Sunday

apologies for the reflection in the window

Sunday morning and no van sitting outside. Garry was feeling better thankfully, but didn't know what to tell little Seroshka when he came to the door and asked where he should put the cream and cheese his mother makes (it gets sold at the churches with the milk). Then Garry talked to Max and found out that our van had had a problem with the alternator (the battery had gone dead) when the guys had driven the students into Zaporosia Saturday evening.

Later we found out that Victor had driven all the way to Zap to bring them a different battery for it.

So we had to go to church in the Mercedes van, and we had to drive over to the new farm to pick up the milk. Three of the grad students were going with us, we discovered as we went outside (they are the only ones who go with us, but we often don't know until we leave if it is one, three or none coming). It was pretty foggy, it often is this time of year, in the mornings and evenings when it gets mixed with the smoke of yard cleanups. We were already running late when we got to the farm and realized the jugs were still back in the other milkhouse, and turned around to get them.


 How much less complicated life will be once the cows and tank are in the same place again!

Finally we were on our way to the city, but running almost a half hour late.

First we dropped off the milk at Victor's church and wished him a happy birthday.  Then off to our church. We were so late we missed singing,  we just missed the annual teacher day ceremony but were in time to see the children going to Sunday school and the sermon. Lena gave us the chocolate and tea presents anyway.

We had to go downtown for Garry to teach English, once we parked we told Nikolai, Sasha and Julia to be back at four pm to go home, They were back by 3:40, sitting in front of the van with their bags of groceries when I arrived back at the van with my groceries, and told me they had eaten sharuma for lunch, while we waited for Garry to come back.

I'm getting pretty good at finding things in the city center since I spend hours walking around it every week. I did exciting things like putting money on my phone so I could call my father, buying yarn and finding a banking machine that would work for me, before going grocery shopping and lugging my bags back to the car.

The new "mall" Koobometer? across the street from Most City Center Mall
appeared recently from behind a metal wall that's been there for years

Then we went on a shopping hunt for a washing machine and towels for the new barn because Garry wants to switch to washing towels and using a clean one to wipe the udder of each cow before milking, and everything is supposed to be ready and its moving day again Monday. We bought everything at EpiCenter, including laundry soap and two big plastic pails to put clean and dirty ones in to use in the milk parlor.

It's beginning to look like fall

When we got home and everything was unloaded at the barn, Garry and gang made a quick drive back to the new farm with the milk that had been waiting for a car for a couple hours to get into the milk tank (once again can't wait to get the cows milking over there!)
The van was unloaded and the students walked home with their bags.

Garry talked to Max and they spent a couple more hours working on the cultivator, because it was decided that the teeth were not in the correct position and had to be moved, and they wanted to get it going out to the field early Monday morning.

Remember how Max wanted to buy a big tractor to get work done faster? They worked out that budget and it was decided there wasn't enough left over to buy a big tractor, but they could buy a second cultivator and have two tractors cultivating at the same time. It looks like next year we will have two less pies or shares of land to farm. People are taking them back to farm themselves, so we are losing four but got two new ones to rent, a little less land.