Fall days

Monday Garry was busy with trade school business, after waking up early to watch the second half of the Philadelphia Eagles game (disappointment again). He was supposed to pick up Maria at 9 am to meet with Nastya, one of our students who left us in the spring, she was supposed to come pick up her things she left at the girls' house (she went for a visit with her father and never returned) but for the second time this fall, she was a no show. They waited 40 minutes, she was not where her phone was, so they gave up. They bought some items for the group homes- a big bag of macaroni for each house, and an iron and ironing board (both purple) for the boys' house, who had complained they didn't have one last week when I drove them second hand store shopping, and some rugs for the new house's bathrooms. (I asked what happened to the Canadian ones I brought back, but they were cheap, I'm told.) We are still furnishing the new house, it's getting close to being done, except the mattresses for the twin size beds, there are nine in the container from BC that has been sitting in Kiev for the last two months (they are sleeping on ones from our house and extra ones from the boys' home).

 Luckily, it wan't a wasted trip to Zaporosia, they were able to get Roma, who set up the computers for the school three years ago, to come back from the city with them, so there were four for lunch. Really luckily, I was thinking there could be company for lunch and I was just putting the dough into the pot for chicken and dumplings when they walked into the house around noon. We had picked up more computers that had been at the trade school the first year after moving to the new classroom, but needed to get them operating for the computer class today.

 Roma spent the rest to the day on trying to install the cow recording program Garry got from the farmer we visited with the students up and running and more in English on a computer here and 7 of eight computers working in the classroom. He is picking up some parts to get the last one working, a monitor and a mouse, and more to get them all to connect to the wi-fi, the next time he comes out.
I heated up a leftover pizza that they ate while I got some milk for Roma to take home and around eight pm (it's dark now at 5 pm with time changing) we headed to Zaporosia to drop them off, then home and into bed. Garry only scared me once when he didn't notice how slow the tanker truck in the fast lane ahead of us was going as we came up on it on the way home.

One of the reasons Garry was so late for dinner last night was just as they were finishing up with the computers, he had to help a heifer who was calving  in the barn yard over there. The calf was stuck with one leg back, calves ideally come out with two front feet followed by the head for delivery, so Garry had to push her foot back and straighten out her leg, and pull the calf out. Roma was impressed with the calf's arrival, and Maria with how beautiful the moon was as it rose, too.

Today he got back to work on the addition to the "girls' house" that he started a week ago. It's the only one of the group homes without a separate area for the group home family; so he is adding two rooms on the front side of the house for bedrooms that will connect to the room that is the group home mom's current bedroom, which will become a sitting room. That way there will be two bedrooms we can use for students, currently there are three girls in one room and the daughter is in the other. Garry hopes to pour cement soon for the foundation, and finish it by winter. They will build some trusses in the shop for it.

In between all these things he has been helping Yana and the students with milking one fresh heifer, who kicks like crazy when they try to put the milker on her. She calved on Sunday and is really big, almost Canadian-sized, even though she's just 50% Holstein. Yana says her mother  was a big cow for a Ukrainian cow, but she never bred back after having her. He says that now she stands still after the milking machine is on, which is an improvement.

The girls house- starting point for my walk

I went along with Garry this morning to take some photos of his project, and walked back home, taking some more photos in the village along the way.

It was a pretty nice morning for walking, I was wearing a fleece over my t-shirt. Most of the villagers were wearing coats, but that's normal, because it's fall. It was so warm that some people were not wearing hats!

We stopped at Max's house for something, he's building on an entry room

Some people walk their bikes to carry stuff

The crows are mobbing up this time of year

Everyone is getting ready for winter

The school, built by the Mennonites, still in use

 As I was walking, there was some barking ahead... many dogs bark at people walking on the road. The dog from the boys house barked at me. There were quite a few people walking or biking  today, but when I got closer, I saw the cause, there were little pot belly pigs running around. Maybe it was their yard I thought as I saw one  ducking under a gate, and they were going back home after escaping...  or maybe they had escaped from the direction they came from as they raced past me on the side of the road and they were breaking into someone else's yard!

It isn't that cold in the store,
but even the ladies working there are wearing hats and coats!

  Almost home, I stopped to buy a loaf of bread at the store.

 It used to be Seth and Jonah's job when we first came, they would take a break from studying and buy bread for the day mid-morning... and a Pepsi and ice cream bars. It's been four years since they when home to Canada to stay.

That reminds me, still haven't gotten that much rain yet. Garry got Victor to buy some tarps to cover the straw piles- trying to keep it from spoiling in case we don't have any to bale next summer. The weather is going to be cool and not that wet according to the forecast. So he is waiting to put them on until the big rain comes... if it does. The wind will tear them up, they will last longer in the plastic.

All the plastic "film" needs to be replaced in the windows of the "new barn" for winter, The stuff they used last year got so brittle that it shattered. Garry has some greenhouse plastic on a roll left over from covering the silage they will pull out the wooden framed and recover them this week.

They have been making some metal gates for over there in the new barn, the wooden temporary ones are difficult to move when cleaning the barn.

 Garry is still waiting to hear back from the guys who are supposed to install the milking equipment now that there is electricity in the barn. It's been three weeks, but nothing moves fast over here!