Adventures in irrigation

Garry and the guys continue to work on the irrigation.  Still experimenting with the reel. So far this week, either the water company turns off the water when they get it going on the alfalfa field or it doesn't do what they expect. They got a lot of water on some parts of the field, they're still working on calibrating the equipment to get the amount they need. They thought it was going to shut off when the hose was fully extended but it didn't one time. 

Meanwhile work continues on getting the drip lines attached to the lay flat hoses in the corn fields.  Garry was hoping to get the water going on the small corn field today when I talked to him last night- his Thursday morning. That field is ready now.

 Plus he planned to get some guys working on getting the other field's connections together. Two of the guys have trouble doing it, they can't remember all the steps to get them attached correctly to the layflat hose, so they pull apart when they think they're done.

He told me a prospective new student came on Monday,  he'd gotten kicked out of trade school or something.  He had a tour of the program with Kolya,  and refused to set foot in the barn. Tuesday morning they took him out to the cornfield to help with the water lines and he refused to do that, walked back to Vova's, collected his stuff and walked out to the highway to catch a bus back to the city.

Here in Manitoba I am busy with some grandkid sitting and cleaning up my flowerbeds.  The rocks keep the dogs from digging holes.

Water

While St Labre, Manitoba was wet Sunday (it poured all morning when we went to church in Piney, and I took this photo at 9 pm), Garry did not get his hoped for thunderstorm yesterday.  However on Monday morning the guy did come to show them how to operate the reel and "gun" to water the alfalfa.

Unfortunately the water company turned the water off shortly after that, but it was supposed to be back on at midnight.  He told me that they would start attaching the big lay flat hoses to the little plastic drip lines so they can water the corn fields this week. The old hoses won't take too long to get ready, but the new field will need to have the holes punched in the hose and the connections put in before attaching the lines. Everyone will be happy when the job is done.

Garry did put up some photos of the turkeys and goslings in the cage he built them so they can spend the days outside.

Garry did not get much of the field watered yet. He said there was a three meter section of hose that was not very good that joined the reel to the pipe,  it blew apart under pressure.  They were supposed to have a new piece to replace it by eight o'clock,  and they would try again.

Here and there again

I am writing from Manitoba today, I left Ukraine Wednesday afternoon and arrived later Thursday afternoon to a beautiful Manitoba spring day.  I ended up in London a little longer than planned but made my connection in Toronto.  Manitoba weather was a real change from Ukraine where its been getting rather hot.

Garry and I never did get out to take some crop photos before I left, but he put some up on Facebook today so I could put some in the blogpost.

 On Tuesday we drove down to Molachansk to buy more semen, Garry had run out and had been having to tell people he couldn't come breed their cows when they phoned him. Two ladies from the office filled the tank with liquid nitrogen after making a funnel by cutting  the top off a 5 liter water bottle.

As soon as we got back, five hours later, at 6 pm,  I  made pizza and we had the cake I made in the morning to celebrate Alona's birthday.  She was delighted with her present, a new beading kit to do.

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Friday was rainy here and its raining again this morning. I have seen about half of the grandkids and kids so far. Plan to see the rest sometime today.

Garry is hoping for a big thunderstorm in Ukraine but so far they are missing Nikoliapolia.  He says they have had a bit of light rain, but no significant rainfall. He had to run home during church in the village today because it started to rain and he had the baby turkeys and geese in the wire cage he built them so they can spend the days outside.  He put a piece of plywood over it to keep them dry. He puts them inside at night with the heat lamp on though. He has promised me a photo of his cage,  but none have appeared yet.

Monday someone is supposed to be out to the village to show them how to operate the new irrigation equipment that they bought so they can irrigate the hayfield.  This week the guys have been busy putting driplines down in the cornfields. Garry says you can see it in the photo he took. See the black lines crossing the rows?

They may have to get irrigation going on the corn if the big thunderstorm doesn't come. The sunflowers won't have irrigation but are off to a great start with the rain we had earlier.  They are so big now they may not need a second dose of weed spray, they may grow so fast that they shade the weeds out.

The wheat fields look good too. As you can see the grain heads are forming.

Even more exciting,  they were able to move some heifers into the new barn on Saturday.  Garry says that they still have some welding to finish before using the second side of the barn, but it should be ready soon. 

Garry says that they ran out of coffee mugs today. He realized that no one could run the dishwasher and they were all in there dirty. Two days ago, only two of the three electric phases were working in the house, and it's not fixed yet. Sounds like the same phase that went out when a car hit the pole in front of the house when the team was here last year, which means that the oven, most of the livingroom and kitchen outlets and everything in the big front bedroom where the girls sleep are not working. Garry ran an extension cord to the dishwasher to clean the dishes today. Hopefully the power is fixed soon.

