Wednesday already?

Today we had pancakes for breakfast before the guys headed off for a load of hay, while his Mom helped me with the dishes and did a little handwork while the boys worked on schoolwork.
It took a little longer to get home with that first load than planned- the tractor ran out of fuel and so they had to go buy some with the car. They had a little less hay on this load than yesterday but as you can see they still had trouble dumping all the hay out of the wagon- Maxim jumped in to unplug the hay jam. They load the wagon with the loader tractor from a pile of this nice alfalfa hay behind the farmer's barn. Maxim jumps in the wagon and stomps on it to pack it in. It takes a little more than a hour to go get a load.
After they got the hay dumped off- you can also see the improved driveway in one of the photos- Garry surprized me by saying we would head off to Zaporosia with his parents to see the oak tree (the tree is several hundred years old- famous in both Cossack and Mennonite history) and the museum right away - Victor and Maxim could go for the second load. We had a very hearty lunch at the restaurant by the oak tree- it has authentic Ukrainian decor and food- we had three courses starting with borsht and took a plate of mixed vereniki- meat and potato ones- home that we couldn't finish eating.
Then Garry drove over to the island where we toured the fortress with it's re-creation of traditional houses- Garry's mom said the houses in the photo seemed like they belonged in Hansel and Gretel. Then we toured the museum for an overview of Ukrainian history- lots of artifacts in cases from clothing and tools to weapons.
When we got back the boys had eaten lunch and finished their chemistry work, but Maxim and Victor had not had lunch (at 3:30) so they enjoyed our leftovers.
For dinner tonight we enjoyed a few things from the garden- zucchini and the first of the last batch of corn on the cob- it was really tasty!
Thursday morning Garry plans to take his parents to the central market in Dnepropetroesk, hopefully the rain in the forecast will hold off until later in the day.

Special Visitors

Monday morning Garry planned to leave at 5 am to drive to Kiev to pick up his parents who were arriving at 1 o'clock. Of course, he woke up at three am. He checked the email, found out the Eagles had won on the internet, tried to go back to sleep, gave up and left at 4 am. You can see the car all fixed- except it needs to be painted still. He had a Mc Muffin and coffee at Mc Donalds along the way and he was in Borispol (where the airport is) by 11:30. The plane was on time, and left the airport around two.
He planned to stop at a restaurant for borsch for dinner but ended up with a quick stop at Mc Donald's, and they filled the hours with talking arriving here around 9- about a half hour after a 15-20 minute power outtage that had Maxim and I hunting for battery powered lights as the ladies were milking at the time- handmilking will work without electricity- as long as you can see the pail! Sunday's sick cow was all better and in the milking lineup.
They were in bed after having some tea and cake, and everyone slept in except Garry who was up early to feed the cows this morning. His Dad was up and out to the barn before 8 am with the swivels he had found for the cows chains. I made bagels for breakfast and the guys (Garry, his Dad and Maxim) headed out to get a load of hay. They dumped that one on the pad and got a second one before lunch (dinner). Garry was excited to find out that the farmer is willing to sell him another 10 tons of alfalfa- they even had a tour of his pig barn. Victor was here by dinnertime, and they did a number of things, including spreading some slag(with the loader- everything is easier with tractors) on the new driveway for the barn (the old shed came down in August to make room for a straight drive in) so it will be ready for the rainy season. Everyone is off to bed around 9:30 (except the boys and I) after Garry fell asleep watching the replay of last night's Blue Jays_ Yankees game- they really like the Yankees on our satellite feed with North American sport content. The door is unlocked as Maxim is still outside- the ladies will just be finishing the last milking of the day. They moved into the summer kitchen on Sunday.

