Blogging

Haven't written a blog post yet this week, better get cracking! If I don't have a post up in another week, I might get email! Honest, it's nice to know that people follow our adventures so closely (even people we have never met). 

How do I decide what to write? Often when I am busy you get an overview or round up of the week's events. Sometimes I start writing with a particular story or theme in mind. Often it is based on photos I have taken that week, sometimes I carry the camera looking for potential stories, like the On top of a Lada posts. Sometimes they are based on something Garry says about the farm, then I try to fact check, so he doesn't read it later and tell me I got it wrong!

We are creeping up on a big number of page views since we started the counter when the first Steinbach team was here in spring 2010, this week we are at 95,886. We have about 2,500 visits each month. Most of our visitors are Canadian, followed by Americans in the all-time stats, but recently Ukrainians are out-visiting Americans, and even Canadians fell behind them the week after we were on the television news here. We have had page views from almost every country, you can think of, interestingly, we have had a lot of Russian page views in the last year, compared to other years.

 The top ten cool things about Ukraine  post has been passed as most viewed by The rye is in a pile, Tuesday's post, I can't figure out why, they were both written in 2011. The top ten one must pop up on search engines a lot, The top ten places to see in Crimea is in the top ten view getters, too. . New post?  from this September has popped into third place,

Seth is second from the right in this summer photo of the boys

 Our children tell me that they don't have to talk to us while we are in Ukraine, they just read the blog. That's why I have to call them to find out what they are doing, or check facebook often. Yesterday I phoned three times, trying to say happy birthday to Seth, it's hard to believe he is 22 now. Of course it's been four years since Jonah and Seth left Ukraine for Canada. I did talk to one of his brothers, who told be that there would be a party on Saturday. Once Seth was still sleeping, the next time he was out working. He and Jonah are taking the year off from university, reassessing their options, they are thinking of changing schools, or majors. He tends to work the milking split shift, afternoons and night milkings, so his hours don't mesh well with Ukraine, eight hours ahead of Manitoba time.

Of course it seems we are running in circles on the weeks we teach (last week, next week) and then I am flying home for Christmas. Garry flies back on December 16th.
Here's my excuse for not blogging as much lately : crocheting. I am working on putting this project together, Garry has convinced me to keep it for our bed here, there are 25 more squares to attach, I have finished a row of five now. I am also whipping through some small Christmas present projects.