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.