Still waiting

The forecast still says rain for today, but none has fallen yet at 9:30 am. Garry and Maria are over in the classroom teaching. This morning I let the students plug in the small fan heater during English, even though I didn't really think we needed it on, It is warm in there thanks to the wonder of insulation. It was a cold, windy walk over to the school this morning for my 8 am class, I think I need to find a hat for walking. I can always crochet one, this is the first time my ears got cold.

When I walked back at nine am, there were people waiting for the mini-bus to Zaporosia in front of the "new house." The house we bought to remodel this year just happens to be one of the places people in the village wait for the bus several times a day, on the corner of the busiest side street (the one I walk on to go to the new barn classroom).

As Polo and I walked home we saw a babushka walking down the street, she said drostvitchya  (hello) as we passed her, She was dressed for the weather with many layers, all the older ladies in the village still wear skirts, but with tights, pants, and  legwarmers under...plus she had a big black apron over that,  a yellow scarf tied around her head, a couple big bulky sweaters and a coat, and she was holding a skinny rope in one hand,  pulling a little wooden wagon with tiny wheels behind her, filled with a feed bag full of something, and a pail. She had to move to the side when a car passed by, but she obviously preferred the smoother center of the street.

Two new looking Belarus tractors with plows on went past on main street as I got to the corner, not ours, maybe they belong to the big farmer from Petrakovka who took over most of the land in the village last year.

 On Saturday, while the guys were fixing a part on the flail chopper at the shop, a number of men from the village stopped by to check out our new tractor. Garry tells me that one man who works for one of the smaller farmers in the village who stopped to admire the tractor complained that while we bought a new tractor with (some of) the money from this year's bumper crop, his boss spent this year's profits on a newer Audi car and they only have old junk tractors to drive, not even as good as our five year old tractors  !



Garry turned the heat on again at our house, he had it on last week when it was cold, then turned it off over the weekend because it got warmer out, and has turned it off and back on about every 18 hours since Monday. We really should have insulated the walls and ceiling in the house when we renovated, back when gas was cheap. The new house (group home) is still not hooked up to the gas line in the village, with all the insulation we used they are getting by with some small plug in fan type heaters, but Max says it may be January before they will hook them up. Maybe they will need to move in here again, if we can't keep the house warm enough.