The Rest of the Week

It's been busy this week so I haven't written anything since Tuesday, so here's a summary!

Wednesday was busy, the team got almost the entire roof on the house, and poured the first concrete layer for the floor. Here's some photos. I seem to have missed finding the cement photos .. they have been covering the outside walls with insulation too.

sliding the long metal pieces up to the roof

Thursday while the floor dried (and Garry had a meeting in Zaporosia) the team toured a bit of the city and ate lunch at a traditional Ukrainian restaurant. They enjoyed seeing the market and did a bit of shopping there. We also visited the big Orthodox church where a special service was underway.

In Victor's van

outside the church

 

Friday morning Garry wasn't feeling well (he has been coughing) but he went to work anyway. He was home in bed  by 11am. He has a fever, sore throat... I hope it isn't mono! His cough makes you think bronchitis, but he is still in bed Saturday night, in spite of coming out and going to breed someone's cow after lunch Saturday.

The team from Lacombe has kept working, here are a few more  photos.

Friday they closed in the front of the attic

cleaning the cement, one of the boys made the far broom



coffee time again , twice a day

look at that roof and gables

getting the floor ready for floor heat

Nastya and I

soup's on for 18!

 I took the  ladies grocery shipping in Dnepro after lunch Saturday and the rain started late afternoon. That made it cold and miserable, since the wind was howling all day. It would like to blow you away, and was blowing a lot of dirt, branches, and building supplies










Here's some photos at coffee tine this morning, in the  afternoon the guys got the pipes bent and  down so they can pour concrete again Monday morning.

Everyone wants to share with Polo

working in the wind

and inside



the new windows were installed Thursday 

 

coffee, tea, cookies?

A final shout out for this boy from the village who kept showing up and working with our guests and students for cookies and tea, I guess. Shown here with Valeria.

And one for Doug and Marcie who sent me back from Manitoba ins year with a game for Garry, our new friends from Alberta are enjoying it in the evenings.

Well time changes tonight so it's after midnight tomorrow time, goodnight.

Tuesday work continues on the house

Still pretty cold here in the morning, but the team and students were hard at work at eight am. They are getting the plumbing lines in place under the floor before the concrete is poured, hoping to get that done Wednesday morning.

Some of the group is on the roof again today, getting it ready ...straighter? to put the metal roof on... the roofing is arriving this afternoon. Here are a few pics from this morning when I walked down with coffee and tea. The team and students were here at our house again today for lunch, I was too busy running around to get a photo, it is pretty crowded in here, tomorrow it will be warmer, so we hope to serve soup over at the work site. The two ladies on the team have taken over dish washing, so I have less to do today!

Polo walked with me in the morning

Valera helped me carry the bag

I took coffee/tea/Koolaid and cookies down again at 3:30 pm, I was walking and carrying everything again like this morning, but my load was lighter, when Valera, who had been helping milk the cows, came out of the driveway on his bike and put the heavy bag with the thermoses on the handle bars and walked with me to the house.



You can see they made great progress since this morning, replacing the boards for the roof, and the downstairs is nearly ready for the cement. They took tea and coffee up on the roof again this afternoon.

Looks like they replaced almost everything up there!

The students were impressed with the safety glasses today

Hard at work, hopefully they got some coffee!

The geese were a little unfriendly as Polo and I walked home

And now I am going to finish making dinner, the potato salad is already finished and in the fridge.  Last night I was ready and waiting for them because they walked over to check out the "new barn" that they could see all day while working on the roof.

Ready for dinner, it stayed warm.

Alberta team is here!

Yes, I have been too busy to write and likely will continue to be! However, our group of Dutch dairy farmers arrived Sunday evening in the rain and are hard at work with Garry and the students, inside and on top of the house. Luckily it did not rain much last night, and now the sun is shining, but it is rather cool (maybe even cold) today.

very open concept now!

working on the beams

 Inside the house they are working on beams to hold up the ceiling, since Garry and his village crew (and students) got the demo finished last week. Outside they are on the roof removing the old "shieffer" roof, and piling it up in the yard. The former owner of the house and few neighbors have asked to get some for projects, like roof repairs. The new steel for the roof was ordered last week and should arrive today or tomorrow. The students are bringing sand inside  to level the floor before the new concrete floor is poured.

Garry answered his cell phone, behind him the roof is naked

Nastya is shoveling sand into the wheel barrows
 Sasha (facing the camera) and Valera are pushing

Karina and other other Sasha are moving the old shieffer

some Canadians on the roof, they are taking it off
and handing it down to Kolya

Tea and coffee time in the entryway of the house

The team and all the students were here at our house for lunch (soup and open-faced sandwiches) and are hard at work again. Above you see are a few pictures I got when I brought coffee, tea and cookies at 10 am.

And here are some at 4pm, when they raised another beam..

coffee in the attic

Update on spring

Now that I am finally getting better (still a little tired, but no more mono sore throat) the internet has been really slow at home, so I apologize to the lack of blog posts lately. We are getting ready for the Alberta team to arrive on Saturday evening to help remodel the new group home. This means that Garry is busy with tearing down brick walls today, while I am figuring out the logistics of hosting (making menu plans and room rearrangement for 8 more people to sleep in our house, next month the boys lose their room for 5 days, this time they are safe!)

even bees think it's spring!

The good news is spring seems to be here, with the crocuses blooming, although we have had some rainy days lately. Garry says you can never complain about rain in Ukraine, because there is never too much to for the crops (most years not enough) and these geese down the street agree. Many people have their poultry on the loose these days.