Almost done and getting started

The combine guy was back at it today after the latest rain delay. Garry was hoping he'd finish today,  but he didn't quite finish. The problem is the wheat is too good, so he's combining half the speed he was last year. Tomorrow the forecast is calling for rain, more in Dnepro (where we'll be in day one of Summer English Institute), less for the Zaporosia forecast (and we really are closer to Zaporosia), so we'll see what happens.  Maybe they will be able to get done before it gets wet again. Some have it raining tonight,  some for the morning.  The Dnepro forecast has dropped from three inches to one in the last 12 hours. But remember that rain is always good, it saves us money because we don't have to buy water for the cornfields. Of course, ideally it wouldn't rain until the combine has finished the wheat harvest!

Our corn is looking good as you saw in yesterday's post, but the former vegetable farmer whose been growing irrigated corn for the last couple years had some of his go down when we had the thunderstorms on Tuesday.  It's right next to the old alfalfa field. 

Neighboring field 

The storm had a good deal of wind with the rain. A few miles away there was hail during an earlier storm while Victor was driving home from the village.  We were driving home from Dnepro around 9:30 in the car and I took this video.

the video took way too long to upload, believe me it was dark, raining hard and you could feelthe wind was blowing us on the road and we were in the car, which picks up less wind than the van. Plus lightning streaking across the sky. 

So we'll be in Dnepro for every  day almost for the next three weeks,  teaching English.  This year I'm teaching youth (12 to 15 year olds) and Garry is teaching adults (16 and over).

A side note from last Tuesday afternoon's post, it turned out the North Americans we met at the hotel for breakfast that Garry assumed were our afternoon tour group were not the group that showed up here that afternoon.  Thanks to the Mennonite group with the Dutch leader for the gift for the ministry.  

Here's the truck being loaded with wheat to sell. Nubalon is the name of the company that buys our wheat.  It buys a lot of the wheat and sunflowers sold in Ukraine. Max is putting some long days in staying up most of the night loading the truck and then getting up in a couple hours to load it again so it can be on the road before ten am.