Hay today, hay tomorrow...

Garry says the best part of second cut is there is less to do than first cut. That's normal, and it is good looking stuff, so far it has not been rained on. Garry was hoping for a while on Thursday, since it was overcast in the morning and there were thundershowers in the afternoon forecast, but only a couple lonely drops hit the dust in the morning. Not that he wanted it to get wet and lower the quality but the corn and sunflowers could really use a drink of water to keep growing in the plus 32 heat this week (95-102 F). For a while, he didn't think the hay would get dry enough to bale but the sun came out by noon and they did a pile of small square bales that went up in the mow.

The hay left on the wagons last night went in the mow this morning, Garry had quite the crew of guys up there today, including yet another prospective new student who may join us in the fall, if we have space for him. He is not an orphan, but comes from a very large poor family (8 or 9 kids) close to the separated east of Ukraine and is interested in the program. You may remember that we had a few kids like that during the initial year of the trade school with John. Garry said he was a real hard worker.

They will have about four more loads to bale today, they keep cutting more of the alfalfa fields everyday, so there is some dry to bale a few loads. Garry tells me that the haymow is getting pretty full, soon they will have to hire the round baler for the rest of the year, because there will be no place to store the regular bales. Straw from the wheat fields will all go into the big pyramid stacks like the last few years.

Max's brother Artem standing on the bucket, Student grad Nikolai driving,
new student Svitaslav, milker lady Nastia's two little girls and student Vika

Some of the guys will be working on leveling the slag that was delivered yesterday afternoon for the building project. Last night when I went out to take a hay photo, the guys were bringing a large calf (several months old) over from the "new barn" to the "old barn" (the names crack me up since the old barn is the canvas one built in 2010 and the new barn is the remodeled Soviet collective barn more than 30 years old.) Oops, turns out it was one Garry had bought, he has a buy back policy on heifer calves from village cows he has inseminated since they are half Holstein and many people do sell him calves every year. It's an inexpensive way to expand the herd. They had tied her feet together, so she couldn't jump out of the skid steer bucket and hurt herself, so don't be alarmed by the way she looks in there, she's fine as you can see in the second picture.

Nikolai and Svitaslav pushing, Vika and the little girls watching

I did get a little work done on my grouting yesterday afternoon, I got too busy with freezing peas and planting sweet potato plants in the morning. We are also working on prepping lessons for teaching English for three weeks for Summer English Institute, starting two weeks from today. Garry will be teaching young teens and me adults (16 & over). Hopefully the car is actually done today so I can drive in to help with the last day of testing for it Saturday, because if we only have the Mercedes, Garry will have to go, no matter how busy he is, I refuse to drive that van.

Yana, who has milked for us since the start in fall 2010 and her sister Nastya were milking last night,  Nastya's  little girls were there too. Nastya took over when her mom retired a year ago.
They are all from a village a couple hours ride from here, often the ladies go back there when they are on their 10 days off (they are on a 20 on- 10 off schedule along with our third milker lady, who lives in the village). Yana bought a house in the village about six down from us a couple years ago that they live in when they are here, since one or both ladies are here all the time. They have some animals and a garden. It's the first time this year that the girls have come with their mother, but they seem to be happy to be here and have made friends with Polo, our dog. Garry tells me they have learned to say "Hello Garry" in English/