At least six times today we had sudden downpours and a real thunderstorm around 5:30 pm- just as the guys (and me) headed indoors. This morning we were up early to take Stacy to the trainstation (well Garry did that- while I shopped at Metro- running low on groceries) Stacy is off to see the sea- she is staying with friends and we plan to drive down and get her on Thursday.
We were home by 8:30 am with Julia, who had taken a early morning bus from Dnepropetjisk - you may remember that Garry visited her English class last month, and asked her about helping with the VBS he hopes to organize for the village children (looks like late July now.) She is here to look at the materials and hopefully meet some of the other people who will be involved. She and Garry walked down to meet the local pastor and his wife from the church where we will be using the building.
Maxim finished welding on the milking system and Garry was excited to report that he had milked six cows with the bucket milkers before dinner at noon- or oneish, anyway. I hung out a load of clothes after the first rain shower this morning. Sorry to say that Garry's socks and other things are wetter than when they went out- lots of good rainwater rinses.
Garry had bought more flowers for me to plant- and a couple flowering bushes- yesterday at the market- he had gone to find some tomato and pepper plants to fill the spots where ones had died since the whole week is going to be rainy. I did some hoeing around in the mud before cooking dinner, after hanging the laundry out, but didn't get the plants in then. After lunch we had a number of quick hard rain showers, but around 4 I went out with the storms circling around the village, and worked fast to fill the flower beds. I took this photo when Garry went out to milk at eight o'clock after the big storm of the day.
After I finished planting I walked through a puddle to clean off some of the mud caked on the bottom of my sneakers- when this good Ukrainian soil gets wet it sticks like gumbo! The I went to the barn and climbed the haymow ladder and tossed down a couple bales for the little calves, who looked sad and mucky in their pen. Garry and Max were outside trying to get some of the water away from the back of the barn (the barnyard is flooded.) Good thing they moved the manure out to the field late last week, but its still a mess. They decided to help- Maxim even bedded up the rest of the heifers. Not many bales of straw left in the mow, but there will be more to bale in about 2 weeks.
Garry and I got back in the house just as the biggest thunderstorm of the day hit. Julia had just aopped the hallway (I normally don't even bother when its muddy outside but I seem blessed with helpful guests lately.) It seems that it rains hard almost everyday that little Andrei is selling brewers grain, and he sold a lot today, even with the storm- there were about eight customers waiting to get some when we went inside the house (and a couple of small dogs with them- you can see one very wet black dog heading home in the middle of the storm in the photo.) There was some lightning, wind and sheets of rain, I believe everyone waited it out under the shed. A big limb came down out of the old apricot tree behind the shed.
Maxim picked a big box of apricots this afternoon in the next village, but they were costly he fell (or jumped?) out of the tree and hurt his ankle- in fact after Garry came in from his part of the evening milking, Maxim decided maybe he should drive him to hospital to get it checked out- it is looking swollen and bruised on top, and he was still limping badly after putting it up with ice on this evening. I told him he needed a babushka stick (cane) to lean on. NEWS BREAK- NOTHING IS BROKEN OR TORN-MAXIM WILL BE FINE IN A WEEK OR SO
So here are the pictures of Garry milking tonight. You can see that the white heifer is pretty small next to Garry. These are some cheap milking machines made in Dnepropetroesk (1000 grivna each) but Garry plans to buy better ones- the puslation ratio is 50:50 on these instead of 40:60.
The larger red cow is crazy one that kicks that they have been talking about selling- she didn't kick much until she was done- not during prep- the washing and drying of her udder to clean it and let down her milk, or even when the machine was attached to her udder.
Garry says that they gave more milk tonight than this afternoon, so they must be adjusting to the new system (they didn't give much the first time, which is why they tried just six. He plans to get two more milking machines soon and then try more. Yana was watching the process carefully and teat-dipping them as they finished, while Luba was milking her cows by hand at the other end of the barn.
As you can see all the rain is making a mess in the barn, Garry plans to pump the water away with the sump pump in the morning. Even the ducks were looking for a high and dry spot for the night.
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