Cows calves and so on

Yesterday was a first- Garry artificially inseminated a cow on the way to church! A man showed up while he was in the shower, and said he cow was in heat the night before and told Garry he could catch her in the field. It was in the village of Pervey Mai so it was on the way to Dnepropetroesk, so Garry put the semen tank in the back of the Ford with the milk jugs, and off we went. We were taking our German guest Hannes to church with us (he was part of a team working on the foster homes and stayed longer) so he got to see the cow bred.... eventually.

We followed the guy in his older (but well maintained) Lada down the highway, the cows were close to where he pulled into the road to his village, but it took him a while to get ahold of the cow, finally he had her, Garry thawed out a straw of semen, and she got away. Garry and Hannes walked out into the field then, luckily the guy got her again, and she was successfully bred and we were on our way to church. I was sorry I had forgot the camera, and Garry had green shoes from walking through the ambrosia (ragweed) in the field. With the dry weather lately, that's all the cows have to eat in the pastures.

Our own cows are happy they have corn silage and hay to eat, in fact last week Garry tried to put some different cows out with the village herd. Max Boradim went out with them for two days, but a couple of them still ran back home, so it was a difficult transition time for all.

The reason for putting new cows out, some of the low producers that went out in the spring have become dry cows and have started calving. In fact last Monday, one calved in the field, twice! At lunchtime they got a call and went to check on here, after lunch they returned, she had calved and they brought it home. It was small, Yana said she wasn't due for a couple weeks. An hour or so later, one of the herders, a middle aged lady, came running into the yard (it was a hot day too) to say the cow was calving again, and it was stuck. Garry drove her back to the field, where she had another calf already.... mixed twins, one girl, one boy. Too bad- they say only one of ten females twin to a bull will be able to have a calf, but I have only seen one in my life (and I have seen a lot of mixed twin calves)!

the twins

The new calves are doing well, they are in the same hutch, and the little girl, Bogdana, one of our visitors on Friday really liked them. Friday we had visitors from the city of Dnipropajisk, two ladies who had been in Garry;s English classes in July, and two children, who arrived by car. It was the first time she had driven out of the city, they brought food, and watermelon, and enjoyed feeding the cows apples they picked up under the trees, and the watermelon rinds, too.

feeding the cows apples

Garry had to go breed a cow before they left, and another after. He was not sure which man Maxim had gotten a phone call from, and had phoned about, he was doing custom work, chopping a small farmer's corn silage in the next village. The first guy showed up while we were eating watermelon, and had an old Universal (stationwagon) Lada, white with one red door, that he put Garry and the semen tank into. He was only wearing shorts (still really hot here) and had a tattoo, and Garry said the road to his village was bumpy and he thought the man was more than a little drunk at 2 in the afternoon.

As usual, Garry had a cow to breed while I was making pizza, he got a couple of hot slices before heading out, but this one was just for a lady in the village, so he was back before I was done cooking pizza this week. We had Hannes over for pizza Friday night, and he stayed overnight, and helped the guys feed the cows before they went out to the Sea of Azov for the day. They got sunburnt and I enjoyed an empty house to work on stuff for the camp. Our VBS photos will be up this week. as soon as we take some!