Crops and other stuff

Sorry for the delay, but here's a new post. I spent three days laid up with what was apparently a stomach bug, because Garry has succumbed this (Monday) afternoon. Here's a few pics from Thursday, before I tried to lose that hamburger over and over.

We had to go into Zaporosia after the 1 o'clock staff meeting/Bible study with Max to pick up the Mercedes, he'd taken it in the day before for repairs. We went in his Lada, I took a picture from the back seat, after we got to the repair shop. Just as got there, Garry asked Max if he had money to pay, because he had forgotten. We thought we might have to go find  a bank machine, but we emptied all our wallets and I found more loose cash in my purse when they were a little short, so we were on to part two of our trip- picking up the rest of the sunflower seed. We followed Max in the Lada, because he knew where to go, and the bags of seed were going into the van.


Unfortunately, less than a kilometer from our destination, we blew a tire on the Mercedes. There may have been a curb from a driveway that was kind of in the road. if you like, drove straight instead of watching closely.

Here's some photos of Garry and Max changing the tire. Somehow, the jack was the old broken one Garry had tossed from the other van, so they ended up using the one from the Lada too.

The lug bolts were so tight that they bent the cross-tee getting them off. I found some rocks to block the wheels (the emergency brake does not work).






Hey look we're here! This is where we are picking up the seed and some weed spray apparently. Clearfield for killing weeds- the seed has a natural occurring immunity to it, kind of like roundup ready, but not GMO, so you can use it in Europe.

They only wanted to let Max's car in through the gate with the receipt, but they relented from the policy for the foreigners so we could load up the van. Max had to back up the Lada and explain as they tried to close the gate while Garry tried to follow him in.

With the seed and chemicals all safely loaded into the van, Max headed home to the village, while we headed back into the city.

We headed to McDonalds because we we hungry, and on the way we saw these people heading home after a long day street cleaning.

The lady waved to us, the old guy tried to stop her

Sorry, both of my cell phone photos of the newly renovated Zap Mc D's are blurry, but it is super modern. No more seating than before however, but more lines. I grabbed a table while Garry found a bank machine (remember we used all our cash at the repair shop) told Garry to get me the super large Big Tasty burger, which I only get a couple times a year, mostly because our wonderful Beef burger with corn chips had  disappeared with the first of May as I feared. It stayed on the menu for two months and we may have bought a large percentage of the ones sold in Dnepro.

Then we were off to part three of our trip- Bible study at Steve and Jo's apartment.
I did regret the burger about 3 am, when I woke up and then took three days to recover. Or eat anything besides toast. However, we now know it was not the burger's fault.

I did make it to the church service in the village Sunday morning (just barely), but Garry went to Dnepro by himself Friday and Saturday while I slept and tried to recover.

This morning while I finally could look at food again (I ate two slices of the pizza I made him on Sunday, I admit, but it still wasn't sitting quite right on my stomach), Garry was starting to feel like his "stomach wasn't quite right"...

He made it through class, which on Monday (after their 45 minutes of English) in cropping season is field walking to look at crops and weeds and whatever, and for once I tagged along and got lots of photos!

A big black bug

 Here's some of the whatever, bugs and birds and oak trees with fresh green leaves.

a stork landed on the pole-\students run toward the pole

and surprise,

stork flies away

so clean and green

there were two bugs but one flew away

Sasha has another big black bug

Anyway back to the crops, we went to corn fields, alfalfa fields, the oat and  alfalfa seeding, (nine pm and a tractor just came into the yard in the dark, sadly the thunderstorm that was threatening at 6 pm has not materialized, it's getting quite dry.)

looking for seeds in the latest seeded cornfield

where the irrigation water comes from

This will be the irrigated cornfield/ CRMF provided funds to set up this, we have purchased  a used valve, a meter and the plastic irrigation lines, which will be installed a little later in the season.

The field that was planted mid-April is up
so are some weeds but we'll get them soon

a neighboring farmer did not realize it was planted last week and tried to
disc up his by going through the edge of our field with his disc down

Just a couple inches to grow and its ready to cut
the alfalfa is 40 cm tall

1-2-3-

 I published this without the oat field photo

and the tiny baby alfalfa photo!

That's better, cute little plants. huh?

no sunflowers up here yet

are those rainclouds? we wish...

see, it is dry!

those black bugs have pincers 

pretty little yellow birds are everywhere

somebody is fishing

everybody out of the van again!

checking out the big farmers wheat field

and ours looks taller, darker green, better!

one more field of sunflowers

look its the new barn across the pond...

those sheds across the pond look familiar...

what's Masha found

there are some sunflowers up in this fields

No its a tarantula hole... er nest?

...and I will leave you with this adorable baby goat.

Today Garry had to pay out a death benefit for a funeral of someone we rent a share to, Max's wife Yulia's grandmother died.







He's feeling pretty sick, since mid-afternoon, he had driven Maria back to the city and got a haircut and threw up in the middle of it, he said.  I hope he's feeling better tomorrow, but it may take a couple days. I know.

It's possible that the guys finished planting today. Too bad they weren't rained out.