Danil, his mother Alona, and  Margarita are all in the photo he took. Danil needed to have his broken arm checked that was set last week. He said a few others came along Elena's son has had a cold and cough for a few weeks. Garry said he bought a big bag of frozen french fries on the way home and that's what he cooked for supper tonight until no one could eat any more.

 I didn't find out if he bought any Pepsi, which recently became available again (just before the team left). He said that a bottling or distribution warehouse had been blown up by the Russians. There isn't any Pepsi at the village store, not much pop at all, yesterday he tried the only kind left, and said blueberry mojito isn't very good. 

Thursday

 Thursday was another day of rolling blackouts for the village, Garry said they did get some more welding done when the power was on. They need to get the rest of the steel up on the gables yet, they got the last five sheets up on the roof on Tuesday. The plan is to have it finished before Garry leaves in a little less than two weeks.

 Garry's doing the usual, trying to get the feed ration set for the cows and heifers. This year there's no problem with having enough feed to last until spring/summer. He tells me there's twice as much hay as last year, thanks to the rain. They planted more corn this year, so there's about 50% more corn silage. 

Garry said he (and Max) got very muddy this morning chasing heifers in the lot so they could preg check them. These were the large (fat) older heifers in the dry cow lot with the bull. Garry said there are a lot of them (and dry cows), so he was going to preg check them to see if any are not pregnant and candidates to be sold. Luckily, only two were open (not pregnant). He said some of them were short bred (only a couple months pregnant) so he had to check those with the ultrasound machine. I think he plans to check the dry cows yet. 

Once again the power was out at suppertime so he couldn't cook. He bought ice cream at the village store, bananas, chocolate sauce, and imitation m&ms, with some walnuts, they made banana splits or sundaes I guess instead. They also had sandwiches with lots of mayo, Garry had bought a can of tuna. 

Unfortunately, our Sasha Borchuk was picked up by the army today while walking from the shop where he grinds grain everyday back to the boys' house on the road. It's only a couple hundred feet. We can hope that they let him go, as they did earlier in the war, because he is handicapped by fetal alcohol syndrome. However Andrey has been in the army for two years now, and is not normal either. He recently called Max when he was off the front lines and told a story where they were under fire and had to pull back and he was the one who called for help. You may have seen the photo of Sasha in his shirt I sent for his birthday next week. Good thing Garry accidently gave it to him early. 

 

Wednesday-

Today, Wednesday, Garry went with Margarita to deliver milk in and around Zaporosia, today it was 20 liter jugs for people who resell it by the bottle. Oleg has been sick (he had pneumonia, and now a sinus infection) and unable to go. Garry said he caught her going 140 Km/Hour on the way home and told her she can't do that in Canada. She is applying to go to Providence University College, where Max Boradin went. 

They have a drone warning device. Garry says it must tell you just before the drone hits you. He also said the GPS doesn't work during air raid warnings, so they went a different way to the last delivery and the guard at the block post yelled at her for not stopping at the stop sign but driving the ten feet to where he was waiting. I heard the conversation between her and the guard because I'd phoned him about Daryl wanting to talk to him. 

Here's a Ukrainian farm economics story for you, it takes 23 tons of wheat to buy a ton of diesel. It's a little more expensive than in Canada, but the price of wheat is falling now, too. Max said another farmer asked how they could afford to start fall plowing and he told him that their old boss is back. 

 Garry said they have drone deflection nets up some places on the highway.  They used the solar a lot today, seems like there is four hours of power on the grid followed by six hours off. Garry couldn't cook dinner for the girls and kids tonight because the electric stove takes too much power to run when they are running on the solar powered battery. 

 They did some welding on the headrails during a four hour "on" time today. Garry said Max has figured out a way to run the generator at his house on the natural gas line instead of diesel. Much less expensive, a little difficult to get going but runs okay once he gets it started. 

Tuesday

 To go with our last post about the heifer breeding, Oleg made a reel about it. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1715632146819782

Today Garry and Max went into Dnipro to buy some liquid nitrogen for the semen tank. Unfortunately, the place were they always buy it was out, so they will go back next week when they are supposed to have more in stock. If you watched the video, you'll see a little escapes the tank when he breeds the cows. However, there's enough to keep the semen frozen until next week (or longer.)

They did however, stock up on oil for the van and other supplies. While Max was driving the team to the border he had a sudden loss of oil pressure and so they decided to change the oil when he got back. Before the trip the white van (used bought in 2014) had 550,000 km on it.