A sick cow on Sunday

I'd like to thank our grandadughter almost 4 year old Xaris for today's picture (and her dad for sending it by facebook)of Grandpa's cow.
This morning with chores done we hurried off to Victor's church for the special Thanksgiving service, with a big plastic container of milk in the front of the car. I sat in back with the boys and we think that there is a a little more shoulder room in the back seat of the "classic" Lada model than the new one we have. Last year the three of us fit pretty comfortably in the back seat, but with the recent growth by the boys, it's rather uncomfortable for a long drive.
It takes a little more than half an hour to get to church (almost the same as the drive to Steinbach from the farm in Manitoba) and when we arrived Victor was outside to tell Garry that one of the neighbors and Maxim had phoned to say that there was a cow with a bloody nose. Garry decided that he needed to drive back and check on her, although they had called a vet. I said that a bloody nose was either nothing or a cow that was going to die. Garry drove back to village thinking about whether he would have to have a cow turned into hamburger right after buying her. Turned out she wasn't really bleeding but was having trouble standing when he arrived. She had eaten all her feed for the morning, and as much as she could reach of her neighbors, so they decided maybe a stomach problem, as they called a number of vets - and could not get anyone. Maxim went to the the Aptenka (drugstore) and got something for upset cow stomach which they mixed up and got down her, then they put her into a bedded box stall.
Garry returned to church about 1:30 (it was over at 12:30, but there was a potluck type lunch after)Victor brought one of the five messages- his was about how we need to work as though we are working for God. He also said his parents told him he had to study growing up or he would have to work. The choir that Denis and Daniel are in sang four times, they make beautiful music. The boys and I were sitting outside as the boys had felt to ill to eat- I think they ate too many leftover pancakes for breakfast. Victor had just sold all the milk we had brought him (50 liters) so we took the empty can back, after stopping for groceries at Metro (think Superstore- or Costco- you need a card to get in)
The cows was looking a little better, and after Garry had even tried calling the vet clinic in Steinbach for advise (he got the answering machine) he finally found a vet to come out, by this time we were thinking ketosis or milk fever- normally things that cows who have recently calved get- but these cows are getting better feed than they've ever seen before- and milking better- so anything's possible.
The vet gave her an IV and an injection, decided he'd come back on Monday and give her a magnet (for hardware disease- another option we'd discussed on the way home) to capture any stray metal in her stomach that can cause infections by puncturing organs. He's even bring an injection for Jonah's kitten.
The good news is the cow's condition is definitely improved tonight, and we have hopes for a full recovery. She looks like a real Holstein and is one of the cows that Luba(turns out Maxim's Leana was wrong), the older lady milks.
The Lada is fixed, Garry even got the door from the accident earlier this summer fixed as we have not heard anything from the insurance. We had to go this evening to get some tires as the spares were on- one of the front tires exploded during the wagon accident on Thursday, and the other went flat after. It also got a lot of the front end replaced. Garry went to bed so he can get up early for the drive to the airport in Kiev. He should be back around 8 pm with his parents on Monday night.

Updates

Well, as you can see by the number of blog entries- it's been a busy week with the cows coming. Garry has been very happy- he is finally dairy farming in Ukraine.
He was excited today- 3 different people from the village stopped in (that do not speak English) and he was able to understand what all of them wanted while Maxim was gone to get a different headlight for the Lada (he got the wrong one before) One wanted to borrow a tractor this afternoon, one wanted to have his garden cultivated, and I don't remember what he said the other was. I know he lent the tractor to the guy that moved the dirt before the barn was built, and Maxim went to do the cultivating after lunch. Garry tells me it was the water truck guy, who was yelling from the gate (most people will not walk up the driveway without an invite- except the one's that know the crazy Canadians think they are supposed to) he wanted to know if this was Victor Dantsev's house for the water.
The cows are settling in nicely, most were very excited when the brewer's grains finally arrived on Friday (the guy said Wednesday, maybe Tuesday) to balance out their diet. Milk production was up today with that extra protein. You can see that they have horns, some are very pointy and they know how to use them - I was in the barn yesterday and heard a bellow- one of the cows with the pointy horns had got loose and jabbed another cow sending her right under the rail, looking unhappy in front while the bully ate her feed. I went over and chased her back to her own stall and clipped her back on. Garry led the other cow back around.
Garry and Maxim are still driving the ladies back and forth for milkings- they are waiting to move until they are paid for their last month of milking on the other farm- they only were paid once a month, and are afraid they will not get paid if they leave before she pays them. They are using the red Lada- Victor wants us to come to his church for their Thanksgiving celebration tommorow so he had to make sure we'd get there!
Good news the car will be fixed by Sunday night so Garry can take off early Monday to get his parents at the airport.

