Merry Christmas

We have been enjoying time at home, seeing family and friends. Last week it was the farm Christmas party and we got a family photo. This was the best one, maybe we should pick a photographer older than twelve next time.

We have been busy celebrating birthdays, Friday we drove out to Morden for our daughter's birthday party.

On Sunday we celebrated Garry's birthday while watching the Eagles game. I baked the cake in the new oven. The thermostat went in the old stove and it was burning everything so Garry went shopping earlier in the week.  Most of the family came and ate hotdogs and chips,  ice cream and cake and the Eagles won, too.

Christmas eve Garry sang in the choir at Emmanuel EFree church. He misses singing in the choir, so he got back early enough to attend 3 practices.

Christmas morning Garry went out to help with the normal hurry up and milk so we can open presents time that we have done since our kids were small. Of course there weren't more than a thousand cows to milk back then, so I guessed we could start breakfast at 9:30. They finished early though so by the time our daughter and family had arrived from Morden, most people had eaten.

We had fun with stockings and opening  presents for a couple hours. Some of kids, like grandma, have been sick. I finally went to the doctor and got antibiotics for a sinus infection  last week. It was a nice day and our kids and grandkids enjoyed the hats I crocheted for everyone. I have been working hard to finish them all in time for Christmas since I did not have a lot of time for crocheting this fall.

Meanwhile back in Ukraine the students had a Christmas celebration with Shannon and Scott in the village. Shannon made chili and they handed out the present bags I prepared before leaving last month.

Victor drove out for it and he said it took three hours to drive back to Dnepro instead of the normal 45 minutes because of the snow. 

 This morning I woke up to birthday wishes on the internet, including Valentina's voice message singing in a mixture of English and Russian. Happy birthday savoinya (today). Our children are planning a party later today to celebrate my sixtieth year.

Life in Canada

Well Garry arrived last week, tonight he'll be at his second choir practice. One of the things he misses about living in Canada is singing in the choir so he plans to sing at the Christmas eve services at Emmanuel (our home church) in Steinbach.

Right now he is off across the border to mail the Christmas cards for Americans that I finished writing last night.  The Canadian ones are ready to mail today also. Most of them go to relatives on both sides of the border. I am still trying to get over my cold, it's mostly down to a nagging cough now. I've been busy getting ready for Christmas and babysitting.

Garry tells me he's going out to cut a tree today, so I'd better continue getting ready. At least I'll have a place to stack the presents. He plans to head back right after new years day so if you want to talk or see him, make plans now!

My exciting trip to Canada

Garry will be making his flight over on Tuesday, but I came last Tuesday (the 27th) to Manitoba. It was an epic journey this time. Starting about Friday when I came down with the cold Garry had gotten in Spain. Fever, dizzy, coughing... I tried to recover in time to fly comfortably.

 I spent Saturday in bed and packing and Sunday I was feeling better and went into church in Dnepro with Garry, Scott, Shannon and the girls- Vika, Valentina, Leila and Julia. We grabbed a quick lunch at Puzata Hata, went to Lena's English school, where Garry talked about our trip to Spain and told Bible stories. We got home about 4 pm and I actually did make pizza for dinner, so we could eat it during the Eagles game.

Monday morning I awoke feeling terrible with an earache to add to my symptoms, and I was taking the evening train (5 pm) to Kiev with my suitcases to catch my 7 am flight Tuesday. Garry dropped me at the train station, I bought some water to help my sore throat, napped a little and got a hat halfway finished by the time the train got to Kiev at 11 pm. I just stuffed my little crocheting backpack of yarn and hooks into my purse instead of zipping it in the carry-on roller bag.

Which I regretted after  walking up a couple flights of stairs with my purse over my shoulder, carry-on in that hand and  big suitcase in the other, and finding my bag open, and my crochet bag gone. I walked all the way back to the train to check for it, then all the way back up without finding it.

After trying to find a policeman, I gave up and went across the road to KFC, where the door was still open but they wouldn't sell me anything. This was just as I realized my wallet was missing from my purse. Back to the train station, where I did find a policeman (even one who spoke English)  and walked back and  forth and finally to the police station, where I waited a while to file a report. The police actually escorted me back to the bus to the airport and carried my big suitcase up and down the long flights of stairs.

Luckily I keep enough grivna to take the bus in a different pocket of my bag, and my passport and resident cards in an inside pockets they didn't get into so I was off to the airport around three am. I was the first one on the bus so it waited half an hour for more people to come before taking off for the airport.

