Farewell

It's early Sunday morning in Manitoba,  right now Garry will be in Dnepro helping Marina with the first day of testing for this summer's English institute.

Of course,  here in Manitoba I was getting ready for going to bed Saturday night (when we talked as he was getting up Sunday morning) after a big day of cooking and hanging out with most of the family.  I had the four oldest granddaughters for a sleepover Friday night, we camped out on all the recliners in the family room.  Isaac came to play in the morning before seven (we were up at six) and had fun playing with the girls.  Mostly making mudpies, I think.  He didn't want to go home after lunch.

The guy students are enjoying a much needed day of rest today from working on installing the drip lines in the cornfields. The girl students are not milking by themselves in the afternoon or cooking lunch for the guys in the field today. Garry tells me that yesterday the girls (I  believe the two from our house) made gretshka (buckwheat)  with meat and vegetables and Friday they did farsh (ground beef) with macaroni and vegetables.  Thursday they made brotebrot (open faced sandwiches) and bought kielbasa in the village for them. Garry said he hadn't realized how much cheaper the cooked meals would be.  They do cut kielbasa thicker than I do.

They are perfecting the operation of the new irrigation equipment to water the alfalfa (thanks Victor for some photos).

Garry tells me the small cornfield is finally ready to turn on the water if Max installed the filter, he (Max) was doing some welding yesterday on that system. They will all be back at work in the big cornfield on Monday.  Garry bought more macaroni and other groceries yesterday, when he taught his last classes in Dnepro. 

The cornfields were just sprayed for weeds, if you farmers noticed the weeds in the photo. That will be it for the fields,  other than adding water and possibly some fertilizer in the water sometime this summer.  They did use more fertilizer at planting this year, so they won't have to dissolve so much in the water this year.

Garry also bought paper for the printer. The last two times I talked to him (we usually talk twice a day over the internet,  sometimes for an hour or more) the printer was going. Every time we sell milk to the milk truck we have to give the driver two sheets of printed certificates (one two sided) so we often print a pile off for Yana to keep at the barn. The week before I left, I had to buy whiteout to fix the master copies.  Some sharp eyed person had noticed the year was wrong so we had to change the 8s to 9s.

Garry tells me that they had a problem selling milk yesterday.  A month or two ago, we thought we were losing our milk truck pickup, the company was going bankrupt or something and wouldn't be buying our milk anymore.  Victor had gotten a phone call and we were scrambling to find a buyer. The guy who buys some milk to make cheese might be able to take more... then suddenly they would still pick us up, but they had a smaller truck.

At the time, they agreed that the milk company truck would pick us up one day and the cheese guy would come the next. One on odd days, one on even. So Friday was the 31st, and Saturday was June first. Two odd days in a row. No one picked up the milk, so it's a full tank to sell today!

On Thursday at the weekly staff meeting,  Nelly surprised Garry by bringing a cake. It was to say goodbye,  she had bought a train ticket to Odessa Sunday evening.  Garry had been trying to talk to her about her plans for weeks, but he'll be dropping her off in Zaporosia in a couple hours. 

So we'll be looking for a new translator for the next school year.  Hopefully we can find one who connects well with everyone, especially the students.