Cute ducks and kittens

I was going to post about the ducks yesterday-- one of the neighbors gave Garry three ducks to hang out with our one remaining baby duck (still fuzzy with wobbly legs, but he's bigger now and a survivor) They are running around the barn, sitting in the sunshine, eating flies like crazy. The little guy found a sunny spot behind the cows, next to a cowpie and had a grand afternoon snapping up flies like the other ducks, without having to move much.
Sadly Martin the big white kitten was dead out in the yard this morning, not sure what was the cause of death. Now Needles, the little striped kitten Jonah got from one of the neighbor girls, wants to go outside to play as he has for the last couple weeks and there is nobody to climb trees and wrestle with. Jonah will be guarding the door to keep him in no matter how loud he yells.
Mooska still has her little baby kitten in the shed, but she growls at Needles. Martin will be missed by all of us not just Needles- not only was he a pretty white, blue-eyed cat (reminded me of Jillian our cat in Manitoba)he was a nice cat, Victor's daughter Dasha named him after a Russian cartoon cat. He would just hang loose when you picked him up, which is why Seth was wearing him on his head last week.
The boys are off for a braces adjustment- Seth is having some problems with brackets coming off, and Jonah's out of rubber bands. Seth was finishing up his math for the day on the trip to the city. This week we had our first round of tests for math and biology (advanced the human body this year) and the boys are happy with the homeschool classes this year, and seem to be mastering the material so far. Way to go boys!

opps!

Today started out like any other day this week, Garry got up early went out to the barn. After selling milk after milking this morning, he and Maxim went to pick up more hay- they got two loads before lunch and headed out for another afterwards.
Suddenly Garry came back with the tractor and said the Lada was going to need fixing.
As he was driving through the village Maxim went to pass the tractor and wagon with the car. A chicken tried to run across the road and Max slammed on the brakes, throwing the car sideways into the wagon (it's a big heavy wagon- even empty) Someone in the village will be fixing it- they picked up the parts today, and it may take a week- but could be done by Monday when Garry is supposed to drive to Kiev to pick up his parents from the airport.(If not he's going to drive something else- don't worry he'll be there Mom and Dad!)The good news is the chicken was fine.

Anybody need a couple hundred liters of milk?

No one came to buy milk on this bright sunny morning---the buyers are still working out who is buying our milk when, it seems. The lady who was going to come after lunch did show up and took away all the milk on hand. That’s her yellow van in the picture- if you look closely you can see the milk cans inside. She spoke English and Garry found out that she goes to the market and sells in the morning and then she makes cottage cheese to sell from whatever is left, plus the milk they pick up on the way back. Victor is learning what the buyers want done for milk selling.
The ladies were busy milking when she came, they strain the milk through cloth into the cans, and the cans are placed in water to cool them the old-fashioned way. Garry is anxious to get a refrigerated milk tank, as you can imagine, so he feels like a real dairy farmer. We were supposed to be getting one to use from DANONE, who were interested in buying our milk, but they can only set this up if we are a registered business, and Victor does not have that done yet.
Victor is in charge of getting and collecting the piles of official stamped paperwork involved in the project. He has been standing in lines ever since we arrived, it seems -starting with the electrical upgrade last year, raising the gas line for trucks to go in the “new” second driveway, to getting the tractors registered (interestingly- our 2nd tractor was not a tractor because it has a loader attached to it- took a while to get the right documents) and getting the paperwork for the cows transferred – yesterday he got a pile of official government plastic ID tags for the cows who have lost their tags- very similar to the bar code tags recently phased out in Canada, you can see the yellow tag in the ear of a cow who has not lost it in one of the photos. We were told that cows here are tested yearly for a range of diseases and cows that test positive are banned from community pasturing. Of course our cows will be leading a different life, barn and barnyard now, with all that good food brought right to them.