I used the toilets after going through the entry x-ray check and soon I could check in for my flight. I had taken inventory and had some US dollars in my bag, and about 2.50 in Canadian coins. It was airplane food all day until I spent my toonie in Toronto for a buddy burger.


My morning flight gave me a slice of pound cake and the big meal cross ocean I picked pasta which was not the hoped for ravioli but mac and cheese, and the pre-landing snack was a half sandwich with a tiny pudding, so I was hungry.

I was surprised to have time to get anything since we took off more than an hour late from Vienna as the snow was coming down and we had to de-ice. Landed only ten minutes late, but with taxiing and customs and rechecking my bag, and going through security I got to my gate only about ten minutes before they started loading. However there was an A&W around the corner, so I enjoyed my burger.

I got another burger meal on the way home after Micah, Crystal and Andromeda met me at the airport. So far I have replaced my bank card, and I need to get a replacement drivers licence and credit card. I had phoned one of our sons to cancel the visa while waiting at the police station.


Still feeling my cold today, the lady seated next to me on the plane did not look happy to be seated next to a coughing, sneezing, nose blowing person for eight hours.

Meanwhile Garry back in Ukraine did Thursday cooking class with the students today, they made pizza.

New irrigation system

With the success of irrigating corn, Garry and Max have decided to expand the irrigation system to include alfalfa next year. The sale of corn financed the purchase of a reel and "gun" - its like a giant garden sprinkler- and having piping put in from the irrigation line to another of our fields. Max and Artom went and picked the reel up on Thursday. They had to take the tractor to the closest village with a crane to lift it off the truck and drive it home from there. The "gun" that shoots the water was put in the old Mercedes van to come here. They can't wait until spring. With water on the hay, we can reduce the acreage in alfalfa and always have lots of good quality hay to feed the cows.




Remember this is the difference between a ear of corn grown under irrigation and one from a neighbor's field without additional water, and this year was not a really water poor year, since we had rain in July.


















See the black sealant on the grain storage shed? They had to add that this year because they were getting moisture in around the top of the cement wall that was getting the grain wet. Right now the sprayer and irrigation reel are on one side of the building, where the corn was. The other side is still piled high with sunflower seed to sell later.

They're here

We got home from Spain Tuesday afternoon at two pm and as we went out the airport customs doors in Kiev I spotted Scott and Shannon Crawford waiting for us in the lobby. They had landed about a half hour before we came with the Harder family. Welcome to Ukraine!

They had two carts full of luggage - all their bags had arrived - which they pushed as the eight of us went outside to find the van which Garry had parked in the long term parking lot. There was snow outside, it was cold compared to Spain, but not Saskatchewan, although Shannon was still wearing flip flops she'd selected for comfort on the planes from Canada.

The ride back to the village took longer than usual because as we got further into the trip, pretty much the middle 200 kilometers or more,  there was more snow on the roadsides and some snow and ice on the road (and dark- the sun had set shortly after four pm and it was the holiest section of the highways), so it was slow going to McDonalds in Kremachuk and from there until we got to Kamaskoya (Dnepropajisk ) where the roads got better. We even saw a van that had went off the road and struck a tree in someone's yard.
There was no snow in Zaporosia where we dropped off Jo and Steve and the boys. We were in the village around ten pm (no snow either) and unloaded the essentials and the Crawfords slept at our house that night.

Garry was off breeding cows already at 6:30 am Wednesday morning, and discovered that the reason he is getting so many phone calls to breed cows lately. The local vet is prostiglanding cows (giving them needles to bring them in heat) and giving people Garry's phone number. The cough he started in Spain has gotten worse since we got back, so he's not been out making feed in the mornings. That and the fact he's been taking meds for it means he's feeling pretty bad.

Wednesday around noon, we took the Crawfords shopping in Dnepro for a mattress and essential house goods so they could sleep in their new house that night. Victor took them and their purchases home in the blue van because we needed to be in Kamaskoya for our SEI follow up class there at 6:30. We had a big group out there and Garry managed to do an exercise with them from our last class we attended in Spain about values and goals. We were sorry that we had to leave after going to the Monday classes as the speaker continued on Tuesday and Wednesday after we flew out and he was very interesting.

Thursday was a slower day, although we had our first staff meeting with Scott and Shannon attending at one pm.


