Crops

The sunflowers look pretty good even though we have not had any real rain this spring since planting.

The corn is getting irrigated... at least most of it... the larger field is having problems getting enough pressure to water all of it effectively. They think they will buy a pump for next year. However, it still looks better than if there was no irrigation. Saturday we got a minimal amount of rain, the thunderstorms kept going around us, so that every sunflower plant had a damp circle around them Sunday morning they were sucking dry rapidly.

Garry is still smiling about his cornfields, since they are coming out in tassel and setting cobs.

 If you are wondering about the logistics of water management, two of the guys are getting paid double wages for staying in the fields overnight and taking care of the watering and guarding the equipment. They each have a little red shed to stay in and a dog to alert them to intruders.










On Friday and Saturday Garry and the guys started baling second cut hay and there was more than they thought, when they finish today there should be about 2000 bales of lovely green hay.

Garry wants to get finished quick because the wheat is about ready to combine. Some fields along the highway were combined already when we drove to Zaporosia on the finished highway Sunday evening for groceries (repaving and the resulting dangerous traffic all on one side of the four lane highway continues toward Dnepro however).






Garry's brother John was here for the weekend before flying back home to the US tomorrow morning. Garry needs to get him to the train for five pm today. He brought some beans bags and plans for a corn-hole game. He and Garry built the targets out of leftover wood yesterday after church and lunch.
They gave it a try with Artom, who stopped in looking for an air compressor, I think.



Right now they are off with Victor to try to get Alona out of baby hospital jail (the baby is not due until September) and the hospital has
 been "running tests" for a week now. Hopefully she gets back to the village before her wedding to Nikolai happens in two weeks, when the paperwork is ready.