Just another day of farming

Tuesday was just another day of farming- Garry got up at 4 am to pick up his milkers- they are still at the other farm and have not moved in yet. Then after milking- and selling his first milk (Matt you can put $60 on the plus side for Project Ukraine) to a buyer, he and Maxim went to pick up the first load of loose alfalfa hay he is buying. Looks like really nice stuff, the cows like to eat it even better than the straw ( they didn't like the corn silage much the first day- but most of them had decided it was edible by Tuesday night.)
This was a herd of 25 cows, that began as Russian Red but most are black with a little white as they have a few generations of Holstein breeding. There is also a red and white bred heifer. One of the milk buyers told Garry that they are one of the nicest herds around, and no one knew the lady who owned them was thinking of selling. They were not quite up to the production level they had before coming here by the end of the day, but everything looks good as they are eating and drinking well. They are getting buckets of water offered to them when the cows are tied up in the barn. Garry even rolled the side of the barn partly up - he attached pipes to them this summer to increase airflow when needed. Garry decided to dump the load of hay on the cement behind the barn while Maxim and Victor went for another load after lunch. Garry headed off to the city for a new water pump- we ran out of water in the cistern (for the house) Monday during the night and when the water delivery truck arrived and he started the pump up, it didn't work. We had a little thundershower come up in the morning- barely made puddles on the road, so not much when we have not had any significant amount of rain in weeks.
Meanwhile the boys and I were busy with algebra tests and our first biology review. Just as Garry got back a real thunderstorm was threatening to let go with that big pile of loose hay outside so he came in and got the boys and they started forking as fast as they could.
Just as the rain started to come down Victor and Maxim drove up with the next wagonful of hay. They unhooked from the loader tractor, and used it to push the rest of the pile in before putting that load inside the barn (all where the heifer pens are going to be) The rain continued to fall and the power went out for more than a hour. Maxim moved his stuff from the summer kitchen into the yellow room, I think the milker ladies are moving in the little house Wednesday.
Garry and Maxim went and bought two cows from a man whose wife had died. He works in the city, and now there is no one to milk them. It was still raining so Garry got soaked as he worked on getting the new pump hooked up(when the power came back on line), but by 7 pm I could wash dishes and Garry warmed up with a hot shower. He went out to the barn to feed the cows a little more, Victor went home with some fresh milk and Max drove the ladies back after the evening milking (about 9 pm) and then Wednesday morning, Garry and Maxim got up at 4 am.............

They're here!

Garry and his crew arrived here shortly after noon with the herd. Jonah says it took an hour from the turn into the village, because the cows did not want to walk on the road. They cut across the fields with them, stopping a few times- once at a pond close to the farm they came from where the cows filled up on water. The crew was a little different than planned- Garry, Maxim, Victor (see the blue van in the photo) his son Daniel skipped school to help, Seth, Jonah, and an older guy and the two women who milked them- they ended up walking about 15 km with the cows. I stayed home and made dinner. Garry took the moving cows pictures, and called me to report where they were as the morning progressed. They got rained on just a little a few times, but it was a nice cool day to move the cows.

They herded the cows through the yard, through the barn, and into the barnyard behind the barn. Everyone came in to eat except Garry and Maxim, who got them some grain and corn silage on top of that hay they had there the night before. Then they got the cows into stalls- some had gotten neckchains on before the walk, the rest got them attached then. Garry has been unable to find any swivel snaps(important because- like a dog on a chain, it will twist tighter- for now not a huge problem because they will be going outside several times a day to drink out of a bathtub in the barnyard until the box Josh shipped from Manitoba gets here with waterbowls in) but his parents are in Holland before they come here next week, and his Dad is trying to find some to bring along.

Then after Victor bought some buckets at the village store, the ladies milked them -by hand- these cows are used to 3 times a day milking like our herd at home- at 4 am, noon, and 8 pm, and Leana and Yana (younger one) each milk certain cows- they have been paid according to how much milk their cows give each day. The video is a short look at Yana milking.

Victor was organizing storage, but we had 5 different people come to buy milk today! I don't think they gave much milk this time- he may have sold it all. No milktank or machines yet. The ladies need a place to stay, their job included a place to live, so they are going to live in the summer kitchen for now, Maxim is going to sleep into the yellow room in the house. Garry had to run to the city for some stuff, with Victor and the boys are back to schoolwork- biology test on Wednesday !

Ready, set....

Slightly distracted while doing this blog post- Garry headed to bed at 10 pm with the Eagles in the lead at halftime over Detroit. He is getting up at 4 am so he and Maxim can head over to where the herd he's buying is and preg check and otherwise check them over again. Victor, his sons Denis and Daniel are supposed to be here before 7am to pick up Seth and Jonah and one of the neighbor's teen sons to help them chase the cows to their home (if all goes well - by lunchtime) As you can see the guys got the barn all cleaned up and even got some hay out for the cows to eat after they arrive on Monday. As dusk was falling they made a "tractor barrier" to help guide them into the barn door and ground some corn with a little mill Victor had in the attic.
Anyway I started uploading photos for this blog after checking the end of the Eagles game- they held on to win- I grew up in NJ - the part where you root for Philly not NY teams and converted Garry to the Eagles cause for life (and all the boys who watch football) Sadly he started rooting for the Blue Jays after we moved to Canada, while I am a lifelong Phillies fan- that World Series last decade wasn't pretty with that homerun they still talk about off of the Wild Thing. The last couple years the Philles are looking good anyway I checked on the Phils on the internet and found them down by 3 going into the bottom of the 9th, and watched the little boxes move around the bases to score 2 and then two more with a homerun by Werth- no outs- and can't even brag about it until 4 am! (except to you) Go Phils!
So hopefully all goes as planned in the morning- and the ladies who currently milk the herd show up here to milk them as planned for the next while- these cows are all milked by hand and are going to be a little surprized as the milking machines get phased in this fall.

