Monday I went along with Garry in the morning as he headed out to a co-op toward Kherson (past the city of Nikopol) that the Ukrainian-Canadian dairy commission had rented out the chopper that stays at our place most of the time. A couple guys from the co-op farm had come when it was picked up, we brought along a wire that connects to the tractor that had been missed. Garry planned to show them how to use it also, in the hope that it returns in one piece to chop the rest of the corn in a couple weeks.
When we arrived (we had stopped at a bus stop to pick the two guys up close to the farm) there were a few problems. Garry had hoped the chopper would be ready to go except the wire. However, the chopper had been taken apart a bit to transport it, and although it looked back together, all the bolts were only finger tight, so Garry got busy with the wrenches he had brought. The other guys were working on a different problem- the door to the tractor was locked! No one knew where the key was- it was newer Belarus, a similar model to Garry’s tractor. Garry discovered a bigger problem- the tractor was set up for 540 PTO not the 1000 you need for the chopper, and it needs to be 1000 to chop. He thinks it may be rented from the commission also- all of the other equipment there (baler, bagger- use the lower setting and no one knew where the right shaft was.)
Garry came to talk to me; I was sitting in the car, swatting flies and reading my book after taking a few pictures- including one of the giant pile of straw. Then Garry managed to do what the other guys had not been able to- get into the tractor cab! He pushed open a small side window, opened the back window and climbed in. The keys for driving the tractor were visible the whole time they had been trying to get in; they were in the ignition! Unfortunately the parts for the PTO were not in the tractor, so Garry left the guys one thing to do and drove the two hours back home to get the one from our tractor in the hope it would work (they are slightly different models of Belarus tractors.)
Garry's not sure how they plan on getting the straw off this pile- it's taller than the barns!
I made Garry a sandwich while he got the part off our tractor; since we had tried stopping for something at a gas station on the way home but ended up with chips and candy- the pizza they had to heat up looked… dry I guess you could say. Anyway I decided to take a nap since I was falling asleep on the way home (jet lag was killing me- I can never sleep while Garry’s driving.)
Garry returned around seven pm. I had made borsht (following Daniel Dantsev’s directions) for dinner. He said he had gotten back, did the thing they were supposed to do while he was gone and had chopped the headlands of the field with them. It was rough going; he thinks they cultivated the field by going through the headlands and following the regular rows leaving 8 inch humps all over when you follow the headlands around to chop the corn. Garry said he didn’t think it was going to make good silage- should have been cut at least a week ago, and not a lot of grain in it. They plan to sell it to the members who milk cows in the nearby village (there were only pigs on the farm- you can see one behind Garry in the picture where he is tightening up bolts.)
He was going to go back today (Wednesday) and show them how to sharpen the knives and grease it (they couldn’t find working grease gun there on Monday) assuming they had chopped more corn. However when Victor called to find out they said the mechanic had been out to do it from the commission.
Pray it comes back still working! Apparently the commission has four different choppers here in Ukraine, I’m not sure how they plan to fix them – they have a “you break it you fix it” policy for negligence in the rental agreement but the parts are hard to find, and since they are all different they can’t even “borrow” pieces very easily.
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