What's going on

Garry tells me that fourth cut hay is done,  they got about the same amount as third cut, and it's mostly up in the mow. They started it earlier this week after covering the corn silage pile. 

 I heard that yesterday he had to round up some of the guys to unload a wagon of hay, because the farmer knocking on the door wanted his wagon back, Max had borrowed several, because there were six to unload, and that one wasn't empty yet.

The sunflowers are all combined,  they are looking for a buyer now. Everytime I see Garry on video chat, I tell him he should get a haircut before coming to Canada.  He keeps saying he's going to the city that day and will get one, but it never happened. Today he finally got one.

The reason he went to Zaporosia?  Oksana went into labor and he drove her in to the hospital.  Baby Mazhara arrived August 31st around noontime.  No other details,  and poor Kolya could not get in to see her and the baby when Garry drove him and his brother in after afternoon milking.  They said visitors (including the
 father) had to have a chest xray to go in. The first day they said you could get the xray was Monday and they say they can come home Tuesday! Garry doesn't know the weight,  but he thinks his name will be Mafew or Matthew in English. 

He'll share his birthday with Sasha Boderenko,  who was 22 today. Garry baked a chocolate cake in the evening,  and I video hunted some clothes in my stash with him for a present.  No photo of any of these exciting things,  but I'm sure baby photos will come next week. 

Here and there... again

I made it to Manitoba without any problems Tuesday. No problem at the train station in Kiev, at the airports,  except for tummy problems in Denver,  just before my final flight. It did seem a shame to fly about directly over Winnipeg and the farm hours before flying back.

I had a nice time chatting with Victor's daughter Dasha before flying from Borispol to Munich,  where her flight left much earlier than mine. However, unfortunately she got major delayed in Chicago before getting to her destination.

Micah, Crystal  and Andromeda met me at the airport in Winnipeg just after nine pm.  You'd think I'd sleep in the next morning,  but I was up at four am. Of course five hours of sleep seemed plenty after a couple airplane and train seat naps over two days.

I saw more of the kids and grandkids and Max Boradin at home yesterday.  Did a bit of cleaning with Max's help,  too. Today will be more of the same, planning to watch the guys play softball tonight,  and weed my flowerbed. Tomorrow it's out to Morden for corn and apple (festival) and hopefully picking up my car, if Jessica's is finished being repaired from hail damage.  If not I may be out there until Tuesday.

I've  talked to Garry a couple times already. On Tuesday he drove a couple students in to see Alona and the baby at the hospital,  because it was Danil's first birthday.  He left them there while he drove across the bridge to see our friend Marina for a few minutes and he got stuck in a huge traffic jam again going back across the bridge.  He'd told the students he'd be gone an hour, and it took three. However, he looked through the glovebox while he wasn't moving and found his bank card he'd lost two weeks ago. That will come in handy since mine is here with me.

Unfortunately the washing machine that we picked up on the way to the train station Monday afternoon didn't want to start. It had gone in for repairs last week and has running out of work clothes. While I was typing that, I remembered the washer doesn't turn lights on until you turn the dial around to reset it. Luckily Garry did turn it this morning before taking it to Dnepro again. Clothes were washed.

He said they finished chopping the smaller corn field on Tuesday,  and Wednesday he and the guys were busy pulling up the little dripline tubes in that field. They were a third done Wednesday,  and as of the end of Thursday,  they had 3/4 of the field done. Meanwhile the other guys took the chopper to the big cornfield.

They had their first day without a breakdown (it's been mostly small things but all six days they had to stop for a while to fix the machine) but were going around the headland all day. They filled three wagons each time around.  Max says the high end of the field is not as good as the bottom,  but it's better than last year. He says that in two or three more days there will be enough in the bunk, and they'll let the rest of the field dry down and harvest it as grain this fall.

He's combining more sunflower fields so they'll be selling that crop soon. They are going in the shed for now. The first two fields were only 7 or 8% moisture, but the fields planted a week later were more like 14%, so they waited a couple days for them to dry a bit more. It's been over 35 celcius (90s F) this week, so that will happen fast.  The plan is that early sunflowers should bring a higher price because there are a lot of sunflower fields around this year.  Not a spectacular crop, but all the fields (this year we have a lot of smaller fields planted in sunflowers,  the big fields were in wheat) but no bad fields,  either. The rain came just a little late, we think, but it helped some.

On Tuesday Alona told Garry that Danil might come home Friday according to the doctor.  However,  they needed the space,  so Garry got to pick them up Thursday.  They were having a watermelon eating session at 8 pm,  when I called about the washer.  Leila, Valentina,  Julia,  Dima and Sasha Boderenko, who finally returned (he's been coming back for months according to his phone calls).