Fence me in....

Seth and Jonah were busy helping out the fencing project (you can see the boys unloading wire from the car) and cleaning up for the cows arrival on Saturday -the normal day off from schoolwork. They are getting the day off from schoolwork on Monday - I guess we can call it a Physical Ed field trip- as the cows will be moved 10 km along the roads from the village they are currently in.
You can see Garry working on getting the fencing up, Maxim driving the tractor with the loader over to where Garry is working on the fence behind the barn in another photo.
The fence is up, so the cows will stay here once they arrive. Garry is hiring women to milk them by hand for the time being, until everything is set up. Did you know that milking is a woman's job in Ukraine?
Not mine however, I am am Mom, chief cook and bottle washer, homeschool teacher and summer English teacher (and blogger) Saturday night has become family pizza and classic tv night- I make homemade pizza (North American style- some Ukrainian pizza features mayo instead of cheese- and there is a frostbitten pizza in our freezer- crab and corn)and we have started watching episodes of McGyver this month (in the spring we did Lois and Clark- season one-Seth was born in 1993, the year it premiered) Tonight I tried out dessert pizza like Pizza Hut's to complete the meal- lots of apples!

Getting Ready!

Well the cows are supposed to walk over here on Monday (about 10 KM) with a lot of help to move them along. There are about 25 coming from a herd in a nearby village. Garry and Maxim are working on getting a fence up- here they are digging holes with the post hole augers along the side of the barn by the babushka's garden. You can see here in one picture supervising the placement of the line for the fence yesterday. The metal poles are all cemented in tonight, they are going to pick up the wire and put it up Saturday.
You can see her roaming chickens making themselves at home behind the summer kitchen (not too far from the grapevines- see yesterday's post) I have solved the problem of the barking dog by our bedroom window- she replaced her large dog that died in the village epidemic at the beginning of June with a small black dog that seemed to bark at night too. However Garry said he thought it was hungry.... here we are with a full bag of dogfood and no dog now. So a couple nights ago I snuck over to the fence and dropped a handful of kibble over. The experiment was s success- when the roosters start crowing at 4 or 5 am he doesn't join in! So every night I take a little walk over that way to feed my new friend.

Harvesting the garden

Mooska the cat has a new baby kitten- striped (like the tomcat that hangs around)with its eyes just open, it was born the night I got back from Canada. Sadly Wishbone our very cute new puppy died while we were in Crimea. Victor says it was a stomach thing- not the same as the first puppy. We may have to stick to cats and hamsters- although the boys had the new mother hamster escape and the white kitten snagged it off the floor and it died after the boys rescued it. Fortunately the four baby hamsters, just two weeks old when it happened are doing fine, almost a week later (they are normally weaned at 3 weeks if you are wondering) The white kitten has been banished from their room- he had been put inside because it was trying to nurse along with the new baby kitten (at 4 months- he's nearly as big as his mother!)
Although we still have a hopeful couple more rows of sweet corn coming along, peppers, brussel sprouts growing nicely and even the green beans have set some little beans when it rained two weeks ago, the neighbouring gardens are nearly bare. As soon as something looks done it's pulled up and burned (all summer most of the weeds were pulled up and fed to something- different weeds are fed to geese, cows- and yes the pigs are fed pigweed!)
It seems that September is the month to get your garden harvested, clean up your yard and burn the debris(last year the village gardens were plowed in October- it frosted October 1st) Every night at dusk you can barely see across the village as a haze of smoke rises above the flames of the burning piles- and the smoulder all night since green things don't burn that well. We have the windows shut tight as smoke creeping in is giving us sore throats and coughs. Hopefully cleanup is over soon.
I made grape juice this week- mostly because I noticed one of the neighbor's chickens jumping up about a foot in the air into the the grape vines and walked over to discover she was plucking the low hanging grapes one by one and eating them! I gathered a big basketful of the riper bunches that night and made grape juice (or compote) the next day.
Garry admired some grapes at one of the neighbor's so they gave him some to take home, they are big purple/black ones. The grapes in our yard here are green, not real big (in spite of Garry's hard work, he did a great job of pruning them this year and they have produced a bumper crop), and taste just like the ones that grow on the farm in New Jersey where I grew up - maybe Victor is right and they are here since Mennonite days! I can remember my great-grandmother, Mama Johnson (her name was Flossie- just like in the Bobbsie Twins books) picking them off the vine in NJ and eating them, they are a little sour -and whistling- an amazing thing in my mind as she was missing some teeth. This was more than 40 years ago and those vines were old then.
I picked a big bowl of yellow apples from under the tree in the front yard yesterday(the guys herding the village cows have to watch out for the two cows who like to sneak in our gate and crunch up as many apples as they can get before someone spots them) so I have been making applesauce and cake today, pie tommorrow.

