Crops and hammers

Garry is spending Sunday afternoon mowing the grass after going to church in the village this morning.  I planted the petunias we bought Friday afternoon in the flowerbed between us and the Crawford's house. Garry said while he was mowing, the babushka's daughter and granddaughter stopped by, hoping to see the renovations of her mom's house.  Unfortunately for them, the Crawfords are away this weekend.  Garry let them peek in the windows,  however, and they were impressed.  It's the Sunday after Easter when everyone goes to the graves of their ancestors,  so that's why they were in the village today. They hope to come back sometime in the summer.

Yesterday Garry was doing the same thing as Friday,  nailing boards on the trusses they put up with the crane on Thursday.  He says they are pretty much finished with the strapping now. He bumped his head on a corner and it bled for a while, but he kept working.

Friday morning he had the guys working on it, while I took Nelly and the girls shopping in Zaporosia for cooking class. We are going to make something on Monday from what we bought.  I brought back stuff for the guys' lunch, and put together sandwiches on big buns in the back hatch of the van for them, along with pickles, cookies and apples I bought.  Garry was hoping to keep them working in the afternoon when he had to leave for Dnepro. They did get some done, too.

Friday the power was out from around 10 am until 7 pm. They were trying to find a problem,  because there was a short on the line. Garry was surprised to find out our barn did not have electricity still Saturday morning,  they were milking with the generator.  The power company guys had decided that the problem must be us, and had cut the line from the village and said they'd return on Monday.  Victor and Federer (the official farm business manager) called the electric company until they came out Saturday afternoon. They then decided it was a broken insulator on the line, but they didn't have one in the truck to fix it. around five o'clock.  Garry was relieved that the power was back on when he checked later that evening before  milking time.

Yesterday it was a smaller crew up on the roof, with Max Rudei and his older brother, who is visiting for the weekend, their baby brother Artom - when he was not on a tractor, along with Kolya, Vasa, and Nikolai. I put together a quick lunch of rice and stew for them and the girls.
Somehow I ended up eating a couple eggs for lunch, there wasn't any left for me after Artom came to the barn at lunchtime.  I had held back some when I made 6 bowls, but number 7 took all of it, and Inna and Leila had finished what I put out on the table, when I got home. Oh well,  the eggs were fine.

Crops, that's right, I titled this post Crops and... hammers. Garry said he was so tired and sore by the time they were finished,  he could hardly hold a hammer.

This week, there's a constant noise of tractors going past as most of the farmers are planting and spraying their fields.  Since ours is all done, Max has gotten some custom work, early in the week they planted sunflowers,  and did some spraying for other farmers.

Thursday morning I took a photo with my cellphone from the car while we were driving past one of the first sunflower fields the guys planted and you can see the rows in it. Garry checked it this morning and he says they have another set of leaves and are already turning to follow the sun.

Here they are now, we even got out of the car.

Friday afternoon Garry was teaching English while I was shopping in Dnepro (that's right, I grocery shopped twice in one day) and on the way I took photos of all the yellow fields.

That winter canola is blooming now. Last year after they paved the highway, they took dirt off the sides to fill the median strip, and there must have been canola seed in it because it looks like we're driving between canola fields, as you can see in the photo above,  it's so tall and yellow (and the car is so low to the ground.)

Last night Kolya (#11) had a football game.  He plays on the village soccer team, and we went to watch it. We ended up sitting in the van for most of the game, because the mosquitoes were biting.  Unfortunately they lost, on a goal scored near the end of the game,  1-0.

Before the game, and at halftime, all the kids at the game were running around in the middle of the field kicking balls,  while the players warmed up.

 I got some photos of them putting up one of the nets. These are still the nets the Steinbach guys brought a couple years ago, that we gave to Kolya's team.

We were early for the game, even though we checked out one of the corn fields first. Here's a photo.  Or two, the corn is up and you can row it if you're close enough.

Here's the winter wheat, on photo from last week when Garry pulled some to show off at the picnic and him standing in one of the fields today.

Here's the alfalfa and the new seeding with the oats, peas and alfalfa,  too.

Oh, and here's the petunias.