Busy, busy

With everything going on for us personally... which meant checking the email constantly this week, we still had other things to do. The shed was finished Tuesday and on Wednesday morning a heifer had given birth to the the first calf under it.

Wednesday morning Garry was busy, and we had switched classes with someone again so I taught the students how to make biscuits and chicken soup in the morning, and he took them off for the last half hour to the barn.

Garry needed more frozen semen to breed cows. He started putting the calcium (limestone) into the cows' feed a couple weeks ago, and then all the open cows started cycling and they were in heat. Garry had thought that people were just doing a bad job of watching for cows in heat, but it was a mineral deficiency.

He used up all 35 doses he got while I was gone (he wanted 50 but they only had 35 of a Canadian bull). Lots of our cows to breed and he has bred some for other people since I came back two weeks ago. Two nearby villages don't have bulls so they need artificial insemination to get the cows pregnant, and call Garry. Often we stop on the way home from somewhere if the tank full of liquid nitrogen is in the car for him to breed a cow in the dark. The price has gone up for the semen so Garry has to charge 250 griven but he is still breeding a lot of cows. Someone told him in some villages a couple hours away it costs 400, so I guess it is still a bargain, and on par with what people charge to use a village bull.

It takes a couple hours to drive to Molochansk where the guy sells imported Canadian frozen semen so we went Wednesday afternoon. 

Garry and the director taking the semen tank to fill

The road is bumpier the closer you get to the place, too. However, its always a good time to talk driving by ourselves.

On the way we stopped into Jessica's project where Garry did the cement work last week, and I took some photos.

Wednesday night I made a cake for one of the guys, after we took a couple hours to talk to Julia about leaving with Dima (talking did not help, they left Friday). 

Losha's birthday was Thursday so we celebrated between English class and the rest of the morning, our new tradition. He had requested not a chocolate cake (which everyone's has been so far) so it was apple.

Then we had some Americans stop by who are working about four hours away in Ukraine, and invited them in for lunch. 

Late in the afternoon we went to our small group with Nelly. Afterwards we tried the new Texas Tacos stand, but don't worry they weren't tacos, more like sharma with orange sauce. 

Driving

As usual, we drove a lot this past week. It seems like we are driving somewhere almost every day.
The exciting road resurfacing project that was started this spring on the Dnepropetrovsk region side of the Dnepro to Zaporosia with great fanfare ground to a halt sometime in September. Some places that put a finishing layer of asphalt on in the last days... including the short few kilometers from the Dnepro city limits to the detour around the stopped overpass construction (I think its four years we've been driving around that... or five, nothing has happened there since the government fell three and a half years ago) That is the only part of the road where we are driving on both sides of the finished highway.

The resurfacing/ really rebuilding of the roadway started from this side of the regional line, close to our village (the same time as that piece from Dnepro). The sides of the road were cleared of bushes, drainage, curbs were put in some places, it looked like it was going to be wonderful. It was inconvenient to drive on one side of the highway for a while, but it would be worth it, for a wonderful new highway to drive on soon. We even got to drive on some stretches of the newly paved highway for that two way traffic; it was so nice, no holes to go around!

 They got to the first village you drive through from here toward Dnepro, did one side of the highway through the village early in September, chipped off the other side of the highway in the village  put the final layer on one half of the highway near the border line and then everything stopped. One wide paving machine and a few rollers and trucks were parked on the other side of the highway, now there is that paver, one roller and one truck as temperatures dip down near freezing.

The whole two directions on one side of the highway is getting annoying. That's right, no place where they have paved are we driving on both sides of the highway yet, for  maybe 35 kilometers the fast cars pass while speeding along. The trucks are moving slow, so even the Ladas and empty semis try to find a place to pass them, and sometimes there are accidents and near collisions as people try to get onto the highway from villages and the passing is happening into oncoming traffic. The crossovers from one side to the other are full of holes, poorly marked for night time driving, especially after being hit by cars repeatly.

Right around that time (maybe mid-September) they started paving on the Zaporosia side of the border, going toward Zap from the village. Now the highway was closed where we go out of the village and you have to zip into two way  traffic on the other side to go everywhere. The signage is no better, as in photo and how long can they continue to pave as November is near?

We had a foggy night last week and it was nerve-wracking driving home from Bible study in Zap, thinking where is the two way traffic starting? Will we even see the signs?


Our biggest hope for the winter is that they just make it workable until spring, which should not be difficult; putting every one on their own side of the road for the wintertime to reduce the chance of accidents in the snow. Otherwise it is going to be dangerous every time anyone drives the road.

