Power's back on!

After the heifers came back with the village herd yesterday (it happens around 4:30 nowadays) Garry and Maxim went to look at a heifer to buy. Garry said it was past the valley we went to earlier in the week, in a village near the river. He told me that they got to a really nice, wide part of the road and asked the person who was guiding them to the place why it was so much better than the rest of the road. He told them it was because there was a rich man's daughter who got married nearby (there is some kind of resort with datshas (cottages/summer homes)you can see from the village) and they had the road widened so planes could land there with the wedding guests.

Anyway, it was a nice red and white Holstein-looking heifer, and about five months pregnant so Garry decided to buy her for 8000 grivna. There is a cow in the herd who can't get pregnant and she is giving very little milk now. So if we sell her for meat, the new heifer will not end up costing too much more than we get for the old cow. Garry had been using the old cow to teach Maxim to artificially breed cows for the last couple months. Max is getting pretty good at the simple ones, the plan is that he will be able to breed cows while we are home in Canada in December.

So this morning the power went out around 9:30 am, Maxim was already off to pick up the heifer with the marshuchka driver (the same one that transported Zera in his van last year) since this heifer was 30 km away, Max wasn't going to walk her home. It turns out that there was a smaller open (not pregnant) heifer that Garry told him to buy if she wasn't too expensive, and when they got back around 11:30 there were two in the van.



The driver came out holding his nose saying corova (cow) when he got backed up to the barn door. There was a good deal of manure in his vehicle, but they washed it out after unloading the heifers. Maxim had no trouble getting the small heifer out the back door, and into a pen with some of a similar size (she looks 8 or 9 months old.) The red and white one was more trouble, she ended up coming out the side door, but rolled to feet unharmed, I think she did not appreciate her marshuchka ride. She has the end pen to herself until 4:30.






Yana came out to welcome the new heifers when the van arrived, she must have been napping since she was in her robe. I ran out with the camera, its not often we have cows come by van!



Garry missed the unloading, he is feeling worse with his cold. He did go out to check on the generator so it could be turned on for milking, I even had some power to the house for 20 minutes first, so I could fry up some leftover potatoes and eggs for lunch. After eating, Garry decided to go to bed. I even got him to take some cold/cough pills, since he was coughing this morning (Garry thinks you should just let it run its course, so he must feel bad.)




Since it is warmer and dry today, I decided to plant my tulip and daffodil bulbs I bought last week (Barbie outfit #4 is almost finished anyway.) We really haven't got much rain yet, the ground was damp for about two inches, then the dirt was really dry in my holes I was digging.

I couldn't find the not-that-bad shovel I used to plant the rose bushes last week (I'd really like to know where the nice one I bought last year went), so I ended up digging with the bent-handled trowel. Occasionally I had to stop and straighten it out a little when I hit a really hard piece of ground, and it got a more than 45 degree angle to it.














Polo attempted to be helpful, climbing on my lap, crawling under my armpit while I was digging and licking my face. However, I did get them all planted. These bulbs are going further up the drive from the ones I planted the first fall we were here (about where Polo is sitting in the photo). Right now it looks pretty sad with a couple 4-inch high marigolds with one flower blooming that stayed alive in the dry season, and some yellow mums blooming in the background, yellow and brown leaves and apricot pits scattered all over the place, but it should look nice in the spring.




When I came back in Maxim was finishing up his rather cold potoatoes and eggs with hot sauce (Max is one of the few Ukrainians we know that likes spicy food- lucky for all of us) as he had found a few minutes to come inside. The bricklayer is back today and has needed a hand, plus Max had the butcher in to look at the cow we are selling for meat.








The electricity was restored to the village around 2:30. Max turned off the generator after he ate and we went back on the grid, and I worked on the this post - i was about to give up when the first photo loaded on the 6th try and then I did to more quick. Garry is still sleeping, hopefully he feels better in the morning, since we are supposed to talk to a group of English students in the city. The sun has even come from behind the clouds, everything is looking up.