Friday and Saturday

Friday morning while Garry was off buying stuff the grad boys and Artom were hard at work putting the slag layer on the pad.

Vlad the boy who hangs out when we are building came

I brought out tea and cookies at 10 am for the guys

The bees were checking out my crocus blooming by the driveway. Maybe I'll plant more in the fall, not much for the bees to eat yet!

The bee boxes

Garry got back after 11 am
The stucco guy has been doing the final coat on the house
he did the summer kitchen yesterday

Now that the second coat of stucco has gone on over the insulation we need to pick a color to paint it. It is going to be in the color range of the unpainted brick on the upper part of the Mennonite house.

I made some lunch for Garry and the guys while continuing my project of the day, getting rooms and beds ready for the building teams, I warmed up some leftover soups and made eight bowls and made 16 hot dogs in biscuit dough. It turned out the count was wrong, we had a bowl leftover, so they invited Vlad in too.

The guys found a tarantula while digging
it's in a big jar on the table- the table cloth has
veggies on it so it looks strange

By 2:30 in the afternoon, we were on our way to Dnepro, for Garry's 4:10 English class, while I did some walking and shopping for an hour and a half. I walked a couple blocks to the JYSK store (we had parked close to KFC instead of the school- guess where we ate dinner) and then under the overpass for one of the bridges going over the river.

Classic USSR bridge decor

sidewalk parking is very popular in the city

After buying some pillows and sheets- every year I have enough for ten people and then Garry gives some away to the students for the new house or apartments and then I need more when a team comes! I got some groceries and a ball of yarn before meeting Garry in front of the school where he teaches.

Garry's school is on the second floor

After some wings and sandwiches at KFC we were off to our SEI follow up class at Patona (its a street and if you know Ron Koleba, it was his house and there was a telephone bill stuck in the door for him last night- he's been gone for 20 years and they are apparently trying to collect).

We had six people out and one couple had exciting news- their immigration visas for moving to Canada had come since we saw them a few weeks ago. We read another chapter in the little books Why a Crown this week. I had bought them in Steinbach years ago for 99 cents each, this is the first time we have used a Bible study like book for the class. Earlier this year (and last year) we had done stories from Chicken Soup for the Soul, but we started this book (we have 8 copies) when our printer died a couple weeks ago.

After our usual hole swerving ride home, we watched some NCAA basketball and Garry tried to call his mother for her birthday. The phone was busy every time he called so he went to bed at 11 pm, he'll try again on the weekend.

Tuesday morning Garry was still up at 5 am, even though he went to bed later than normal. By 7 am he was outside and wondering why no one was on the tractor. He helped the boys with cleaning the heifer pens in the old barn while Max got the new tractorists going. Max's little brother Artom is officially on the unofficial payroll as a tractor driver with Sasha quitting, and the neighbor Misha, who used to work as one of the night guards (he still was, he had begged Garry for another month of work when he was supposed to stop getting paid March first, now one of the grad guys will be there every night at the new barn as the guard) is the other new tractorist. Max spent some time with him today, since he is out of practice on a tractor, and worried about making a mistake. It didn't take a day to replace Sasha.

By nine am the grad guys and Garry were working on putting the drain pipe in the ground for the floor drain for the cheese making room.

My dish soap went outside to help put the pipes together

The outside cat who is trying to come in
every time the door is open

seems like this box has been around for 7 years
there was a big clean up of the sheds

The new mattresses arrived with the supplies
Friday afternoon- you won't believe how big
they got when I cut the plastic

Maybe we did hit a hole coming home last night...

Rebar is tied and ready for Monday

Before Garry knew it the morning was over and it was time for Julia's birthday party at 11:30. Since we needed to leave for his English classes by 1:30, he got changed for both. In Ukraine you throw your own party and grad Julia has been saving up for a while to throw this party.

 Then Garry remembered around 12:15 that I was supposed to make lunch for Artom, who was discing so I drove home and put together some food to take him. When I got back Garry said he'd take it to the field, but when he mentioned it would need to be carried across the plowed field on foot I volunteered to go with him, and do the walking. His foot was really sore today. Hopefully he takes it easy on Sunday.

Then he phoned Max to see what was happening with the tractors. We gave a couple of students a ride to Dnepro, they said they would catch a bus back to the village.  Garry told me he thought he'd tell them he couldn't teach both days anymore because he wants to spend more time on the farm and with our students in the village...

He didn't do it though, it's too much fun teaching he says. I got more walking and shopping done, since my English classes were cancelled today. No problem, I like both activities.

Garry wanted to get back for student Saturday night church, but it was nearly done when we arrived at 7 pm, we'd had to stop to buy a couple pieces to hook up a drain for the sink to the drain they put in today, and then to get gas.

Andrey Shpak was speaking

Karina presenting the birthday chocolate bar to Julia

Julia with her boyfriend, student Dima

Garry and Max talking business

a liitle ping pong before we went home

Garry went to bed pretty early, I am watching Villanova (my team in the NCAA's every year) It's a very close game with Wisconsin right now, so I'll stay up until its over, the bedroom TV is out of commission right now.