cold wind and more

Another gray day--sometimes a little drizzle this afternoon, and a cold wind is blowing the leaves off the trees. This morning Garry was picking up walnuts since they are easy to see on the wet leaves, and I found a few reddish-brown apples under tree at the edge of the yard- I had never noticed it was an apple tree before- I thought that the apples were all gone when the yellow ones finished a couple weeks ago.
I spent the day making grape juice from the last of the grapes and a nice bean soup for lunch- nothing like soup on a gray day. The nuts are blowing off the tree at the back of the yard- the one that is in many of the photos of the barn that I took as the barn "grew" and changed since spring. The boys took their daily walk to the store to buy bread, just before lunchtime, you can see all the pets greeting them as they come in the door.

Garry took care of getting some cow trainers made and put up on one side of the barn- he is hoping that the cows will stay cleaner and it will help the mastitis problem we are having- along with the new teat dip and individual paper towels for udder washing that the milkers started using a couple days ago. Yana's return from vacation is delayed- she is supposed to be back Thursday now.
He and Maxim did a little work on the shed today- Garry made some metal brackets for Max to weld on the posts (you can see him welding- looks like he's in the trees, but he's on a ladder) so Garry can get the wood up for the sides. He also cut the door in the back- he got tired of walking around- he had decided to put one in so it would be easy to get to the door we use to go in the house from the shed. We will be parking the car in there this winter- last year it was in a drift half the time in the driveway to the left of the house. We will need to have the right one clear for the milk buyers and other barn traffic anyway.
The guys closed the doors from the outdoors to the haymow- still not painted- but they will keep the wind out- if you look closely in the photo you can see the flap over the ground floor doors blowing up with the wind. The builders are supposed to be back- sometime- to weld it down along with a couple other spots. There is some job not that far away that they are supposed to do, and then they will come. Hopefully before winter gets here for real. Garry plans to stack some nice square straw bales along the inside of the side walls for insulation- the ladies are worried it will be too cold.
Victor had to come take the boys to their dentist appointments today- the car is nt finshed- the hood is still off. Tommorow, tommorow.... hopefully because we need to get to the grocery store soon! They both got some new wires and have sore mouths.
Dasha came with Victor and while he was gone, she watched TV (I let her use the remote- she checks out all the channels) played with the kittens and puppies, made friends with the calf and helped walk another new heifer home (the one we heard about on Sunday) before sandwiches and helping with milking so she could help Victor bring milk home for her Grandma. Maxim got a phone call before dinner- Yana says another day...we are beginning to think she's not coming back on Friday either.