Crops, and animals too

Well here is a grab bag of this weeks activity so far. Sunday we had a visitor Tanya Y came home with us after church and later in the afternoon, Garry took the two of us on a crop tour. We only had one flat tire, while driving out the driveway over at the barn remodelling project! So for all you farmers out there, here is a look at the crops.

Crop report

Garry and John check the new alfalfa seeding across the highway

This first corn field is the tallest
 for those who don't know Garry is 6 ft 5 inches tall

Tanya came along for the crop tour

The alfalfa field, partly baled, with the rest partly cut (the rest was cut on Monday)

The second cornfield is pretty tall too.

The second and largest cornfield, just re-sprayed and cultivated to reduce weeds,
is looking a little heat stressed, hopefully we get rain after the hay's in.

One more cornfield, looks much like the second one

 Tanya came out not just to see us, but to visit Mooshka, who used to be her apartment cat before she came to live with us in the village almost three years ago. She did see her, but the cat has adjusted so well to village life, she didn't come over to get petted. This spring she has not had kittens but the one female from last spring's litter has made her a Grandma again; there are four little striped kittens in the shed, with their eyes just open when I got back last week, so Tanya did get to see them.  We had tacos for dinner, and she played UNO with Ukrainian rules, (there are extra was to get rid of cards, and skip over people) with Garry, John and Andrei. It was interesting, because John is unsure of the colors in Russian and Andrei in English. Seenee? Blue? Zaloney? That's green?  Yellow...Zjoltee?

The wildlife...

Before breakfast on Monday, the guys unloaded the wet bales from Saturday night into the barn. Garry said he should have checked them after baling a couple Saturday evening; he would have left the rest to dry more  in the field, but he really didn’t want to bale on Sunday. The will be able to use them up in the next week or so to feed the cows, hopefully they don’t get too moldy, since the bales are a little hot.

 Maxim was fixing a flat tire on the tractor, while they were moving the bales, and he caught a spider and brought it over so I could take some photos. They call them tarantulas, and they are big hairy things, for sure. Apparently there is wildlife here in Ukraine.  Someone’s cow died two summers ago, and the cattle herders blamed a spider bite.

Last night I was dreaming about this guy when I woke up in the middle of the night! Seemed like it was in the bed....

Garry loads some bales up

Andrei rolls some into the barn to sit in front of the cows

Then everyone came inside and ate pancakes with jam for breakfast. Our guest had been doing some sweeping and dusting, because she had woke up at 5:30 am. Apparently the village wakes people up earlier than normal!

Garry took her out to the highway to catch a ride back to Dnepro in time for her afternoon English classes.

Then Garry and the guys got busy putting together the forms they took off Saturday evening, leveling the dirt, and tying rebar together, getting ready for Tuesday’s cement pour.  Maxim finished cutting the rest of the hayfield down. He came in for dinner a little after one, everyone else was getting done eating, and he had a little bunny that he had found while mowing the alfalfa. We took several pictures of the little guy before Max turned him loose.

Here he is in Maxim's hand

Tuesday today, and the guys spent most of the morning pouring cement, they had more than they needed over at the remodel project, so the rest of the load ended up in some forms they put up in front of the brewers' grain pits, just before dinner.

Yana chases the heifers and dry cows past the cement and John.

 John had to go out when the cows came home this evening to keep them from walking on it. Garry was breeding a cow in the front of the house for someone just as the cows returned home.

Garry's trickle irrigation in the garden

 Victor was out, so we had dinner for six, unfortunately not everyone got salad when I dropped the glass salad bowl on the floor. It was the only dish that did not have spinach from the garden in, the soup, mac and cheese and the string beans (from last year’s garden) all did. Victor brought dessert, so I didn't make any spinach cake (found the recipe two years ago, just ask Seth and Jonah, they ate it.)