I got to work on lunch so Garry could take it out to the field since its our turn to herd the cows. We don't acually herd the cows for our days (this is the second time through the list- we are responsible for eight days, since we sent out 8 animals most of the summer) instead we pay guys to do it. Two different guys showed up the week before our turn started asking for the job, and part of the wages is dinner. Since we started "herding" on Wednesday I made a pot of soup and some broderbrat (open-face sandwiches with meat and cheese) for Thursday so Max could feed them while we were in Odessa. Maxim was working on his house when we got back to the village around 11 am. Garry went to buy bread to go with the pototoes I was cooking, and came back with the news that Max had already brought the guys lunch. Luckily I hadn't started the hotdogs, and the slaw could stay in the fridge for the next day- they even got the potatoes warmed up on Saturday too!
Garry went off for a meeting Friday evening, and came home bearing gifts- everything to make banana splits with m and m's. I was on the couch crocheting, with rather stiff sore legs from all the walking the day before. I was feeling fine by Saturday.
Maxim went off by nine am for a swodva (wedding) in the village where he was serving as best man, and his girlfriend Yulia was the maid of honor. He bought a suit for the occasion, if I get the photo to load you can see him with a roll of money in this hand- his first job of the day is the "buy" the bride from her father. Sunday morning he said he had to keep paying kids to get the bride's shoes back, apparently it's traditional for them to steal them at the reception.
Sunday morning everyone got up late- except the ladies, they were up at the regular time. They were wondering why the cow herding guys had not come yet. Time had changed for the fall. It means that the cows are home around 4 pm now. Garry had most of the chores done and was getting ready to load up the milk for church when Max came out- apparently the wedding was all day and most of the night.
Sunday as we were driving to Dnepro we noticed thst there were combines sitting in the big field of soybeans on the way there, when we came back they were just finishing the field. There were a couple trucks waiting in the field to take the beans away. There are one or two corn fields along the highway waiting to get harvested yet, and a field of sunflowers on the way to Zaporosia, but the rains will be here soon, so I expect they will all be finished soon.
Monday was much the same as everyday, except Maxim started plowing, Garry has given up on waiting for rain to make the ground easier to plow. Garry thought Max was going to plow up the bad part of the alfalfa field first, one end of the field has a very poor stand of alfalfa so they will plant something else there in the spring, but we are keeping most of the hay field for next year. Apparently it was just too hard- Max said the plow was bringing up basketball-sized chunks of soil, so he moved to the field that grew the rye and corn silage, it plowed up pretty nice, he was back there today. The other field will have to wait for rain. Garry would like to have it all finished before we leave for Canada next month, of course.
Garry took Max's scooter to bring lunch out to the guys in the herd, and he ran out of gas on the way back. He said the gauge was at half full. He phoned and I had to drive out and find him, lucky I figured out which pond he was stranded by- there are a number of ponds around the village. I did find his Pioneer hat on the corner, I guess it blew off. We grabbed our lunch, then Garry had to help the guys in the yellow van pump milk from the tank into their cans. Finally we were on the way to the gas station to get gas (filled the can and the car) and dropped off lunch for Maxim before finally getting back to the scooter, which was still there, thankfully.
Garry and I went to the pro basketball game in Zaporosia in the evening. We stopped at McDonalds for burgers and fries, since we learned our lesson last Tuesday night when we went to the Chinese restaurant before the first game we attended- the Chinese cook is only there on the weekend, all they were serving that night was dumplings!
I even got a little Ferro flag to wave after we bought our tickets. It looked like it was going to be bad, since the home team got down by 15 early, but they made a huge comeback to be one basket down at the half, and eventually won by about seven points, the gym was full of people and incredibly loud. There are four Americans playing on the team this year, it is fun trying to figure out what their names are from the spelling in Russian. A little guy named Kulpepper was the high scorer, he even did a breakaway dunk that thrilled the crowd. The other team had a guy whose name looked like Volker in Russian, but I noticed at halftime they had warmups in English and his name was Walker!
Tuesday was more of the same, except Garry and Maxim went to look at a fresh cow but didn't buy her. Garry asked to see the lady milk her (last spring they bought one that kicked- the milker ladies really hated it) and the cow jumped around so much they decided that Yana would not like it even though the cow's name was also Yana!
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