Still working on irrigation set up

It's Monday (and now Tuesday) and Max is still welding bits and pieces of the irrigation system together, I am not sure when we will have the water on out there. Apparently some parts that were screwed together leak a lot so he is improving it.

The only rain over the weekend lasted about 10 minutes early Saturday afternoon, there were some puddles on the road because it poured for five minutes, but the garden is so dry I put the sprinkler back on it this afternoon. This morning we realized some seeds that had never come up finally sprouted after we watered it well a couple days ago. Garry and I hand weeded the last section of garden and found tiny carrots and beets up under the weeds.
 The peas are just starting to bloom today. I replanted part of my green bean row, they came up last week but about six feet has no beans up, with one lonely plant at the end of the row. I ended up with 8000 steps on my fitbit Monday and that was just cleaning house and gardening!

The black parts are the filters

Sunday evening I got some photos of the irrigation line work in the field with my cell phone around 6 pm.

 The little drip lines all need to be attached to the big hoses. However the special tool they ordered to do this did not work very well, if I understood correctly (sorry no one translated for me, so I sometimes guess the parts I don't understand).

We had gone out there after our tour left. (I only got one photo that afternoon, but I downloaded some from them to show you),
 They had a good time, I think, some drove here in private cars, but most came in a bus his English school hired for the day. They were earlier that we expected, so I was not quite ready so Garry did a little village tour down to the classroom while I cooked the last hamburgers and put them in the oven to stay warm and set up the cheese room tables for our salad master class.

We did the classic American potato salad they had requested, plus my favorite coleslaw, they sliced cabbage and were surprised to add chopped apples and mayonnaise with orange juice. Several told me that they never have cabbage salad that is sweet like this, but they liked it.

 Garry and some helpers started a fire and cooked some hot dogs and brought out the burgers, fixings and tuna macaroni salad to the cheese house and everyone lined up to fix their plates and eat. After that most of the group walked over to the barn with Garry to see the cows milking and pet the calves.

 When they returned it was make your own ice cream sundaes in the shade under the trees and then the hands on brownie making class for those interested (more than for salads) while Garry showed his bees to some of the others.

Then they got to eat some brownies I baked in the morning, I went inside to start baking, with some cleanup volunteers (I had a couple help clean up the meal while the rest went to the barn, too). They played some games in the yard before leaving. We are still eating brownies, that they mixed up since they left before they were done.

We had so much leftover food that Garry invited the guys in the field to come eat when they were done. I had gone to bed before they arrived around 9 pm, but Garry did all the work (I got up and helped find things in the fridge as it was jammed with leftovers). They had microwaved hot dogs and lots of salads, followed by ice cream sundaes and brownies.

Since Max is busy trying to get the irrigation set up finished and Artom is spraying the wheat again, Garry spent Monday mowing wheat (not all of it, they are leaving some for harvest, that is what Artom is spraying) and then fixing the  PTO on the tractor so he could mow more. They don't think anyone else is up to the job of mowing, apparently both tractor's PTOs are damaged from trying to grind wet hay in the TMR. He is missing a skid off the mower, which was making it more difficult to mow, no one is sure when it fell off, and they don't know if they can get one in Ukraine. This morning (Tuesday)  he hopes to finish with the wheat, then he will mow more hay down.
 He also bred cows for people in the morning before mowing and after he got back, but he said if he had realized that would take an hour to do it he would have said no, he was so tired when got back to the house after ten! He did say at least they had a nice car to ride in. On Sunday besides (or between?) church and the English school tour he bred six cows, two in our barn and four for other people. It's the season with all the village cows having gone out to pasture a couple weeks ago.

There's the guard house that Dima was improving on

The first year guys were impressed with taking turns staying in the little house overnight for the new guard job in the field to watch the irrigation equipment, we'll see how long that lasts (the excitement, not the job, it will be all summer). Garry gave Dima the job of fixing  up the "house" in the yard (it was one Victor's father had used for staying by the bee hives) but he improved so much, adding a wooden floor and actual glass in the windows; that Garry was worried it would be too heavy to load up to take to the field!