Jet lag, mud and breeding cows

For me jet lag is the enemy of sleep, especially when I return to Ukraine. I have been dozing for a couple hours a day this week because I just can't fall asleep at night. I have taught some English classes, done some cooking- we have two Ukrainian vet students here since Sunday afternoon, and Maria came on Monday morning because we are teaching this week. Everyone goes home by Thursday evening and I am looking forward to an empty nest for a few days!

Garry has been working on a puzzle I picked up at the MCC thrift store in Steinbach with various guests (I've even put in a few), unfortunately it looks like we may be missing pieces from the box, there are five pieces that don't seem to match, so I don't think he will be gluing this one onto cardboard.







Saturday it rained. Saturday night while I lay awake it rained hard enough to hear over the television a couple times.

Sunday morning Garry drove to church in a monsoon of rain pouring down from gray skies, there was more water on the highway than I've ever seen here.

The pedestrians in the city were getting soaked by passing cars.

While we were in church, the sun came out and dried up... well a lot of the rain on the pavement. It's Wednesday and there is still mud everywhere.

Garry planned to go after classes today and drive to Molochansk and buy more Canadian bull semen, but as he drove into Zaporosia he realized that he forgot the semen tank back in the village, so we just picked up the medicine he had ordered from the pharmacy for the cows with lumpy jaw. They used up the first bottle they got ten days ago already. It is one of the things the vet student Andrey has been working on when he is here. This week he brought a female friend with him, she had been doing her practicum on a pig farm.

No semen tank means no way to keep the semen from freezing, since it is stored in liquid nitrogen until he takes one out to breed a cow and thaws it in warm water. Now he plans to go tomorrow to get the semen, the price per dose has gone up 20 grivna to 110. He may have to raise the charge for breeding people's cows from 150, if they drive, 200 if he does (out of the village, he breeds a surprising number of cows in other villages, which is where I assume he is right now- I just woke up after going to bed at 7 pm, jet lag is winning.)

Garry is home, turns out it took more than an hour because it was in Shyrokie, and with the rain you have to drive all the way around by the highway. If it's dry, they go by the dirt roads through the field to the village, because it's really close as the crow flies. Garry says they had a heifer calf this past year and named her Canada.