Traveling

We are scrambling around this morning packing and trying to get ready to be gone for a week. Monday evening Garry phoned and talked to his mother, who has been at home for the last couple weeks after being in hospital for a month after we saw her in August. Tuesday we found out she had gone back to the hospital and on Wednesday we found out she was being moved to hospice care there. Many of Garry's brothers and sisters were able to go and be with her and Dad, sharing in singing, prayer and scripture around her until Friday evening when she went to be with the Lord.

Meanwhile our passports were in the registration office in Dnepro as Victor had started our yearly renewal when I returned from NJ two weeks ago. He phoned them and they said they could be ready Friday afternoon for us to pick up. So yesterday we went to Dnepro earlier than normal to get them and another massage for Garry's back. When we got home after the English Bible study, Garry looked at various plane possibilities, but decided to wait until morning to book it. He went to bed at 11 pm our time, I checked for messages after midnight. Then I woke at a 4 am and read that she had passed away shortly after I had last checked.

So we got up and booked tickets at 4:30 am for an afternoon flight out of Dnepro, which gets us to Toronto at 1:30 Sunday afternoon. Rented a car that I will have to drive because Garry does not have his drivers on him. We will be back here next Saturday at 2 am, even though we leave Thursday evening, but it was the best set of flights we could find this morning. 

Garry is off making his morning batch of feed and then we need to figure out what is wrong with the house water pump (no water when we got home last night) and what we are doing with Alona, our live-in student while we are gone.

Hopefully all goes well and we are able to spend this important time with family, and every thing here goes smoothly while we are gone.

What I was going to write on Saturday... but I was busy crocheting

Fall is here!

Sorry I haven't posted lately for you readers that follow the blog regularly! I admit I have been slacking since I got back from NJ! I have been spending all my spare time crocheting, getting ready for Christmas! I started a crocheted farm play book for Isaac and I keep picking it up every time I sit down. Just a few more things to make, a cow and a tractor; then back to making afghans for my older grand-girls.

I did take an hour to repaint the house doors one morning, using the enamel paint Nellya bought and used on the summer kitchen door. It seemed a better color than the blue with the new house color, which was picked to "look like bricks".  Unfortunately it turned out to be a cooler damper day than predicted, so the paint didn't dry for about 24 hours! We did shut the door that night, luckily we didn't get stuck inside.

Garry has been slowed down by a sore back since the week I got back, two of the guys got in a fist fight in the back of the van when they were coming back to the school from a field trip to the fields. Garry stopped the car and opened the door and pulled out the one punching his friend repeatedly in the head (really they had been best friends since he arrived two months ago) and sat on him. Shortly after they were buddies again, but Garry aggravated an old back injury.
So he has been taking it easy... right, not Garry, he has been doing construction!


First the concrete work for Jessica last week Wednesday with Nikolai and Sasha (pictured above) making a housing for the well for her House of Compassion  orphan home project.

 Max and Garry decided to try to build a heifer/dry cow shed in two days... Thursday and Friday. They didn't quite finish and had to order steel and wait for it to be delivered. Saturday it rained ( and Garry was teaching English and Max was at his monthly Bible school class in Dnepro) but they got the sides mostly done Monday (they had to get a few more boards)  and the steel for the roof arrives today.

digging holes for the posts

making posts 

New  student Sasha 

Straw shed is full

Now the bred heifers and dry cows can stay outside and stay dry and out of the wind. Last winter they were in the barn with the milk cows but they kept breaking down the divider to get to the better feed (dry cows cannot eat the rich feed of the milk cows, they get fat and then have health problems when they calve) and all the cows would be mixed together.  Someone would try to sort them back on the right side, but dry cows would get milked and even worse, milking cows would not. If no one noticed for a couple days that they were in the wrong side, they would stop giving milk. This winter it will be easier for everyone with this shed.

Today (Tuesday) dawned rather cold with a light wind to chill your bones, however I got a couple photos this morning, since I had not taken any of the new shed since Thursday, and the pictures above were taken before they put up the posts.

Max and Anton were nailing on the wide boards which were delivered early this morning when Garry and I arrived. Garry said if the steel came soon, they might finish by lunchtime.


Garry did take off Sunday from making feed, since driving the bobcat is hard on his back, and he says he is finding ways to make it easier on his back this week, like loading bales with the bobcat instead of throwing them in the TMR by hand.

Getting ready for winter

 & Leila's birthday

This morning I had to get out of bed at 6 am to bake a chocolate cake so we could celebrate Leila's birthday at school at 8:45. All the students have been in on her present since we were at the sea, the boys helped buy the cow that sings, and pretty soon all the girls knew, except hopefully Leila.

Everyone enjoyed cake and juice after she blew out the candles and opened her gifts (clothes and the cow). Garry had to run to the store for batteries so it would be able to talk before we lit the candles and sang happy birthday, since we did not take the ones in it last month, it was an extra charge and he figured new ones were better.

