Sunday, Monday

Yesterday morning  Garry and I met Max at Yana's  house to see what they are going to do there in the next two weeks. Yana is our barn manager. She has been milking our cows since we first started milking in 2010, and now takes care of supervising  the students while working with them in the barn.

She bought half of a house a number of years ago in the village and moved out of the summer kitchen.  However the place never had any renovations done, so she has spent a large amount each winter paying for gas to heat the place (gas prices have skyrocketed over the last five years).  There is no running water, no indoor toilet, and the electricity is substandard ( Ukrainian knob and tube) but Garry has finally talked her into fixing it up.

The baby goats were warm
in the house (brick floor here)

Old style wood heater/stove 

 Current entry has gas stove
 and heater

Max and Garry walked through the house and made a plan. It has new windows,  but they  will insulate it inside and out, add indoor plumbing and new wiring, build new interior walls to make bathroom, an actual kitchen, a small bedroom bedroom and a living room, plus add on a new entryway. Garry plans to get as much done as possible before Jack's team from Salmon Arm arrives next week.

Afterwards we went to church in the village.  Pastor Ivan is still in the hospital so the Pentecostal guys preached again this week.  We fillled one row between  us, Nelly and the students in attendance -- the girls who live with us and Dima and Julia. I snapped a couple photos.

 After church we had soup with the girls. They went off around two for their Sunday afternoon youth meeting at the guys house They meet there until warmer weather,  when they meet outside. Andrey Spak comes from Zaporosia to lead it, he's building a place in the village, so in the summer they meet in his yard.

 We discovered that we had crocuses blooming Sunday after church, and the bees had found them.

Garry and I drove to Zaporosia to pick up some supplies for the rafters he's making for the heifer barn they will build this spring.  He wanted to test out several types of glue. This morning he decided that one worked well, so he'll buy more when he gets back to rafter building. He's been cutting boards into pieces for the rafters in the "hanger" (quonset shed.)

We got caught in a rainstorm as we made the trip and unfortunately we had driven the van there, and the wipers aren't working.  I don't know how Garry was able to see, but we arrived home safely in time for me to make pizza dough.  Garry was busy drawing up plans for Yana's house while I made pizza.

This morning after English class, Garry got a group of students busy cleaning out Yana's house, while two of the boys helped Victor with the bees. Five of the hives made it through the winter (we lost half of the bees this winter) so Victor needed to do some things to help out the weaker hives. Two of them have few bees left, while three are in good shape.

Around 10:30 Garry came in and asked if I could make soup for like 20 people.  I did get it made with stuff from the fridge and freezer, it turned into chicken vegetable with animal shaped noodles. Turned out there was just 15 for lunch, so only ten more than normal. A couple students had seconds or even thirds on soup. Nelly had been helping work at the house, so she joined us, along with Victor.

After I got the dishwasher going I walked over and took some photos. Some of the students were off doing afternoon milking at one, but the remaining crew were busy, digging a septic system, and cleaning up.  They got it all cleaned out and took down interior walls today. Tomorrow Garry wants to get the plumbing roughed in.

Nelly taking and Vova was working too.

We got a little more rain later in the afternoon,  but they were pretty much done for the day.