Sunday

It's Sunday night,  eleven pm,  and this time tomorrow I'll be in Kiev,  just getting off the train and heading to the airport (hopefully with all my things) for my flight to Munich at 6 am Tuesday.  Victor's daughter Dasha will be on the same flight,  but she is going through Chicago to her destination while I will, strangely enough,  be going to Denver to get to Winnipeg.

Today was as busy as any other day. I made pancakes for breakfast,  not too many because only Leila and her stuffed dogs were home. Valentina had headed out to Dnepro early to go to Central Baptist with her friends.

Old and new Muktar

We went to church in the village (most of Morningstar church is off to camp still) and sang lots of songs and tried to follow where they were reading in the Bible.  It's a bit tricky without  a translator.  Leila and her dogs walked to church with us too. The ladies even said hello to Muktar (her favorite) as we came in. However,  Garry's Russian is good enough to promise one of the ladies a loan because she's going into hospital this week.  At least she isn't having a gall bladder operation,  last year we got to see the gall stones after the service, after helping out with another ladies operation.  

We planned to  take Nikolai and visit Alona and little Danil at the hospital after lunch, but Garry went out at one to drive the chopper.  There's still a lot to chop, it's slow going with the old machine,  they have had to stop and fix something at least once every day.

At five Max took over and we drove into Zaporosia with Nikolai.  Valentina was just walking into the village as we were going out.
Amazingly Sunday morning,  the truck was back and filled some of the holes on main street in the village.  Now it's possible to miss the ones left. The Crawfords won't believe it when they get back in a couple weeks.

When we got to the hospital,  Alona and the baby got to come outside with us. We left Nikolai there and headed over to buy some stuff at  Nova Lenya. Since Julia and Dima got back two weeks ago,  he's been working on repairs at the barn, and he wanted some electric wire, among other things.  They also needed a new shovel over there. Garry went to get that stuff while I found some Pampers and baby wipes (store brand, but all disposable diapers are called Pampers here) for Alona to use at the hospital.

We got some Sharma to eat and headed back to drop off the diapers and pick up Nikolai.  The car wouldn't turn over after he helped her back upstairs with the baby, with the diapers and a little more cash for medicine tomorrow.

Luckily the hospital is on a  hill,  so Nikolai and I didn't have to push too much before it started. We might need a new battery for the little car.

One more stop, or two actually, before we got a bankomat that would give us the amount needed for the loan.  We didn't stop the motor until we parked in the driveway.  The sun was setting as we drove into the village.

Nikolai asked about the shovel,  so he took that. We drove to the barn to check the corn silage pile. Still a lot to chop yet, this year Garry wants to fill the bunk.

Garry had gotten a phone call about breeding a cow while we were still in Zaporosia,  so he headed off in the van to do that, after giving the money to the lady, who was waiting with her granddaughter at the end of the driveway when we got home. Hopefully this improves her health,  she was in hospital earlier this summer.

Saturday

Today was rather busy. Garry was out early to move the first wagon of corn silage before making feed. They have two shifts for silage making Max and Andrey (remember the little Andrey who sold brewers grain to the neighbors eight years ago? He's 23) start at six am, Artom and Vlad take over at noon.  Andrey was a little late this morning,  or they changed it up. They only got five loads done by noon, due to a few problems.  Something fell off the chopper and they were searching for it when Garry went out to the field at ten to see if there was a problem since no wagons were arriving to unload.  He said he organized a systematical search and the part was found. Then they had to fix a flat tire on one of the wagons.

At that point, Garry still had to make feed for the heifers and dry cows,  but there was a flat tire on the skidsteer(bobcat) He got it off and in the van, and came in to change his clothes around eleven.

 On a normal day, Garry goes out to make feed at 6 am after coffee and checking the news online. Then he's back for breakfast sometime between eight and nine, depending on what is happening that morning.  This morning he never made it back for breakfast.

He asked me if I'd like to Zaporosia for lunch. He wanted me to get some cash at the ATM or bankomat so he could pay the students the rest of their wages.  Yesterday at pizza night they got only part of their pay.

We dropped off the tire at a shinomontazh, and proceeded across the dam bridge,  which wasn't too backed up with the construction that's ongoing this summer.  We had lunch at McDonald's,  where we discovered a couple blocks of the main street blocked off (see photo) and got cash at the second try at a bankomat (first one didn't have enough cash) the picked up the fixed tire (it had a nail in). I got some photos of the work on the bridge.

We were surprised and pleased to discover that there was a truck filling the holes on the road from the village to the highway with a chip and tar surface.  It was getting worse and hard to miss the many holes. Now if the holes in the main street of the village would get filled,  we'd have it made.

Garry went out to finish making feed, and came back around three with the news that they were combining the sunflowers by the highway this afternoon.  A little sooner than I thought yesterday!

