Saturday

We had scheduled a Thanksgiving dinner with students and staff at the "new house" for Saturday at five pm, We got there at five with the turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy and stuffing (with sausage, celery, onion and apple) I cooked half the stuffing in the 7.5 kilo (16 1/2 pounds) bird, half in the crockpot. The turkey was overhanging the pan a bit, I had a dripping problem in the oven the last hour when I removed the foil to brown it. This year we waited to carve until we got there by Maria's request, she wanted Thanksgiving dinner, classic American movie style.


Everyone was getting the dishes they'd made ready to serve, I think it was almost 6 by the time we started. There was even candy on the table, as Masha (Maria) had bought candy with the money the babushka gave her to buy some for the students for cleaning her garden. They had set up both tables and some of the desks from the girls room as tables. I had sent over some chinet plates and some cute napkins earlier, so the cleanup would be easier.

After the main course, everyone stood up and sang happy birthday (in English, Garry led) to our farm manager, Max Rudei, he was there with his wife,  daughter and his mother who had come a few hours on the bus to celebrate. Max is 26 now.  What a meal, there are more photos on the birds' eye blog, click on the bird photo. 

We left after dessert, which featured several cakes and one of the group home moms, Luda.  made "America pie"- pumpkin, complete with whip cream in a can. Maria stayed until 10:30, she said the food and fun did not stop. Garry had made plans to drive to Dnepropetrosk earlier in the day for a get together with students and staff from the school he started teaching at on Sunday afternoons (yes he is never too busy) at one of the malls with an ice skating rink. We did not skate, but talked with a number of people, and Garry said he drank too much coffee.

We would have made it home by midnight, but we hit one of the potholes on the road going into the village and blew the tire,and put a big dent in the rim. He changed it in about ten minutes, and we were in bed soon after Maria unlocked the door (she had came to the village on the one o'clock bus and will go home on the nine am bus this morning, about the time we leave to drive to church in Dnepropetroesk.)




Who knows what exciting adventures today will hold. The house has warmed up nicely since Garry turned on the furnace yesterday morning. No insulation in these walls, unlike the new group, which was quite warm yesterday evening, The gas is not hooked up yet for the furnace there, paperwork of course, hopefully the gas company will turn it on in the next two weeks. We bought the gas heater, it should be installed soon, The house has pipes in the floor for floor heat. So far it looks like the small electric plug in heaters we bought for them are still in the boxes. We've had a cold snap since Wednesday, but we should get some more warm weather before winter really arrives. Heat is not turned on in the city apartment blocks yet either.

The forecast seems to be calling for rain by next weekend, so they will plant some wheat this week. Garry was beginning to think they might not, since it is so dry. Looking at other farmers' fields that were planted, only a few look decent. Some have worked them up again, because so few seeds grew, so he's glad they didn't plant in late August. Still ten days until the plant by date here, so hopefully it works out, they plant, it rains and the wheat comes up and grows, before winter comes. The combine headed out to the field to do more corn just now at 7:30 am, We sold four loads of corn yesterday, maybe they will fill five today, We passed two trucks full of our corn on the way to the city last night. Garry is out checking on our tires, he needs to fix one so we have a spare for today, just in case.

This will be an off week, Garry will be busy all week though, some water hookup projects at the new house and brn to finish before winter sets in, and things to do now that the barn has electricity to get ready to milk cows over there. I plan to work on the great crochet project (Garry has convinced me to keep it for our bed instead of giving it away, so now I need more squares!) and some fall cleaning.