Update- trip planning

 I got some photos from Sofia's second birthday in the village. The students all said hello. 

The birthday girl with her mom Alona (and Angelina)

Sofia with brother Danil

Valentina and son

Kolya and Oksana's little girl

The wheat harvest was not as good (in amount) as last year because of the lack of rain, but it was higher quality (also because of the dry weather- no nasty mold on the grain) so they are able to sell it easier than last year, as it made the grade that makes flour for domestic use. 

For a month or so they had rolling electricity blackouts, which lasted for 4 to 8 hours at a time, since Russia had damaged so much of the power generation. Now the power is back to normal, but the price has skyrocketed, so the farm has gone to twice a day milking, instead of three times a day. 

Garry is making plans to be in Ukraine in October to help them put a new roof on the dairy barn to replace the one the tornado took off this spring. They may even rebuild the hay shed that was destroyed.

Apparently we can get our photo in the paper even when we aren't there. The article is about our farm that has orphans  and the cheeses they make and sell as Farmer Garry brand. They recently got a contract to provide 15 stores in the city of Zaporosia with cheese and kefir. Unfortunately, they had to stop making a few products in July with the power outages affecting safe production. 

making hay

 

The guys are making first cut hay in Ukraine. Max sent Garry some photos on Facebook messenger yesterday, but they seem to have disappeared (thanks for that encryption upgrade Meta).  Found them still on his phone, even though they won't load on this computer. There's Andrey and Sasha in the barn with the hay. They are putting the hay in one of the Quonset barns, since the hay shed was destroyed by the tornado. 

Two weeks ago they had a very late frost there, Max was showing the corn to Garry on a video call, to ask what he should do, but Garry thought it was going to be okay. Max said everyone's potato vines in the village were destroyed by the frost. It's also been very dry this spring, they had already put irrigation water on the cornfield twice. 

Construction and destruction

 opps somehow this didn't publish on the 17th.

So on Friday Max sent some photos of them putting the trusses back up on the reinforced heifer barn. All that's left is putting the steel back on the roof. That's the post I was going to write over the weekend. There's even video. 

Unfortunately, yesterday we got a new video from Max.

If you are trying to figure out what that is, it's what Max saw when he walked out of the milkhouse after the tornado hit. Sounds like it was pretty scary in there waiting for it to be over. No one was injured at the farm or the village. In the village ten house lost roofing sheets, (sceifer, the cement/asbestos most people have) and one lost the entire roof, trusses and all.

 The farm was hit bad. as you can see in these photos. The hay shed went down, the steel that was supposed to go back on the heifer shed is twisted, the other heifer barn lost some steel off the roof, and the sceifer was torn off the roof of the dairy barn. Two cows were injured and had to be slaughtered. A board went through the window of the van. 

They are busy cleaning up, the roof will need to be replaced before winter on the milking barn. You can see the new dry cow shed they were building looks intact, and the heifer barns, except for the steel. Thankfully no one was hurt. Who would think that in the middle of a war, we'd have a natural disaster at the farm...

Back home again

 Garry landed safely back in Winnipeg after about 36 hours after he woke up Saturday morning. The other guys had an early flight, so they were up around 4:30 am, then he went to breakfast with Cezary, who was in Warsaw for meetings. 

He went to the airport early to retrieve his carry-on that had been waiting for him (he had checked it and it did not get on his plane from Warsaw to Toronto, it didn't arrive until he was already on the train and they don't send them into Ukraine.) He then checked it again.

He had to pick up his carry-on and big bag in Toronto while going through customs, and put them on a belt to somewhere. Apparently in the next five hours they did not get on the plane to Winnipeg, because he landed about 12:15, we left the airport about 1 am, after he didn't see his bags, and filed a report. (They were delivered to the house Monday afternoon.) I saw a rabbit while I was waiting.

So we made it home just before 3 am, and went to bed. We did not make it to church in the morning, Garry slept until 11:30. He's doing okay with jetlag. It's not quite as warm as it was in Ukraine. The apricot trees were blooming when he left the village, and the storks had babies in their nest at the farm. The last spring before the war was the first year the storks made a nest on the water tower, but they didn't have babies that year.

Finished

 

Garry is, as I write this, on the train, waiting to cross the border into Poland (it is scheduled to take three hours). About ten hours ago, there was a half hour stop in Kyiv and former student Karina came to say hello at the train station. 

Eventually they will end up in Warsaw, where they have flights from on Saturday. Garry arrives in Winnipeg after midnight.

 I'm really busy so you'll have to just look at some photos of the successful morning on Thursday moving the roof sections off the heifer barn. Garry sent them to me as it was happening between 1 am and 3:30 our time. Max hopes to have the crane back in a week to put them back up on a reinforced barn. 

 

Monday

 Monday was April first and I thought the message I got from Garry Monday morning had to be an April Fool prank, but there were photos.

At first, I thought it was a problem with the new shed they were building, but it was the second heifer barn that was built five years ago. Monday was windy, and Garry was on the other side of the cow barn when he heard a big boom sound. Luckily the roof landed on the center cement wall and no heifers were hurt. They think the dry cow shed they took down last week may have been a windbreak for the barn, but who knows why it fell down this week. 

Since then, they have most worked on fixing the mess it made. By Tuesday morning, they had taken all the steel off the barn, and were working on fixing broken sections. Thursday morning the wind is supposed to be minimal, and they have a crane coming to pick the sections off the wall. Max has a plan on reinforcing the structure. They actually added some reinforcement to the first heifer barn, just in case, although it looks like that one had a slightly better design on the footings. 

Garry leaves on the train Thursday evening with the guys. He thought they might be about 75% done with the new dry cow shed by then, but they haven't done much on it since Monday's accident. They will hopefully get lots done before he has to leaving tomorrow evening. 

Friday, Saturday

 Garry sent me two photos while I was sleeping Friday morning (he's seven hours ahead in Ukraine, eight Sunday morning) and messaged 25 meters done, 60 to go. He was supposed to go to the dentist Friday, but his "tooth" did not come in, they hope to have it Tuesday.

Today we chatted a number of times, and he sent a bunch of photos. Friday around four pm a thunderstorm came up, didn't even rain on the other side of the village, he said. They had started spreading fertilizer on the winter wheat fields, and didn't get much done. However, they were back at it today. 

Exciting news, they finished the septic tank, so they don't have to go out to the summer kitchen for the bathroom anymore. I had been teasing him that it wouldn't be fixed until he leaves next week.

They got more done on the shed building, they have to put more posts in the ground to continue on Monday. They have used all the old steel, more new roofing is coming Monday. The students were taking down the last old shed today. Not sure what mode Garry had his phone on, there were a couple like this.

He said Max is 4 meters up here. Garry isn't allowed up there.

Even though Easter in Ukraine is in May, the church in the village is celebrating tomorrow. He tells me there's a dinner after the service. It's officially changing next year to the western calendar, but I guess some of the churches are starting this year. I thought Garry would miss Easter, so we're having dinner next Sunday with the family after he gets home.