looking around

Here's Maxim on his new scooter or moped (it's a Honda) he uses it to zip around the village, over to do welding for people- he finished the work on a heating system in the village last night, or visit friends or his girlfriend in the evening if the car is not available. He plans to use it to go down to his house and back, it may be ready to move in by springtime. Our shed attached to the house is locked every night now, because Maxim's wheels are in there.



Today Victor took his guests off to see some Mennonite sites, and Garry decided to take me over to see the big dairy farm in the next village (where he did some consulting) He wanted to look at the sorghum/sudangrass that they are turning into silage. Garry thinks it would be a good thing to grow - if it's a dry year when other crops won't grow, it would do well since it is grown for silage in dry areas, like Texas. It turns out they have made some mixed with corn silage, as seen here. There is still some standing in the field, and some young stuff growing back. Garry thinks Vitaly wants him to chop it for them.

Garry showed me around the farm there, so here's a few pictures:



Garry admired the nice job covering the silage pile, there are sandbags holding down the sides, and tires at the end. Garry thought the silage was rather wet, so he wonders if they will have enough to feed, as they have fed alot in the month since making it. All the cows and heifers eat the same thing, a mixture of corn silage and straw. it did not look like they are feeding any brewers grain now.





The larger heifers, dry cows and low-producing milking group are in separate lots outside, the heifers go into a barn when the weather is bad. The fresh cows are milked separate from the rest of the herd. Luba, who used to milk for us, was milking in that barn (next to the dry cow lot) when we walked through, the young heifers and calves were in there also.




They are working on building a new barn, using recycled materials, check out the huge concrete beams.








The manure is pushed out of the milking barn with a tractor with a blade like a snowplow and oozes down this slope, at some time they pile it behind the barns. They have not spread it on the fields in years, like many Ukrainian farmers, even though it would improve the soil as fertilizer.







The sound of the wind rustling in the tall grass was loud as we drove past the wet spots; this tall grass seems to grow in the swampy wet areas.
We drove there the back way through the fields, on the return trip we drove on the highway, the two lane one that goes to Nikolpol- which is a large city, the highway sign for the village just says M-Pole, in case people confuse Mnikolipole for Nikopol, I guess! In Russian it is Nikolipolia in Ukrainian it is Mikolipolia (e is pronounced yeh)





We passed by this field being planted in winter wheat on our way there, everyone was eating lunch, which is brought to the field. If you are wondering why there is a car in the field opposite to the tractors and trucks, that is the observer, he was eating in his car, while the other workers ate together because he is there to make sure everything is planted and no seed or fuel is stolen by the other workers.






When we got back Maxim was busy, the truck had come bringing the chopper back, so Garry went to help. The problem was they couldn't get the neighbour's big loader started to lift the chopper off the truck. After trying to start it for a while, they gave up and used the loader tractor, by using the plow to counterweight the weight of the chopper and they got it off. Garry says it looks OK, it looks like it was welded on the band on the hood (that's the tall part that shoots the chopped plants into the wagon) You can't see it in the photo since they took it off to transport the chopper on the truck.




Garry painted the doors on the house blue on Wednesday, even the one on the new porch door, the paint is a little sticky yet. He had a problem with flies getting stuck on the fresh paint, and Mooska seems to have rubbed up on one door frame, its got some white cat hairs on it about a foot off the ground.