Zera is getting some friends

Garry was sick with flu-like symptoms the day after the heifer arrived, and so I went out to the barn and fed and watered Zera (her name is much longer but the beginning sounds like Zera) a couple times on the first day of homeschooling (Friday). She managed to escape and join the village herd as they went out of the village on Saturday morning. Looks like we need fencing around the garden, and a way to close the barn doors so the cows can’t get out. By the time Garry had her back home from the pond and paid a finder’s fee, he was ready for a rest.
Victor came mid –morning with Dasha and the boys, so Garry went out to help with a few things. After lunch Garry took a nap and then went out to help with rebuilding the cinderblock wall of the shed- the one where one side fell down after they cleaned up.
Sunday morning Garry and Maxim jumped out of the car on the way to church to check if the millet is growing- you can’t see any in the picture but some is about ½ inch, pretty thin yet, doesn’t look real promising for making that silage next month! More rain and sun please!
The rebuilding project continued on Monday, along with some electrical work in the barn. Maxim was disking up a field we are renting. Garry and Victor went and arranged to purchase a herd of 25 cows nearby- we aren’t sure how they will work out as they are hand milked three times a day, but most are supposed to calve Jan- Feb, so Garry thinks that we will hire people to hand milk them until the equipment arrives, then we’ll try to milk them with machines and see how they adjust. Any way he is supposed to get them when he’s ready for them- and after they get their health checks done- we’ll keep you posted.

She came by Marshuka

Garry came home from Crimea with a cold but that did not stop him from putting in a full day today working. There was a definite nip in the air when we had visitors this afternoon for lunch and checking out the barn.
Afterwards Garry and Maxim went to pick up the heifer he bought while I was in Canada. Max had found someone to bring her home from three villages away- and it turned out that it was a marshuka (what is normally a passenger van in Ukraine) I took some photos of them getting her out of the van, and into the barn. Garry took one of her in the van. Now he just has to find her some friends to hang out with.

At the sea

We had a lovely little vacation on the Black Sea on the western side of Crimea. Garry enjoyed snorkling, the boys enjoyed hanging out together, eating, playing computer games and even swam some.
The beach near the apartment is sandy with lots of shells- most beaches in Crimea are even smooth river rocks like pebbles or more like a dropoff of rock. At one end of the beach there is is a section of greek foundations that have been dug out of the sand with modern water lines running over them.
The beach is bustling all day with vendors who walk through the sunbathers on the beach chanting about what the they have for sale to eat- from cooked shrimp, pierogies (not what you are thinking-but a fried doughnut filled with potato or cabbage, one lady had apple ones) guys with racks of dried fish, cooked corn on the cob, lollypops, and Garry's favorite- baklava- layers of sticky honey dough with nuts sprinkled on- those ladies usually have a number of bees following them down the beach. I am sure I have mised something- plus there are stands just off the sand selling drinks, hot dogs, frite (french fries)and sharmin (a wrap with meat, veggies and sauces)which is what Garry is waiting for in the photo.
The last day I went out to the cliffs with Garry where he did some snorkling and I swam (floated on a swim ring) We took a walk around town every evening, and I took a lot of photos, including one of the Afghanistan war memorial.
Crimea is the only place with have seen sheep in Ukraine, they are almost the same color as the brown grass (it is dry except where there is irrigation) There were some cows and horses grazing out by the cliffs. We saw many campers, some in tents or caravan/campers by the edge of the cliffs, some in vans and cars, some people had biked or hiked in with big packs.