Long trip back...

Goodbye to New Jersey



I had a nice couple weeks with my parents and siblings even got to see our granddaughters who flew in to see great grandpa and gramma with their parents and Seth and Jonah (who is even taller than at Christmas)for March break on Monday last week.




I flew out Thursday afternoon but ended up in Toronto for an extra day when I missed the flight to Vienna (Air Canada paid since they had cancelled my original flight out of Newark and the second one landed 20 minutes late- right when I was to fly and they couldn't get me on another until the next night) so Garry picked me up in Kiev on Saturday afternoon.






Back in Ukraine




We drove back to the village Sunday morning, after listening to rain and sleet hitting the windows of our hotel that night. We drove through rain and some clearing skies, past fields that are now bare, they were snow covered when I left on the 11th of March. We saw a couple cranes in the nests in a few villages and saw and heard -when we rolled down the window to take a photo- a flock of hundreds of geese flying overhead in one area, so spring must be finally arriving in Ukraine.










The winter wheat fields are starting to green up, and a few tractors were in the fields -where it wasn't raining! One town had a busy market going in the rain as we drove through. There are still a few craters in the road between here and there, but Garry swerved around them.









We drove that new highway that was finished in December shortly before getting back to the village, it has smooth asphalt and shiny guard rails - only one spotted that is bashed on the side we were on, Garry said he counted seven going the other way. Polo and the cats were excited to see me when we got home.






Back in the village








I took some pics of Garry's new equipment today, the new (really new- they discovered that a new from the factory one was not much more than used ones are selling for)cultivator arrived on Thursday and the used (new to us) baler came shortly after I left for NJ. Apparently they discovered something was broken on it after they paid for it, but I think Garry is happy with it, we'll see how it works this summer. Used balers sell for more than they do in Canada, mostly because it si so difficult to import equipment.





That big roll of plastic pipe is for the water irrigation project in the village, they are getting things organized to put it in the ground so this summer all the gardens that are joining up should look good during the dry summer.