Minogo Moloko

That's min-no-ga ma-low-coe==lots of milk... MOLOKO is what "milk" looks like in Russian- except put what looks like an upside-down V for the L. which is one of the ways to write an L in Russian) While Garry was gone to Crimea, multiple diasters have happened to our long-term milk buyers and no one came to buy their assigned milk. Strange as it sounds, they purchase a certain milking (that's how they have always done it) Here in the milkhouse you see steelpails and barrels everywhere with Friday's milk and Saturday's milk. Luckily some of Saturday's and Sunday morning's milk went to church(es) with Maxim and was sold as normal.

So the van that the lady milk buyer uses to come pick up milk has broken down since Friday I think. So she didn't come pick up her milk on Saturday morning on schedule and what's worse she won't be back until after Easter! Garry says that it must be because she hired a guy to drive the van two months ago instead of driving it herself- she was making so much money, she moved herself up the Ukranian boss ladder and does not come to the farm anymore, sending the driver and the guy who loads the milk instead. She phones Maxim and Victor to argue for a cheaper price.

The buyer with the old orange car, Oleg, the other of our original buyers, had a much worse problem. He got shut down after one of his workers was killed- some kind of electrocution involving the cream separating equipment.

So Maxim has been on the phone a lot- trying to find a home for all this milk. It seems like Tuesday the problem may be solved- the +old milk+ as a buyer is coming to buy the old "sour milk" at the reduced price of 2 1/2 grivna a liter (yes it will be made into sour cream and cottage cheese I'm sure), and Oleg will come for his regular Tuesday milk. Not sure what happens to the other milk that Oxanna would normally buy for the rest of the week.




Garry turned on the milk tank when he got home- (take a peek inside)- the ladies had put the afternoon milking in- but did not turn it on- they didn't realize they needed to he thinks- it cooled really fast- the temperature was 25 C, it was 29 when I went inside to grab the camera for a lots of milk photo- and down to 15 C seconds after I took this one! They may have used it because they were running out of containers for milk.

So Garry is still debating the merits (and complications) of changing how we sell milk, now that we have the milktank we would have the option of selling to a company that would come and buy all the milk in the tank and deposit money in the bank. But then we would have to be a registered business, and could only use that money for wages and other business expenses, a lot more paperwork. If we remain off the grid we have the occassional pile-up like today, buyers behind in their payments (with their current troubles that isn't going to get better for a while.) They are also not happy about the milktank- what use is cooling the milk when they need to warm it up to make cheese out of it?

Garry is hoping they change that tune this summer when they have milk to sell in the market that's not pre-soured. Might help sales, you'd think.

Did you know that Ukrainian cooks have many recipes involving sour milk? Ihere's a reason for that......



in other news-





It was sunny and 20 today (making the house so hot that I opened the windows- the heat is still on- the controls are in the summer kitchen)
Max planted that alfalfa seed this afternoon. Apparently the peas and barley are coming up- they plan to run a cultipacker over it in the morning (to press the alfalfa seed into the ground) The babushka's chicken were back in our yard - (Polo was napping in the house- can't get blamed for anything.)







Garry and company returned around 7 pm for a home-cooked meal, (Garry decided to leave the door open for more cool air- which Mooshka and kittens tooks as an invitation) then Garry got Seth and Jonah to help feed the cows- they were almost done when they found out Max had done it earlier. We had gingerbread and everyone headed to bed- except the boys- before ten o'clock.




Garry plans to drive our company to the train station in the morning- planning to leave at 5 am- for the train to Kiev, where they will spend a few more days before heading home.