Hay days

The last post I finished showed Garry mowing down hay. On Thursday the guys started baling. In fact, two balers were going in the field, Max drove our baler and his wife's cousin Dima drove his, with some boys on each wagon to load up bales.

It wasn't dry enough to start until almost 5 pm, but the guys filled some wagons. Max had borrowed several so they had six.

Friday morning they needed to unload the wagons so they could bale more hay. Garry unloaded wagons while the boys stacked them. It's the sixth year for this field Garry tells me. It's still got a pretty good stand of alfalfa,  although thinner in the middle.

Valentina 

Friday morning I did my last cooking class after they had English with Nelly.  Victor had bee class the morning before, but I had only girls because the guys were working.

Oksana chopped garlic and onions
while Inna and Leila played pingpong 

We made Sloppy Joe's at the classroom (thanks Jeremy for fixing the electric so it stays on) , the girls all got a sample at the end of class, except for Inna,  who wanted just bread. The boys got to try some when I brought lunch out to the field.  They actually ate theirs on top of a bowl of gretshka (buckwheat) with bread and pickles on the side.

Garry was mowing down the newer alfalfa field, so it would be ready to bale on Monday.  He got a side salad because I picked some spinach and pulled some radishes in the garden.  Leila and Valentina enjoyed the salad, too. Inna doesn't like vegetables,  but loves the gretshka, which was why I cooked it.

Inna had announced on Thursday that she wanted to go back to Kirvoy Rog to work. We were surprised as she seemed to like being here, and really enjoyed hanging out with Alona and the baby. Vasa Mazhara decided that he'd go too. They left early Saturday morning.

As part of my getting ready to go to Canada,  I was scrubbing the living room rug outside on the grass, with hot water, dish soap and vinegar. Happy had more than one accident on it and it smelled.  I had to run over to the barn at one point because a couple heifers escaped and I was hoping to keep them out of the garden. I fed them a bale and gave them water (which did not keep two more from escaping two hours later.)

We really need to get them into the new barn, which is closer to being done. The ran water lines underground and Max got more welding done. Hopefully with the hay done, it will be finished soon.

Progress

 I also worked on watering and planting,  because Garry and I had purchased some perennials at the market that morning.

Meanwhile,  everyone else was busy haying. Garry had to teach English on Saturday,  but helped unload three wagons before leaving.  Ironically I went with him for the day, since I wanted to get some groceries,  because even though we were going to Dnepro on Sunday,  I wouldn't have time to shop then. I found several things I was looking for. It was really hot 28 celcius,  with a nice wind blowing.

 On the way home we tried to buy a heat lamp bulb but couldn't find one for our baby birds. However we bought two incandescent 150 watt bulbs to keep them warm. I  had only the goslings out there Friday night when the bulb blew, and they were okay,  but the turkeys need more heat. Which is why we got a spare bulb. I hope to have them acclimated by Wednesday when I leave. Tonight they all stayed out in the box in the cheese room for the first time.  I had been bringing two or three in for a warmer individual overnight stay in the spare room, then moving them back with the goslings in the mornings.

Sunday morning,  Garry came in the house a half hour before we were supposed to leave for church in Dnepro and asked if I could do it myself. The hot windy day had dried the hay faster than planned and he said  the students were exhausted, so he wanted to stay in the village.
I had to drop Nelly and Max's mother at Central Baptist and then go to Morningstar with Leila (who was torn when she realized that they were doing hay, she's the only girl who helps with bales). Valentina had gone into Dnepro Saturday as she often does when not working to visit and go to the youth church on Saturday night.  All the driving went okay, I even told Garry's planned Bible story about Moses wandering in the desert for Lena's English school.

Sunday evening the Crawfords had invited students and staff for a hot dog roast, and  the students still here were all there, plus us and Nelly.  There were marshmallows toasted too.

Monday the guys and Leila were back at work haying. Garry came in at ten and asked if I could drive Valentina and Nelly into Dnepro,  apparently Valentina had found a possible job there. As I said,  everyone wants to work in the city, we have less students every week it seems. Valentina can start work, it seems to be same job the others got, but there is no room in the dorm, so she came home with us for now. She is calling people she knows in Dnepro looking for a place to stay.

Although when I got back to the village, four hours later, a former student had turned up and was unloading wagons with the rest.  Vasa (not Mazhara) a real surprise.

Vasa is in the red shirt

The hay shed at the new farm is full

That's Leila lifting bales

They filled the hay shed so they started putting them in the old barn later in the afternoon.
Garry fed them lunch and finished the day with coke and ice cream for his workers.

