A Little Sunday

 Sunday morning we were getting ready to leave for church when Garry's cell rang (his substitute one). Max was calling to say someone wanted a cow bred in the village, near the girls' house. Garry changed back into his barn clothes, and said he'd be right back... I did a blog post while he was gone. It took longer than he thought, apparently Garry's not the only one calling the new house the girls house, and then the man had two, not one cow to breed, and they weren't tied up at home, but staked out near the new barn. It's a little difficult to inseminate a cow on a forty foot chain, she keeps going around in a circle.

 We had thought village day was the day before, but nothing had happened. As we drove past the town hall, we realized it was Sunday this year, and things were just getting started there. We figured by the time we got home (maybe five pm, it would be over).

 I had the camera with me, I was  hoping to get a photo of the corn being combined on the way out. I figured we didn't have time since we were running late, but Garry said we could get a couple pics before getting on the highway.

The trucks waiting to load up

 This field ended up producing about 140 bushels an acre, the field closer to the new barn was better, 160. The employees are excited, this year will be the year we finally made enough money harvesting crops to buy a new tractor. It's been talked about for a couple years. Another Belarus, the older one can do the easier work for next year.

We turned into the McDonalds drive-thru (we had originally planned to go for breakfast, so we hadn't eaten) and discovered that it was just past ten. That means, a) no more breakfast and b) lots of cars in the drive-thru because they are no longer serving breakfast.
So we had chicken sandwiches for breakfast... and headed over to drop a jug of milk at Victor's church for the first time in months. It is a new way to do it there, a donation to the church from Victor, like what we do at our church.

 This interesting truck was parked near the church driveway, doing some roadwork I guess. That's the standard Ukrainian ten foot from the roadwork warning sign (on the highway too.)

Hide the broken house behind a big ad

 We were late for church bit they were still singing, this week was the celebration of the church's birthday, 21 years. There are decorations every year for the big day. This year they had planned an outdoor celebration, but it had been cancelled because of the cold snap. The big heater was turned on at the back of the room the church service is held in.

 Unfortunately we had to leave early too, because Garry has gotten himself a job Sunday afternoons teaching an English conversation class that begins at 12:30.

 I get to do some shopping and reading for a couple hours while he is busy teaching.

All the words you need to know to buy sweet things!

 When class was over we headed home after a stop at a bakery Garry sometimes goes to for donuts. Sadly these frosted beauties did not taste like donuts, since the cake part was rather dry, but they did have filling.
We made a stop to buy some small buckets for feeding calves, and hurried home to see how the corn was going.

The partially filled grain trucks were still in the field when we went past, but the combine was gone because the field was finished

Student Valera , Garry and tractorist Sasha

As we turned onto the main street we saw that village day was still going on, so Garry stopped there. They had some trampolines and blow up slide, some people were still dancing and having fun. Lots of kids and some of the students were happy to see us. It seems every kid in the village knows our names.

Valera showing off his backflips

 As the sun was getting low, we went to the second field, the better one; where they had gone to combine so they could finish filling the trucks. This year the trucks were sent by the grain company we were selling to, other years Max had to find trucks and drivers.

The combine driver had some sunflowers to do at home, but returned on Tuesday. he left the corn header parked by our front gate.

Cleaning pumpkin seeds

Every crop is a bumper one this year, the farmer who grows pumpkins is busy harvesting, washing and drying pumpkin seeds to sell. the last two years were very bad, but this year was a a really good year. They were washing the seeds outside near his house as we went past.

Garry stopped for a couple minutes as the village herd was going up the road ahead of us.

The village cows come home from the fields earlier every week it seems, now its around 5:30