Leila has a little stuffed cow she takes to work with her, and it is pretty beat up looking. This summer the girls sewed up some holes and added new button eyes. 

Everyone knew she would be excited about a new cow. She had hoped to get a cow t shirt, but I could not find one in NJ. 

Julia and Leila have known each other since they were small in the orphanage

Yesterday the students helped with the calf/ heifer pens. The boys cut and built the panels and today in class they assembled them and moved the little calves into them. You might remember the wooden calf hutches burned up in August. Luckily there were no calves in them. The calves had been tied up in the center barn with baler twine around their necks, but now they are in comfy pens and we will be able to feed them calf starter (grain.)

they have cleaned up since the fire

the pens are build from wooden panels tied together with twine 

more pens to finish this week

 I got some photos this afternoon of the pens, and the new bigger pens for groups of bigger calves that utilize the old cement manger as feeders and will have tubs for water. The students had been carrying water to tied up calves all summer.

Dima was busy building wooden boxes this afternoon in the shop for the little calves to eat grain in the wooden pens.

three done!

Soon they will be building again, a shed inside the barnyard so the heifers and or dry cows can get out of the weather with the rain and cold starting soon. Other years they have moved inside the barn to stay out of the mud, but now they will be able to stay in the barnyard. This afternoon Garry ordered lumber for it.

back in the village

Never fear, I returned as scheduled. Garry picked me up at the train station in Dnepro at 11:10 pm Wednesday night. He thought he'd stay awake by going to a movie... in Ukrainian. He said he fell asleep, but woke up when it was over and hurried to meet me. He thinks he saw the new Blade Rrunner.

The next evening we enjoyed celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving with our Canadian and American friends in Zaporozhe. I brought the canned cranberry sauce in my suitcase. Friday evening we were in Dnepro for our SEI follow up Bible study, and Saturday night Garry had his student church meeting. I went to bed early however, jet lag exhaustion had caught up with me.

Friday night we brought two of our former students out for a holiday weekend visit, and returned them to the city on Sunday morning when we made our monthly visit to Morningstar church. Karina and Andrey have jobs in the city and an apartment. They stayed at our house and enjoyed hot showers Friday night, they only have cold water in the apartment. He is working in a machine shop as a helper and she is on her second job since August, it sounds like sewing piecework. They have been helped by an organization and visited a handicapped orphanage with them, Karina had photos.

They have to move to a different apartment soon. We sent them off with jars of jam and honey, Andrey was always hungry here and he looks thinner.



 Garry was busy Friday and Saturday building heifer pens. The corn was combined on Wednesday, before the rain came on Thursday, now they just have plowing to finish.



Nelly and three students came with us today and they spent two hours window shopping while we visited Lena's English school.


The new Sasha who came to the village while I was gone really likes singing praise songs.


keeping busy

I (Teresa) am still in the US until next week. I am enjoying hanging out with my dad. We had a family celebration for his 80th birthday last Saturday. This Saturday evening I am going to my 40th class reunion. I hope I can recognize people, I know I have changed since 1977!

With my sisters and brothers

I can talk to Garry some nights around midnight my time, when he is starting his day. Today he walked outside to head over to the barn. He was trying to find his tractor so he could start making the cows feed for the day. He said that he heard the tractors come in late last night. Hopefully they finished planting wheat. He told me there was a little rain Thursday morning, but they only had 20 hectares to plant to be done for the year., so they should be done with more rain on the weekend. Now he has to wait until 6:30 to start making feed because its getting light later as the days get shorter.

Wednesday night he was in Kamenskya and had 17 people out for the SEI follow up meeting there. He is keeping busy with renovations to the summer kitchen house so Nelly can move in. They painted the outside to match the main house.
He told me that he went to the Zaporozhye basketball team home opener Thursday evening with Steve, after spending the afternoon working on building forms for Jessica's well housing.

Driving, a compilation

On top of a Lada

While I am away, visiting my dad in NJ, I thought I would publish this set of photos I uploaded a week ago.However I could not do it over the weekend as planned because my phone quit working, and I could not use my sister's computer because I couldn't get past the security for blogger. It wanted to send a code to my other phone which was in Ukraine! These all all recent photos taken in September, while Garry was driving places.

Just a little bumpy

Clean up crew. One guy has a broom and shovel. He'd sweep, scoop

and put in the wheelbarrow the other guy was pushing

Corn stalks in the side car

Like our first car in Ukraine

 up trucks are still rare

Parking is anywhere you can put your car

New road paving

I finallybpulled that sticker off the windshield

Sunflower checking. All combined now, Garry says

Mowing the median

Farmstand Ukrainian style

Going over the dam in Zaporozhye