Rain and other crop news

Yesterday afternoon, I walked outside to hang the laundry I washed. It was sprinkling out, but I hung them on the line anyway (no clothes dryer) not so much in hopes they would dry, as in hopes it might make it rain. We had already missed a storm on Tuesday evening, when there was just enough to wet the road in the village when we got back from our Mere Christianity study in Dnepropetroesk around 9:30 pm.

Around 7:30pm , while Garry was off helping the milker ladies with the state vets, who had shown up to vaccinate the cows and heifers for anthrax (Sunday evening they had come to draw blood on the cows to test them for leucosis and brucellosis - Garry found out what they were testing for this year because he taught all these diseases to Andrei at trade school, who was helping that night) ; I hung out another load and brought in a couple things that had dried.

An hour later, thunder and lightning, and then rain as the television and internet reception went away. We went to bed and listened to the storm still banging and raining at 9:30 pm. This morning Garry was excited to discover almost two inches by Ukrainian methods- you dig down to see how far the ground got wet.

Since there is more rain in the forecast =  80% chance of showers and thunderstorms through Friday, Garry says they will mow hay on Saturday. Check out how tall the alfalfa was on Sunday morning. See the shorter patch? That's where someone cut some and took it home to feed their cows, I guess it looked like some of that free roadside grass....

The yellow is some volunteer canola (it keeps coming up)

There's some missing there! About 8-10 square feet

The sky is a little dark again, Garry plans to spray some herbicide on the cornfield Friday , unless we have a lot of rain tonight. However, rain is always good for farmers in Ukraine, so lots of rain would be great... but no clothes on the line tonight, I got them in this afternoon, when they dried from their rainwater rinse last night.
Polo is trying to climb on my lap, so maybe there is a storm coming, he is a big baby with thunder, wants to come inside and hide.

Garry bred a heifer in the village today- she was the result of a breeding he did two years ago. Her calf will be 3/4 Holstein.

The weeds in the barley field are turning yellow

the wheat is making heads, some will be silage

Corn on Sunday, the rain will really get it going

Once the alfalfa is mowed down, they will green chop wheat silage and then make some into silage, to replace the corn silage which is gone now.

Yesterday we sold 400 litres to the village milk truck so they could empty and wash out the milk tank. They only pay 2.3 grivna a litre. However, there is a new milk buyer on the horizon, Garry will meet with them on Monday, hopefully this will fix the leftover milk problem lately. More on that as details are finalized.