One of these things is not like the other...

the new plow

the "old"plow

Last year I wrote about how Garry had bought his own plow instead of borrowing one, you may remember this because I tried to help him put it together and the big metal wheel fell and broke my big toe. Two weeks ago, Maxim Rudei finished plowing village gardens

(for the time being, we have people coming in the yard almost every day asking about getting their gardens plowed- the people in the village seem to be the losers as the guy who has run the old collective farm for 8-10 years has been dueling with a new company that is trying to take it over this year, no one is plowing the gardens, which is part of the rent they get for their share)

and decided we should buy a second plow so he could use one and Andrey the other (we have two tractors, one has a loader attached, but you can still use it in the field) and they could get the fall plowing done faster. There is more than a hundred acres to plow, including the corn field that was harvested.

Garry and Max phoned the implement dealer in Zaporosia that they bought the plow from last year. Garry thought the price seemed high, so they looked through the pile of brochures he collected at the farm show in Kiev the week before, and they called the company that made it in Odessa. They price was less, even with shipping, and they would have it by Wednesday... but the bus it was on broke down, however eventually they did get it by the end of the week. They took the back seat out of the van and drove to Zap and picked it up (it sort of came by mail).

They had it assembled in minutes... last year it took days, the parts didn't seem to fit well. Maxim tried it out and announced it worked like fire! Why the difference, if it was  the same plow?

When Max called the company the lady he talked to said that that dealer was passing off an inferior plow that was made to look like their plow as their product, and we had bought one of the imitation ones. No wonder it was so hard for Garry to find any good parts when he tried to assemble the first one. You can see it is all bigger and better metal even in the photos!

Another quick story with the same theme... one day last week Garry was called to go bred a cow in a nearby village. The older lady said her cow was in heat the night before. Garry put his arm in and felt feet and told her the cow was seven months pregnant, and he could not breed her. She was upset about having to pay for the ruined semen (100 grivna) and sure her cow was not pregnant. She even phoned to say that the cow had calved in July so he was wrong. Garry and Max decided if that was true, she must have the wrong cow.

Marai heard the story from Verinika, who lives in the same village. Not willing to believe Garry the lady had paid to have a vet come out, who also said the cow was 7 months pregnant.... later that day when the village herd came home the mystery was solved and the village was laughing at the lady who did not know her own cow... her cow came into the yard, so the one she had tied in her barn was not hers, which was why it was pregnant!

So it goes to show you should always check if you have the real thing!