Driving around

This morning Garry wanted to go fill the liquid nitrogen tank that the semen is kept in for breeding the cows. The level was getting really low- he had noticed it when he lifted it to put in the car last night to go breed a cow for someone. Since he is still not 100% I drove on the way there and he drove back home.

You won't believe this, but I met three horses pulling wagons while I was driving today- one here in Nikolipoli, one just out at the highway (with an old couple riding on the edge of the highway) and the third in a little village we passed though, that one had a draft horse pulling a load. I got to drive to Salonie first, because Garry needed to drop some money off at the mill, for the combining and the processing and delivery of the compicorn. Then we headed cross country toward the Kiev- Kirvoy Rog highway. The narrow paved road wove through one village after another, lots of curves and occasionally we had to choose which was the main road to take at the fork in the road!

I had to watch out for people walking and bicycling along the road, really wide trucks coming the other way (saw a few meet each other- interesting.) Since we were driving through the villages, we could see houses where they were selling milk- they put a jar on a stool outside their gate with a white piece of paper in it. We also saw a number of houses with squashes sitting by the gate for sale, and one with a bucket of shelled ear corn- if you want to buy you stop and yell at the gate until someone come out to sell you their product.

I wished I had the camera handy when we passed two babushkas pushing bicycles up the street toward us, they had two large plastic burlap-type bags tied on both the front and back of the bikes. No idea what they were carrying in the bags, or how heavy the load was, but using a bicycle to transport stuff this way is common. People will ride a bike to the school or the market and come back pushing what they bought. They were dressed really colorfully, also, one had an orange print scarf on her head, and the others was bright purple.

Eventually, we got to the highway and Garry guessed left to find the old bull stud where he buys the liquid nitrogen. After I had driven that way a while- by the the way that highway has more potholes and is rougher than the road through the villages- he checked for the GPS in the glove compartment, no luck, but then he checked the map book. We passed a town sign, and he had me make a u-turn over the grass meridian. Too bad he had never tried going that way before, so he didn't know where we came out on the highway.




We got to the place, driving past some half-finished abandoned houses, and the old sheds where the bulls were housed (you can see a few cows there now.) Victor tells us this was one of the most profitable collectives in Ukraine, but now it's nearly empty. First Garry went into one building to pay for the liquid nitrogen, then I drove a little further down the tree-lined laneway to a large building.




I helped Garry carry the big tank inside (it was pretty light on the way in) and he called out to find the lady who works there. She was on the phone, but then came into the hall, checked out Garry's paperwork and led us into a really big room, full of really large tanks of liquid nitrogen (remember this is really cold- it has one of the lowest freezing temps) where we watched while she put a funnel in the top of our tank, and opened up the closest big tank by unscrewing a cap more than a foot wide. She put on a big pair of gloves, took a regular galvanized pail and dipped it in the tank and poured it into our tank several times until the liguid nitrogen poured over the top and bounced around on the cement around it, frozen fog moving around her. Garry says everytime he has come there it is always just her working in that building, at one time it must have been where they processed the semen for freezing at the bull stud.

Then we carried the tank (much heavier than when it went inside, but much lighter than the cans of milk) out and put it in the back of the Lada. I asked if Garry wanted to drive, and we returned through Dnepropetroesk. We checked out how the construction is going on that highway - it's the other half of the construction on our highway this summer. Looks like it won't be done until next summer.

Last night it got below freezing, we have now had a good hard frost, and the leaves fell off the walnut trees in one day. Maxim got out his new insulated coveralls to wear this morning for chores, and the babushkas are adding extra layers under their skirts, pants and stockings with winter boots for walking to the store. Everyone is dressed warmly, lots of coats, hats and gloves out there today, although a few brave souls and Canadians are wearing sweatshirts!