Road trip to the other side of Dnepropetroesk to look at cows

Garry is looking for pregnant heifers to buy since the barn should be ready for them in September, the milking parlor is en-route to Ukraine from Canada now, and they should be ready to install it at the end of July. On Saturday we went with Maria to see a place that Victor had heard would have cows and heifers for sale when he was at the milking supply company recently.

We had to drive through the city and then turned off the highway to Donestk (we were still 240 km away, don't worry) to follow a road through a number of villages to our destination. Here are a few pics I took on the way there, we saw a number of black and white cows as we drove through the villages, a change from the red cows on our side of the river.

There were a number of guys on motorcycles yesterday, most with a girl behind, not all of which were wearing helmets (as though driving on in Ukraine on the highway or city isn't dangerous enough.) Back to our story...

Look I think they have had that stella (signpost) a few years

They sell milk here- see the jar in front of the bench? it has a white paper in it

we bought the big potatoes from the lady here
just blow the horn and wait for her to come out her gate

Selling buckets of cherries at this house in a village

WWII memorial in the same village

There's a black and white cow!

We found the lady waiting for us to see the cows...

we follow her van for a while to the farm

She was surprised that we were Canadian

they milk the cows here

Looking at the bred heifers

maybe these two will come to Nikolipolia?

Some of their fresh two year olds (they don't go with the main herd)

We looked at the younger heifers too

Interesting numbering rather than tags, they use a notching system
that was used in Soviet Union days (Garry was taught to read it too)

we went to see the main herd out on pasture- the closer ones are their cows

Maria got wildflowers

We had to meet their son who had visited Canada once, and they fed us
liver vereniki , tea, coffee, and the cookies were delicious

Garry and I under a stella (also from Soviet Union days)

someone's cow is getting alfalfa to eat!

Garry plans to go back later this week, he'd like to buy 20 pregnant heifers, if there are that many. He will preg check and pick out the good ones (or rather the not bad ones). The ready to breed ones are cheaper, but we need ones that will milk in September when we start. He might buy some milking cows then. These cows were not bred artificially, but they have imported bulls form Holland from what we were told, for a number of years. Looks like a good find!