Monday morning bright and early, when I was hoping for a late inning comeback by the Phillies (I can watch live on satellite TV, I woke up just as the game started at 3 am) Garry went outside just after the agreed upon 6 am to talk to the guys buying the baler. Garry says after they walked around it and hemmed and hawed for a while before they handed over the cash. They finally had it loaded it on the truck about 7:10. Garry cheered after it left, he can't wait to use a bigger, better baler next summer.
That's when Garry realized that they had missed sending the heifers and dry cows out with the village herd, so they didn't put any one out on Monday. On Sunday they put the two cows that went dry out with the herd for the first time, and one returned shortly after, Garry figured that the guys herding must have lost her around the curve, and she knew where she had come from because she came up the driveway on her own! So they just tied her back up in the barn. Tuesday morning I heard them chase them out just before 7 am as usual, I have not heard if they all stayed with the group this time.
After hurrying through the rest of chores (feeding the cows, cleaning the barn) Garry and Maxim came inside and quickly left again in the car. They were on their way to deliver a good deal of the cash received for the baler for the manure spreader they were buying. Garry and Maxim had gone to look at this used manure spreader last Thursday (back when Garry's knee was still sore) and had worked out a deal to buy it over the phone on Friday. When they got there to look at it the price was higher than the one quoted to Victor when he found it. There was a lot of back and forth about tires and delivery. Since they wanted cash before delivery, Garry insisted the price needed to be reduced for his gas driving there again. He got 300 grivna off and so he and Maxim went to deliver the cash (remember almost everything in Ukraine is paid in cash or at the bank.)
Garry phoned at noon to say he was lost in Zaporosia but would return as soon as he figured out where he was (he had come in from a different direction than normal) I told him Oxana's truck was outside, but he said Yana's father was supposed to take care of selling milk to them. Yana has gone on vacation and her father came to milk cows in her place. Garry said he had left after the manure spreader was loaded on the truck. Maxim was riding back with the truck driver. Suddenly he said he had to go, apparently he had found a street he knew - Lenina (main street).
Garry had lunch when he got back and then went and started unloading the precepts (wagons which had been loaded with old corn silage went Maxim cleaned up the yard for the new pile they are making now.) Then Max came in asked where Garry was, he was back with the manure spreader on the truck. I was cooking chocolate pudding but ran out for a quick photo.
Garry and Maxim started chopping the field of late corn Monday afternoon, Garry said that he went around the field and had three wagons full in four rounds, so it looks like a great crop. They have been at it today since 8 am, after finishing chores. Maxim has been going past with the wagons like clockwork, I gave him plates full of dinner for him and Garry about 12:30 as he drove past the kitchen door. The silage pile is really growing.
I am sure they will stop chopping around 4 pm, just like yesterday, so they can do the afternoon chores in the barn....
Turns out I was wrong, Maxim got someone to feed the cows, and he is still driving past the house with the wagons at six pm. Garry said that they had 3 hours or so to go at 3:30 when he phoned to ask about whether I could send a snack out to the field. The sky is overcast, and it looks more like rain now. The neighbor Serosia took the day off from work to pack the pile with his old payloader.
Garry told me that for the last two weeks Max has been worried that they would not get the field chopped before the rainy weather gets here, and then it would be too muddy. However, Garry thought the corn was still too green to make good silage, but now it's all in a pile.
Garry came in the house at 7:30. Maxim was about 2 hours later, he and the neighbour packed the pile across and not just end-to-end like the first one (it was between the tubes of brewers' grain) so it's well-packed. You want to avoid having any airpockets in the silage so that it ferments, air means mold and throwing away rotten silage from the pile.
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