wrapping up the week

Just a few notes on what else has been happening around the "farm." Maxim spent the day plowing, after finding a plow to use last night. Garry and Victor finally got some more land to use next year (even the piece from the village we paid extra to process the paperwork quicker last year under the - "we'll do the paperwork so the town will officially own it so you can rent it - quickly" - well it is now through one more last hurdle- while we were in Kramatoresk Victor brought out the historian to clear the title for having no historical features on the couple hectares. Anyway it and another piece is ready to plow after having pumpkins harvested off the other piece. Garry says the field of rye he planted to harvest in the spring for feed looks good- I'll have to get some photos on Monday.
I did take some photos in the barn this morning of the new waterbowls Garry got installed while I was gone last week. Thanks to Josh sending them here from Canada (he was a little upset to find them much cheaper when he visited dealers in Pennsylvania with Grandpa Emley last month- they are made in Canada) Now the cows can drink anytime they want, as much as they want. Garry says that all the cows have figured out how to get water out of them, and no more hose and bucket dragging around to water them!
Milk production was up, but it also was helped by getting some more brewers' grains into the ration last week (brewers grains have more protein than the beet pulp jhome). Garry ran out again on the weekend, so he got more beet pulp to put in the pit to feed the cows instead. So while we were in Kramatoresk Victor called to say the truck had come to bring more brewer's grains- which is a good thing. Luba went on vacation this week - Yana is doing all the milking except in the mornings when Maxim helps her- more cows are dry now, and more will be going dry next month when we are back in Canada for the Christmas holidays as most of the herd will be calving in January and February.
The new Holstein heifer (just bred) Garry bought while I was gone is calming down- last week she got loose and climbed the hay pile- they sold her because she jumped fences. She is nice looking, mostly white. There's a photo of her too- Garry was using the new currycomb I bought him at Agway in New Jersey to clean up some of the cows and heifers when I was taking pictures and she crawled under the headrail so he had to lead her back around- he says she's getting more used to the barn and does it less often- and leads nicely anyway!
When we got home yesterday Garry went over to breed a cow for somone in the village- he got everything he needed to get the semen tank he bought from someone from the old collective working while I was in NJ. He has bred a couple of our cows and heifers artificially already, but had told the neighbors he could bred their cows to a Canadian bull for 50 grivina- less than the price of using the little red bull in town. Hopefully she gets pregnant, Garry says she seemed good, but thinks that the neighbor has had trouble getting this cow pregnant.