tserkov

Tserkov is church in Russian- to my ears it sounds like cirkov- closer to circus than church! The ts is one Cyrillic letter or sound thatis pronounced like the end of English words like cats or boots- it's a letter in Hebrew also (see studying Biblical Hebrew was useful for trying to learn Russian!) So yesterday was Sunday and we were off to church a little late- we had to leave Maxim home to try to finish thawing out water pipes, because -20 C with wind makes the barn really cold overnight. The road in the village is a sheet of ice, and Maxim drove out first thing in the morning with the tractor to pull out a car that had gone off the road where the bend in the road is up our street- Centralna.

Then while Maxim was loading up the morning silage he caught this hawk that knocked itself out by flying into the fence- and Garry brought it inside to show us- it managed to set its talons really tight on his fingers while we were taking photos- but didn't draw blood. Then Garry let him go- he flew off feeling fine. By the time they had gotten the milk loaded into the big plastic jugs with the spigots filled for the churches, Garry had to hurry to get going- the boys and I were ready to leave at 9, but it was 9:20 when he came in from loading up. The temperature on the highway sign proclaimed 9:34 am -16 air temp and -11 road temp when we drove under it.

Jonah helped Garry unload three jugs- two sixty liter ones and a forty at Victor's church, then the gates were open at the military truck driving school where Morningstar meets so Garry drove in so we didn't have to carry the two 50 liter jugs as far. The boys were moving one, and another late church arrival offered to help me carry the other in- I think he regreted his offer- we carried it all the way in and he was a little out of breath and told me (it was an English-speaking man) said he was surprised how heavy it was- and he was surprised I could carry it. All those muscles from farming before we had big boys to do things like bale lifting!
Church was over around one and then we had to wait for the milk to be sold so we could take the empty jugs home- we need all of them with the cows giving so much milk. We don't actually sell milk at Morningstar- now that we are making more milk we bring a hundred liter donation that the church sells after the service.
We had lunch at Puzata Hata at 2 and drove home- just before 3 pm the sign told us the air temp was -11 and the road was up to -2! The bright sun was warming up the asphalt anyway.

The thing we didn't notice when we drove into the yard was the lid was up on the cistern- the voda- water truck had made a delivery and sometime in the cold Sunday night the water line to the pump froze. Around 4 am I realized there was a problem with the water when I went into the bathroom. I woke up Garry who woke up Maxim to say that there is no water- and Max said- "no there's water- the truck came yesterday"- so no one turned off the pump (the problem is the pump needs to be turned off inside the summer kitchen- where the milker ladies live) Garry figured out the problem when he went out in the morning, so around ten they showed up with another load of water Maxim ordered- that almost got the water up to the level of the pipe. Then Garry tied a rope to Maxim's little electric heater (Maxim likes his room about 25 C- I swear it's 80 F in there) and hung it in the cistern.

After lunch they got the water flowing to the house again- thankfully the pump hadn't burned out the motor this time- we have replaced it several times since arriving in Ukraine- so I was able to do the dishes and start a load of laundry.

Good news- the cold air is supposed to move out of here with the temperatures back to highs of -1 on Thursday and Friday! Of course it's already -15 at 8 pm Monday evening.