a different mothers day story

This morning I had a nice mother's day surprise as my daughter had uploaded photos on facebook- the kids in Manitoba had gotten together to celebrate our son Matthew's 30th birthday last week and little Luke (he's the tallest at 6' almost 5") turning 20 on Monday. Hopefully they got the presents I left out of my closet. Luckily they all know how to bake cakes so it looked like they had lots- and lots of fun lighting the candles (both guys blew out all the candles on video.) Out of our eight children they are the only ones with blue eyes (neither of us do - brown and green).

Jonah and Seth stayed home from church sick (I think it's a flu)today, Garry was feeling a little sick to but there was milk to go to Dneproetroesk, so he drove anyway. After church we had soup at Puzata Hata, and Garry picked up a new MP3 player to listen to his Russian language program on. It was drizzly after church, only 12 C, so sweater weather again- although I saw everything from shorts to winter coats in the city. When we got back this afternoon Jonah had realized it was mothers day and had picked me a nosegay of flowers and bought my favorite chocolate bar (they sell Bounty at the village store- I love coconut.)



I bought some yarn to try out a new crochet project as I am finishing my sweater project- for real this time, the size looks good.Just tried it on after finishing the last seam- all it needs is the ribbing around the neck.)
My grandmothers would be proud- they were always crocheting afghans, Mom (Oliva Johnson) Emley (my Dad's mother) made us many crocheted vests when my sisters and I were teenagers and they were in fashion, and even made Jessica cabbage patch doll clothes and a pink crocheted jumper (skirt with a bib I did weave the ribbon through the bib)- Jessy was five and wanted it when she saw it in my craft magazine. Mom (Jennie Jones) Polhemus crocheted everything- tablecloths, doilies, potholders and beaded necklaces.






For a different mothers day story (they do not celebrate mothers day in Ukraine- there is International womens day for all women on the ninth of March) I have a photo of Yana's mother helping milk here yesterday afternoon. Apparently when they moved their animals to the new place last month, Yana's father went with them, but her mother had to stay at the lady farmers to work until they got paid- they had been working for a couple of cows since last fall (the ones that they moved). It seems Yana's mother was still stuck there, and could not leave because she did not have money for a marshuhka to leave, and the lady farmer had no intention of letting her leave so was not going to pay. It seems to be a common thing for farm employees in Ukraine. CNN is missing a story for their End Modern Slavery project- if you can't leave your job when you want (and don't get paid) that sounds like slavery, doesn't it?

Saturday the lady farmer was gone to the city for the holiday weekend, Maxim drove over to the farm and picked up Yana's mother, and last night she went to the new home with Yana(who went to visit for a few days). Luba has two of her sons helping her milk for a few days while Yana's gone. Garry says it seemed to go fast this morning (compared to the one son that helped Yana milk over Easter, when Luba was gone.)

As promised here are some "cows coming home" photos for you from Saturday evening- everyone waits by their gate for their cows to arrive around 6:30- 6:45. The cows giving a lot of milk hurry past first, then our dry cow will come up and then we watch for the ten heifers mixed in with the slower ones. Yesterday there was one person on horseback, one with a bike and one guy walking with the snapping whip he likes to make crack to hurry them along (the noise is loud- he doesn't whack them)chasing the stragglers past the gate as Garry and Seth chased our up the driveway to the barn and in for the night.




















Tommorrow I am going to answer some reader questions so if you have a question, either email us (its in the blog heading I think) or make a comment here on the blog and I'll try to answer them here in the blog since someone else may wonder about the same thing you do!