It's been a whirlwind of activity around us since we arrived back in the village on Friday afternoon. Hay baling was finished on Monday and Garry's brother John left on Monday afternoon on the train from Dnepro for his flight in Kiev. I have heard that he made it home to Michigan.
Tuesday morning started on a high note as Max Boradin forwarded the good news to Garry that his study visa has been renewed by Canada immigration. Garry and Victor went to the hospital with Alona in the morning to get her registered for having the baby there.
Vika put a second coat of yellow paint on the wood targets for the corn hole game that John had helped Garry make on Sunday, he even had brought blue and yellow fabric for the corn bean bags among the goodies in his suitcase. We will make more bags when we get corn, he had made four bags with beans in while visiting his step kids family the week before.
Excuse me while I find the fly swatter... thanks Don, I believe it's one you and Sandy brought us... we have ever found a decent one to buy here, they all break when you use them to swat flies. The students, especially the ones who visit don't get why I keep yelling to close the door (zacrit devair!) The girls who live here are better at door closing most of the time. Yes, killed the one on my foot!
It does not help that we have not replaced the window screen that our thieves broke before they broke a window without one... and we have always had less screens than windows that open since we moved in here in 2009. Garry opens them in the morning to cool the house off while he drinks his morning coffee.
Anyway...I have been busy with organizing stuff that has piled up while I was gone, putting away the stuff I brought back with me, working on lesson planning for teaching at SEI next month and dealing with the never-ending number of cherries and apricots that have been picked and brought in to me. Some years we have one fruit in abundance but this year trees have had overloaded branches break under the load. I have froze and canned cherries made pies and cake and started apricot jam making this evening...
after the power was restored, after it went out after the thunderstorm that hit this afternoon while the cherries were in the canner (luckily as the timer was finishing).
That was the big excitement this afternoon, Wednesday, (
technically its Thursday morning now but that's because I woke up at one am because I forget to turn on the air conditioner in our bedroom and it was so hot I woke up) the combine arrived and started harvesting wheat. Garry said that they got 3 or four trucks or wagons filled and had just got the baler in the field to start making straw bales when the thunderstorm hit.
Of course, we have been hoping for rain for the crops and it came down fast and furious for a short time. Garry tells me it went about two inches into the soil. Luckily we did not get the worst of the storm, even though there was some big thunder and lightning cracking and booming outside. Max drove the combine guys home to their village a couple miles up the highway and there the ground was covered with hail, trees were down and roofs were off houses.
Garry and all the students were out in the field or barn, so it was me and the fruit in the house. The cats both moved out for the summer, Needles occasionally comes in to eat, mostly when Alona captures him and carries him in in triumph. Box is warier, or just faster. She will come up to me in the yard, but mostly hides out.
The power blinked off and on early in the storm and then went off for a couple hours as the storm was nearing its conclusion, around the time Garry and Leila arrived home in the van from the wheat field.
Soon it was just dripping out and then over, leaving puddles everywhere.
Vika, who was today's student who worked through lunch (different girl everyday) couldn't figure out why the lights and shower wasn't working, she had attempted to use the bathroom when she returned after three pm; so she ate lunch in her bathrobe, after I warmed it up some in a frying pan on the still hot burner (electric stove) under the canner pot. Normally I take the plate of food out of the fridge and stick it in the microwave while they are showering.
Garry got some lights back on by powering up the generator, then took off when he remembered he was supposed to breed someone's cow - that happens a couple times a day normally- the cow breeding- he only sometimes forgets or is later than he told them when they called his phone.
His cell even rang while he was in Canada with unknown numbers, which is usually someone speaking in Russian with a cow to breed, trying to tell him where they live. Often he is driving into a village, thinking he is going to one place and they wave him down as he passes a different house. That happened Sunday afternoon on our way home from grocery shopping with John.
Everyone starts the conversation of where they are with -you were here- last year- last spring- the place with the big dog- or rabbits or some other thing that they think is unique, but to Garry none of these help him figure out which of the many places he's been is their place and their cow.
By the time Yana stopped in with eggs and to say that Sasha Boderenko should return the baby hedgehog to its mother by the barn, she let us know the power was back on, it took Garry a little while to get us back on the grid, the plug had melted on the generator and he had to get it out before switching back..
Right, he showed up with it after lunch for a photo op and I had put it in an empty paint/cherry bucket in the kitchen because I swear he wanted to give it to the dog when I said it should go back to its mama. Many things get lost in my lack of Russian though, because I also though he said he could it the evening.
At the time, we had a couple of the guys in the house, eating bread and jam while I stitched a gather into some too big swim shorts I brought back that are destined to be shorts for Vasa M now. He kept trying them on in the middle of the living room, with no worries about stripping down to his boxer briefs in front of the girls.
So out went the guys, all three that were hanging out. Garry was still trying to get the internet back up so he could work on his SEI lessons- this year we are both teaching- however he and Leila walked to the store to get me more sugar for the four batches of jam I was making.
I had chopped apricots by hand during the power outage. Leila and Valentina had jumped in to help so even the not as ripe ones I planned to wait on were de-pitted and chopped. The eight or ten greener ones I'd pulled out before the girls helped me were eaten by Alona and the guys when they came in. Vika and Valentina had spent some more time trying to teach me the word for pit in Russian and Ukrainian. I keep forgetting it, it's the same as cherry pit, because Vika had tried when we were pitting those on Tuesday. The vowel sound changes to an i from an ah for Ukrainian, now if I could get the rest of it and remember it. Vika loves to learn new English words, which is how I tried to say ... I forget it again!
Koas-stitch-ka...Kist-stitch-ka?
Soon Garry was back asking about shoes for Vlad while I was stirring the first batch of jam over the hot stove. Eventually, he went to find them and after the first batch was in the jars, Sasha Boderenko was back, he had five kilos of sugar for me from the far store, the closer one was closed when Garry and Leila got there.
Eventually my jam was done, with only a small splatter burn on my pinkie, Leila washed the floor for the third time today, the dishwasher was loaded for the fourth time- a record I think. Some of the girls and Garry had pie after I would not let Leila finish eating Alona's soup... but that's a story for another day. The concept of preventing catching something from someone else is hard to enforce.
Everyone went to bed on time, I think, although Valentina swept the floor after everyone but me went to their rooms. Vika put Needles back outside, he'd fallen asleep after Alona carried him in and everyone knows he yowls to go out when he wakes up in the middle of the night.
It's three am here, and I should be over jet lag! Back to bed as soon as I edit and upload some pics of the hedge hog for you.
