Winter wonderland

Here are some kids walking home from school today, it was tough going with several inches of wet snow making the footing slippery. That was a report from Garry when he walked to the store for bread at noon, before it started snowing harder. The thermometer was right around freezing so the snow was melting off the roof with water dripping off the eaves, but don't worry it's supposed to get colder this week.






This afternoon I finally went outside to take some pictures in the barn, and decided to show you the driveway the guys shovelled out this morning when Victor came. The driveway that goes through the grapevines has to be done by hand- you can't get the loader tractor into it from either direction. Out by the road the gas line is too low to drive the tractor under, and the yard is set up so you can't go through the back yard either. Sunday evening it snowed some more and the wind blew the snow into three-foot high drifts.

This afternoon around 2 pm the snow was falling in blobs, we have at least four inches now! The camera got snow all over it when I took these around 3 pm- I had to dry it off before popping up the flash in the barn, just from walking out one door of the house and snapping pictures around and walking up the barn driveway (plowed with the loader tractor- we paid the gas company to raise the line over that one) and into the barn.


You can see some of Maxim's projects while we were gone. He screwed some red steel siding to the big gate on the barn side and made a second small gate there- the idea is one for cars, one for walking and both to get really big equipment into the yard.
He also found an old cattle trailer and welded up some new sides for it- and someone painted it blue, looks pretty bright against the snow.



Garry and Maxim went to breed a cow in the village while I was out there- Max was moving the car while Garry walked to the barn for the semen in the photo. Garry tells me one person in the village requested Maxim breed his cow after Garry got back because he thought Max had gotten one pregnant while we were in Canada. When Garry was breeding the cow the owners asked if he would be willing to trade the two-week-old heifer calf they had from another cow for a bull calf. Of course he said yes.




When I got to the barn,the ladies were just leaving the barn, having finished the second milking of the day and were heading back to their house, the summer kitchen. As you can see the laundry they hung out earlier didn't look to be drying very fast.



Mint is happy to be running all over again, there are no chickens to chase now, with the snow the neighbors have them all shut up in the coops.

The snow did slow up so we drove to Zaporosia to meet Marina and Masha, two of Garry's VBS teachers for dinner as planned. The road out to the highway was two tracks, the highway was mostly slushy with a few bumps of snow to drive through, but Garry had no problems driving. The girls translated the menu at the Chinese restaurant for us, and we had a lovely variety of dishes, although Garry had to request the rice before he would start eating the main courses, our sizzling dish was not sizzling by the time it finally arrived. We had a wonderful time, and a safe drive home after dropping them near their apartments.