Rather cold and rainy

This morning I got up late, to what felt like a cold wet day outside, and rather cold inside, as Garry is still trying to get the heat working correctly in the house. You would think that putting a new gas furnace in last week would mean we could turn the heat on and be warm, but not exactly.

Garry and Maxim started the furnace running on Saturday and Max's room and the green bedroom are warm. The other half of the house- the living room/kitchen area, bathroom, and our bedroom, has no hot water going through the radiators. Garry had taken apart the little heat pump that is supposed to push the water through the system, and opened rads to let out air. Today he let buckets of water out of the system, and had the door open for a while so he could use the hose to replace it, but finally gave up, once again the squeally little pump has been turned off. The first thing I noticed when they turned the pump on was it was way noisier than last year. Ticking clocks and dripping taps irk me when I'm trying to fall aleep, so squealing noises, no way (even when I I'm awake). I think Garry has decided that the pump can't push the water around anymore. Maybe it will get fixed tomorrow.

This morning I tried to log into facebook, and got really annoyed when it wouldn't work. No, the cap lock, wasn't on, and no I have not forgot my password! I can't have typed it wrong ten times....maybe I'll have to reset the password...wait the keyboard was set to type in Russian! Maxim had been on the computer last. Our keyboard is not set up with cyrillic characters, he must touch type!

Well, I see the internet doens't want to load photos again, so I'll save the pics from our drive this afternoon for another day.

This morning Garry and Max went out to the highway to wait for a marshuka that Victor had sent some parts for the clutch out on. Garry says they were waiting there by the highway for 10-15 minutes. While they were there, a man came out on a bicycle (veloceped)and waited in the rain for a few minutes. A lady (his wife, we will assume- they were both middle-aged) got off a marshuka, changed her shoes, put on rubber boots climbed on the back of the bike with her very large bag, and he pedalled back to the village.

The marshuka they were waiting for came, and they gave one of Max's friends a ride back to the village. Maxim worked on the tractor clutch under the machinery shed Garry built last fall, and a couple of neighbors also came over and worked on fixing their stuff out of the rain. Garry went out and took a picture with the camera before we had lunch, but I can't get it to load, of course.

Surprisingly, the cows were not home from the field early, with such a cold rainy day. It is supposed to be nice Wednesday, maybe I'll plant my bulbs.

This morning Garry got the cows re-arranged in the barn, they are not all under their names anymore, so all eight dry cows can be in a row and are getting a new diet with straw mixed with the corn silage (and no brewers grain) so they don't get too fat. If they stayed next to the milking cows they would just reach over and steal the better stuff. They are all in good shape already, and some will be dry more than the normal six weeks. Cows that are too fat are more likely to have problems durning and after calving.

Don't worry they are still the best fed cows around, the milking cows in the village eat mostly straw all winter, everyone was shocked that Garry was using it under the cows for them to lay on last year.