Getting the heifers- return to the farm

 We left home at 6:10 am this morning to return to the farm where we looked at cows last week. Garry and Maria went there earlier in the week and he selected 16 pregnant heifers.

 However, when we arrived to watch them weigh the truck, the lady told Garry that one of the heifers was limping and maybe we did not want to take her. After we had some tea, coffee and cookies, the truck arrived, so they weighed the truck empty and we went to see the heifers.

Garry said the heifers were tied up in the winter milking barn when he choose
them on Wednesday- see the gutter cleaner for manure behind him and the
small water trough in front near where the cows are tied all winter

looking over the heifers

He decided not to take her as she had two swollen front feet, so we only bought 15. It took a little while for them to get them all to go up the ramp into the truck. First they chased all of them, then some of the them, eventually most of the heifers had walked up into the truck.

Da-Vie, Da-Vie, (go ,go) they would say as they urged them forward.

Look at those shoes... I mean plastic sandals... looks a little messy

they put a rope on the last couple and pulled and pushed to get them up

Last one is on the truck!

weighing the truck- the heifers were bigger than Garry expected

Going to the office to pay

Garry has a bag of money - he paid by the total kilograms 

 By the time we had gotten all the paperwork done, each heifer has a passport paper, and health record,  it was almost ten o'clock and we were ready to go so Garry talked with the trucker about the route (in Russian of course, he never had to phone Maria all morning)

Then we followed the truck slowly through the city and beyond

Then when we got on the highway closer to the village, Garry passed the truck and led him to Nikolipolia and then to the barn. It was just noon.
They decided it would work best to let the heifers off on level ground, so the trucker backed up to a pile of dirt. We had lots of help, all the boys that had been hired for the day to stack straw bales (including three Andrei- s) and did not have much trouble getting them in the corral with the other big heifers already there.

help everywhere (and two shirtless Andrei-s)

who wants to get off the truck (easier than getting them on!)

making new friends

lots of running around inside the fence

discussing mileage with the trucker (he and Garry disagreed but
Garry had set it on the car as we left and it had been 120 kms- x2)

And do you think Garry was done for the day? No, he helped the boys unload 7 loads of straw, finishing about 8 pm. They had sandwiches I made around 2 pm. Garry made an ice cream cone run to the village store at 6 pm, and they were in and out of the house all afternoon getting bottles of cold water that someone (them or me) kept refilling with filtered water and putting in the freezer to get cold.

At noon, they had to fix the pile before the seven loads came.
The mow will be full of hay, all the straw will be stacked outside.

The wheat is all harvested and most of it has already been sold to a company in Zaporosia. They think it ran about 2.5  to 3.8 tons per hectare, and graded 2-3 ( the scale goes from a high of 1 to a low of 5) so it was pretty good.
 There is a pile stored inside the barn (I don't know where is will go next year when there are cows there!) which is either for seed for next year, or to give some to the shareowners we rent land from, a few are paid in cash, but most of the 73 people we rent from get 3 tons of grain, along with a number of other things- like straw and a really big bag of sugar (Max has already bought and given some of that out, they wanted it for jam making.) This year Garry and Max decided on one ton of wheat and two tons of corn for our grain payment to the renters. It is easier to sell wheat, they tell me, and people will be happy with either for feeding their animals- and so far the corn looks good... but it would be nice to get some rain this week!