 Looks like they bought 250 litres of oil and 100 of antifreeze to stock up for the farm vehicles this winter. Garry has said that the power was out (or went out) every time he went to Dnipro over the weekend. Everything was running on generators, at the mall, even at church, where the power went out during the service. 

Garry said the sun shown most of the day, and the power was out much of the day, it seems like they may having rolling blackouts again. The power was never out the week the team was there. It does slow down welding for the headrail, because they can't weld when the electricity out.

 The power was off when Garry woke up in the morning, and was on and off several times during the day, it was back on at four pm, so he cooked supper for the girls again, beans and franks, because there are canned beans in the humanitarian aid packages that the girls get.

The power was scheduled to go out again at 8, so the girls were making sure the kids had baths in time. Garry said that it was good timing because the cows would be milked during that time period, so they wouldn't need a generator. The battery backup for the two houses means they have lights and Wi-Fi while the electricity is off this year. They should be able to finish a batch of cheese if they have started one when the power goes out, and keep the milk in the cooler in the cheese house cold (unless it's summer). 

Monday

 Garry had a busy day Monday. They started working on the shed again, mostly on the metal work for the inside, the headrail and I assume gates to be welded. There's still a couple sheets of steel to go on the roof and the gables to cover.  Oleg had another Facebook video. https://www.facebook.com/reel/1736607907438086

His pen of older heifers had seven cows in heat (ready to breed) in the morning and one more in the evening. They moved those to a new pen after he bred them, leaving only the ones yet to breed. He's hoping all 25  (Opps Garry said it looked 25 were big enough to breed to me, but there are only 15 in the pen)will be pregnant before he leaves in just over two weeks. 

With the team gone, he's spending more time with the girls (and kids) in the house. They picked up walnuts in the yard and he cracked them while they cleaned them. You might remember that last year there weren't many because of the drought. This year was a good year, so they were out to get them before the birds. The crows really love eating walnuts.

 Afterwards, he cooked pancakes for dinner. On the Sunday he made a pasta dish for supper with ground pork he bought. He's trying to inspire them on how to cook with the humanitarian aid they get. He asked me what you can make with dry split peas.

Valentina sent me this photo of Angelika from school, apparently they celebrated Halloween on Monday. That's her in the grinch shirt. Garry tells me Danil didn't go, he broke his arm a couple days ago, outside playing when one of the boys (Oleg and Elena's sons are his age) landed on top of him. 

Sunday

 Last week Sunday the team went to church in the village and had a relaxed low key afternoon. Hannah gave Garry his only in Ukraine haircut, too. 

I forgot to say that Garry said Phil made good meals for the team, he raved about the apple crisp and cinnamon rolls for dessert. 

Garry did admit he slept better Friday night when the team was back across the border, he says that the war is more evident on this trip than on previous ones, including this spring. The village is still safer than the city. On Thursday the train station in Dnipro was hit by a jet powered drone and 13 people were killed and as many injured on the main platform that we have walked across many times. Of course, the drones fly over the village on the way to the city, so they hear them and the anti-aircraft gun fire in the distance. 

Garry feels better about driving on drizzly, foggy days, because the small drones don't work as well then. It rained for three weeks before the team came, not once while they were in the village and started raining a couple hours after they left on Friday. Of course, no rain made the work outside much easier. 

Today Garry drove into the Left Bank of Dnipro because Daryl Porter was preaching at the Evangelical Free church there after he was teaching English in the city this week. Garry said it was the church's Thanksgiving celebration, so he didn't leave until after two and lunch. This seems to be the only photo he took today at the church. 

Meanwhile the team flew out of Vienna this morning and should be home in BC later today. 

Halloween

 The team members should be enroute to Vienna about now. Seems like there was some drama about a misplaced suitcase at the airport, but all's well, that ends well because it was found. Hopefully the rest of their trip home goes smoothly.

Max took a nap in the van last night on the way back to the village. He started driving again around 6 am when he woke up because he was cold. Garry said Max was almost back home this afternoon when he drove into Dnipro. Garry went to a mall to find a Kyivstar store, because he's been unable to use his phone unless he was on Wi-Fi, even after getting a Ukrainian sim card in the village. 

Garry was enjoying looking at Halloween costumes, mostly young people dressed as anime characters at the mall he went to. Halloween is an imported holiday, not a traditional one in Ukraine, but it's interesting to see kids and teens dressed up with air raid sirens in the background. He did get a working sim card, and for an extra 400 grivna had the broken screen saver replaced on his phone. 

Here's another video of Oleg's that shows the house team work. 

House opening

And a few more photos of (and from) the team 

Thanks everyone!