Not him, he's five months pop free. He had cold water with mint leaves.

Rain and growing things

 Saturday evening we arrived back in the village after Garry taught English in Dnepro.  He had gotten the guys started on putting the steel on the roof that morning.  Max was going to help them, but he was busy fixing the milk pump (the one that pumps milk from the tank into the milk truck.  When I drove to tell him we needed to leave soon at nine am, Max was still working on it,  since the milk truck would arrive any minute.  He was going to work with the students as soon as possible. 

As we drove into the village,  Garry headed right to the barn to see how they made out. He told me he hoped that they had gotten half done with the steel on the roof.  I told him he'd be lucky if they had finished a third. We were both surprised,  they had finished it all. Max said he did all the screwing while the guys (and some of the girls) moved the metal from the pile up to the roof. He said  he kept them working until 3 o'clock,  and then it rained for ten minutes just as they were putting the last sheets up.


Now we are waiting on the plastic for the front of the barn, and they need to get all the gates up to make two pens (which means Max needs to weld a lot) and finally move some heifers in the new barn.

Sunday Max saw that Artom had not noticed that the planter wasn't planting sunflowers for six passes in one field,  so Artom had to get the corn planter he put away on Saturday back out to plant that piece. Max has been spraying sunflower fields for weeds. The fields that were planted earlier have turned very green. The rain showers we've been getting mean that after this the sunflower plants should take off and shade out any future weed growth in the fields.

Leila trying the new lawnmower 

 Garry and I went to Zaporosia and bought a new push  lawnmower Monday morning.  We ended up with a cheaper option than some we looked at, but when we got it home Garry was excited to discover this model has rear wheel drive.  The old one is still working,  but not running really well.

On the way out to the highway we saw that Max had just helped unload the bagger for the new brewers grain we are buying and going to bag up to use all year. This is leftover wet grains from making kavas,  a popular summer drink in Ukraine, and there is a lot of rye grain in it, its higher in fat than the regular kind of brewers grain we have been using that is a byproduct of beer production.

Garry says delivery on the small truck loads we got of the regular stuff weekly had risen dramatically this year, more than tripled, which was one of the reasons why they decided to try the new stuff, along with the analysis the salesman showed him with the high fat content.  Garry tells me that moving the new stuff in the skid steer to mix feed makes the bucket slippery inside.

Garry has been feeding quite a lot of it since buying the first load a couple weeks ago.  With hay,  corn silage and straw supplies running low, he has been feeding just seven bales of hay a day in the milk cows TMR mix. The dry cows and big heifers are getting a mix of straw and this wet kavas grains to eat.

Garry has decided to mow hay. Sunday he said if it keeps raining they would just make silage out of it if they can't bale first cut. He went out with the haybine Sunday afternoon but only got around the field once before he got rained out. The shower didn't last long, so Monday around noon he tried again.

He had checked the weather forecast and decided that the thunderstorms would stay east of us. Around four o'clock it was pouring out and he came home. At least this time he got some mowed down.

We have dry summers here, but often when they are trying to make first cut hay we get into a week or two of showers.  Great for the crops coming up and to grow second cut hay, but it's hard to bale nice dry hay.

 We stopped at the vet-tenka in Zaporosia and got some flea stuff to put on the dogs and cats. Bear and Happy got their doses on Monday afternoon and I got the stuff we bought for Bear's eye infection in the first time (it was trickier to get him to stand still for the second dose, he got a little extra in that time, it was more like an eye wash than four drops). I'll have to put the flea repellent on Box and Needles the next time they come in the house.  With the weather in the 20s,  (70s F) Box has decided to join Needles outside more.

We forgot to buy another heat lamp bulb so the baby turkeys are still in a box in the spare bedroom (there's room with the corn and sunflower seed bags gone). We got six live turkeys from our thirty eggs Garry bought.  Ten tried to hatch, but not all made it out of the shells. Garry ended up helping some.

I had tried moving the oldest four and the three goslings to the box the chicks were in before,  we set it up Sunday afternoon in the little laboratory part of the cheese room but the heat lamp bulb died, and Garry could only buy a 100 watt incandescent bulb in the village.  I checked on them about ten o'clock that night, and the goslings looked warm enough but not the turkeys,  so I carried them back to join the weaker two birds under the desk lamp in the house.

The geese are very happy out there, although the big dark one keeps trying to jump out last night, so I gave them some grass to play with/eat. Garry had bought three goose eggs and all three hatched. Looks like we'll have two white ones and the big guy that hatched first will be some version of gray, I think. 