 Afterwards, Garry and Scott and went to see the new irrigation reel and gun that Max had gone to pick up that morning. Scott also got a bit of tour of the village.


We also went to the village store, I needed four and sugar to make cake because we were celebrating Sasha Borchuk's birthday that evening at six pm. A week late since we were in Spain last Wednesday. I think he told me he is 26 now, he told the Crawfords his name was Sonya, which is another of his nicknames. They got to meet most of the students at the party at our house, some of them introduced themselves in English, making Nellie proud. We had baked potatoes and kielbasa sandwiches before the cake and ice cream. 

Hunting for cows

Friday morning we had breakfast (Garry for the third time that day, we had coffee and buns at the coffee shop before anyone else was up and cereal at the apartment) with the Harders and Andrew, Steve's mentor, and his wife at a restaurant. I tried the cheese and onion sandwich. It was on toast with olive oil. Afterwards Garry and I took the car for a ride to find farmland and cows, the highlight of any trip for Garry.

We headed out on the highway and decided to buy a map, which showed we were on the way to Gibraltar.















We ended up parking and eating lunch there, but could not go out to the rock since we had not brought our passports for this drive. However the sight of it coming out of the fog was worth the drive.












Of course, then we were off to get inland and find farms.

We found cork trees

The only cows we found were red beef cows

That white stuff is cotton blowing around after harvest

Cow path, maybe?

Garry really wanted to find out what kind of trees these were, but the
 had been harvested already..
Not the tall one, but he'd like to find out what it  is too,

A plowed field

An estate/hotel barn with cows

We also saw orange and olive trees. Garry picked a couple wild oranges along the road but they were too sour to eat. We went through a few small towns and managed to get back to the highway with the help of the map and get back to Migas long before dark.

Almost sunset

We walked up to see the bullfighting ring before eating dinner with Jo and the boys.They do still have bullfights there.

More about Spain

We took a while to get to lunch on Wednesday because the car was not where Garry and Steve had parked at midnight the night before. They had parked between two cars on a street. Unfortunately they did not know that everyone else knew to move their car before eight am!

The boys on a donkey while we looked for the car

They talked to the tourist bureau people and found out where the car had been towed, not far but it cost 176 Euro to get it back! In cash to the police. They went back up stairs to check if giving it in cash was legit, but eventually we were on our way. The boys were excited about the first of their places they wanted to eat and we did some shopping, I got a pair of running shoes for 11 euro for all the walking we have been doing. We bought frozen stuff to cook in the oven for dinner that night at a British grocery store.


We went down to the seaside and got wet feet when a wave snuck up behind us while we were taking a selfie. There were big waves Wednesday. Garry went for a walk after we got back, and found the bullfighting ring here in Mejas.

 We discovered we had no oven that evening at dinnertime and cooked our frozen food in frying pans and the microwave. The car was parked in the one euro a day parking garage, we have been moving it every day, just in case it goes up after 24 hours.

The next morning Garry and I went for a walk and got coffee at the bakery. Confused the guy one coffee and two pastries. We watched the kids walking to school with their mothers.We were back at G42 in the morning, Steve and Jo spoke to the students about their mission experiences since they were here and perseverance. stick-to-it-ness in mission work when things don't go as planned. The students and staff prayed for them before the lunch break.

We went for lunch with Caleb (one of the interns that were in Zaporosia with the Harders this summer) and ate some real Spanish sandwiches.


After lunch we hiked around town a bit, Garry went up to the church on the hill with everyone, but I sat down on a rock for a bit, my sore knee is taking a bit of beating with all the stairs and uphill walking. They thought they could maybe see Africa from up there, but my view of the sea below was pretty good too.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the seaside. It was warmer so we went in t shirts. We walked along the path and the boys climbed up some cables attached to the walking bridge.

Nobody is worried as they go up

I was a little behind the guys

Then we walked up around an old fort. The boys got to peek in the windows. We are enjoying the palm trees and tropical plants and saw a flock of green parakeets land overhead as we climbed uphill.


There were hardly any waves. The boys got their feet wet and some seawater on their rolled up jeans before we went for fish and chips (did I say there are lots of Brits around? Mostly retired people).


The food was good, but we discovered a parking ticket when we got back to the car for 60 euros, we had not seen that it was paid parking after 4:30 pm when we parked at two. Luckily Jo found out at their friends that evening we could pay in less than 72 hours with an app and it was less than seven!

We are really careful where we park now.