The sun is shining this morning,  so Garry must be planning to mow more hay. I might do some more yardwork, I've been cleaning up flower beds and organizing the house before I leave for Canada next week. 

I'm looking forward to seeing all the grandkids in person, and holding our new grandbaby. I got to talk to some of them online for Mother's Day on Sunday.

Staff retreat and new babies

Tuesday morning we woke up to the news that our new granddaughter had arrived while we were sleeping.  Isaac and Eli have a little sister, Adeline, born 16 days early, and weighing in at 8 lbs, 15 oz.

Tuesday after lunch we left Kolya in charge and the entire staff left for a staff retreat. I had been busy planning meals, Victor found speakers, Garry and Victor had checked out the hotel complex a couple weeks ago.

We had the Crawfords, Nelly and all my bags of food supplies in the van, then stopped at Yana's where we picked up her and Vova,  who had been making last minute arrangements for their animal care (somehow Yana didn't realize we were leaving at 12:30). Max drove his family, Yulia and the kids, and Victor drove the speakers out from Dnepro.

We arrived a little later than we had hoped,  so the afternoon session started an hour later than planned but we discovered that the speakers were great, and I had dinner prepped so we could eat as soon as the meeting ended. Sloppy Joe's and potato salad with a chocolate cherry dessert.

It was the only sunny warm day of the retreat. We had met on a floating covered platform and ate dinner there and some of the group played games until the mosquitoes chased them in. Garry learned a new game called Fermer (Farmer) that I had brought but we've never played.

It rained overnight (and a couple times during the day Wednesday) but Garry and Victor had booked a cabin for the two meetings that day. We headed there after breakfast at the cafe (breakfast was included with the price of the rooms).

The decor was interesting and so were the sessions,  we learned a lot about child development and how living in the orphanage system affects development.  We had some interesting exercises to do,  not just lectures.  Jenya and Ira would take turns presenting the material in English, but write in Russian and the other one translating the material for our non English speakers. The first day Victor did some translating,  but it worked better when they did it because they know the material.  They had never done it in English before,  but did an excellent job.

Lunch was ready to dish up quickly again, back on the tables on the platform on the water. We had ham from the crockpot and salads I had mixed up in the morning.  Because the rooms had a fridge and a sink, but no way to cook, I had precooked some stuff and chopped and mixed. After lunch there was a two hour break, some people enjoyed a walk, since the rain had stopped,  while I did some dinner prep, and a little crocheting.

We met back in the room of stuffed animals for two more hours from four to six. Then we headed back to where we had lunch, Garry and the guys cooked shaslik on a grill while I finished up the coleslaw and macaroni salads.

There were another couple rounds of Fermer while I was washing up the dishes. I had brought silverware and plastic plates and cups, and really enjoyed washing them myself. The girls at our house are so helpful that it was nice not to have any one underfoot for a couple of days! I went out with my crocheting but the mosquitoes were pretty bad after dark. Only Garry,  Max and Yana were still playing Fermer,  and they came in pretty fast after that last game.

Thursday morning Max's five year old daughter Vika wanted a photo with the taxidermy wolf upstairs where we ate breakfast,  so I took one, she did the pose herself.  When Max had told her that we were going to the forest, she had said it was not a good idea, there could be wolves.  He told her there wouldn't be any,  but...
there was this one.


Thursday morning it started to rain while we were at breakfast,  and it was really coming down by the time Victor arrived from Dnepro (he drove in both mornings while everyone else stayed. We ran back to our rooms.  Because of the rain we decided to meet in the Crawfords main room while ours was set up for lunch, just make your own subs with chips and brownies this time.

By the time the meeting wound up, it was twenty to twelve, checkout time, so everyone either came to eat and packed up or packed up and then came to eat. The guys started taking stuff out to the cars in the bikes with baskets and it was raining a bit yet. Our presenters wanted a group photo so the manager took some for us. You can see everyone but Nelly well.

When we got to the parking lot, we discovered that the mission car was parked in a big puddle so Victor used one of the bikes to keep his feet dry, and backed up so that Jenya and Ira could load their stuff up.

Garry was disappointed that the road was dry when we got to Dnepro on the way home to the village.  However when we were almost back, it started to rain, and we got a good soaking after we got the van unloaded, so he was happy.

Our turkey eggs in the incubator were due to start hatching on Thursday,  our son Luke's 28th birthday,  and the day we were getting back. A couple had peep holes starting and one hatched overnight.

 Later Friday a second one emerged, and it's after midnight so I'll see if the third one is finally out and ready to join his buddies, I hear chirping from the living room.  These two are under a light in our room for now.