I got a photo around four thirty on our way to Dnepro,  where we met up with Jack,  whose heading off to another VBS camp in Kramatorsk,  and picked up Kolya Mazhara after he helped Jack and Adam with the one this week.  Garry wanted Jack to look at the Morningstar church house, for ideas on the project. Garry wants to organize building teams for spring 2020 to build an addition to make a large meeting room. Jack would like to help remodel a small house in the village for Kolya and family,  so maybe there will be two builds again next spring.

Then we drove back to the village, dropped  off Kolya around seven, paid a few more guys the rest of their wages (not everyone caught Garry earlier in the afternoon) and saw a wagon of corn silage coming up the street through the village cows heading home for the night. We finally got to bed early... like eight pm.

Tomorrow,  church and a trip to Zaporosia with Nikolai to see Alona and Danil at the hospital,  and who knows what else.

Silage making, and other things

It turned out that the farmer who was getting the custom operator to make his silage is still waiting for them to arrive two weeks later, so the guys started getting ready to use the old chopper at the beginning of the week. It took a few days, mostly getting the wagons ready to use. They took the metal side off one this spring over by the barn, and when they went to put it back on a couple weeks later,  it was gone. Max had to make(weld) a new one. First they had to buy a long piece of metal to make it, so Garry went to Zaporosia on Monday to get it with the two back seats out of the van. He took Oksana to her prenatal checkup at the hospital at the same time, so it took a couple hours. She's due in about an month now, last week she had to go in twice and Kolya Mazhara was working.  Garry took her one day, but the second day she went by marschutcha alone, and got on the wrong bus after leaving the hospital and got lost, walked for miles (she had taken the wrong phone and couldn't call). She found  the mall finally and borrowed a phone and Max and Kolya picked her up about dark.

Never a dull moment around here. Monday afternoon our friend Jessica came out and picked up the Harder boys for the last days of their parents trip. We had a big day with them Sunday,  after pancakes for breakfast, we went to church in Dnepro, and then to the park.

August told us he's always wanted to go on the trampolines where the guy pulls your legs (to shoot the kids in the air in the harness) so Garry bought him a turn. His big brother did video to record it for mom and dad.

Then we rented a paddleboat. The boys enjoyed peddling (August found it easier to stand than sit) some of the time, chasing after the ducks,  a we found a family of three we thought bumping into each other was as funny as the boys did.

 Then they went on bumper cars before we went through the McDonald's drive thru on the way home to the village.

We had fun with the boys, but with only a week (now just a couple days) until I fly out home, I got busy freezing stuff from the garden. Peppers,  tomatoes, beets, carrots and the dried string beans for soup next winter, all have gone in the freezer. There are still lots of carrots and beets to eat, Garry sometimes gives some to the students. However,  the cucumbers are pretty much done, and the beans and zucchini too. They've lots of tomatoes and peppers yet,  and the popcorn and sweet potatoes will be ready to harvest later in the fall.

They started chopping corn Wednesday and as usual,  Garry says it was drier than he thought.  I drove into Dnepro that morning to pick up Steve and Jo at the train station so Garry could get to work earlier.  They're making slow and steady progress after making some adjustments to the machinery.  Some of the corn is down a bit, because of some thunderstorms with high winds this summer.  When they finish silage, fourth cut alfalfa is waiting to be cut. Thursday they started the irrigation water on the alfalfa field again,  it's hot, humid, and the ground is drying out fast now. The rain we had a week or two ago means that the old field will have more hay to make too.

The sunflowers will be ready to combine before long, we should have some of the earliest to harvest, which might mean a good price right out of the field.  Wednesday they sold a (final?)  truck of wheat.

Friday I worked on cleaning and organizing in our bedroom and finally sorting through everything from teaching youth institute before I leave for a couple weeks.  Garry will be coming back in the middle of September for a couple weeks, he wants to help harvest corn silage in Manitoba this year.

Later in the afternoon,  I made pizza for the students, Leila and Valentina helped chop kolbassa and grated cheese. Garry was a little late, he had to go breed a cow.

They ate 8 pizzas, and we were missing a few students, new Kolya went to his town for the weekend. The other new guy, who came on Tuesday, Ivan, or Vanya, did come for pizza.  Kolya Mazhara is off for the week, helping Jack and Adam with camp (VBS) in Mishurin Rog. Oksana ate a couple pieces she picked the veggies off. Sasha ran down to Yana's and invited her and her nieces, who are visiting this week. They're in grade 6 and 3 now.

Thursday night at nine, Alona and baby Danil went to the hospital after the village nurse had the doctor come by ambulance to check out his cough/breathing. I'd say he seems like he has the croup. It seems like he'll be in the hospital for his first birthday.  Mom has to stay there to take care of him,  he's getting antibiotic injections three times a day and some kind of lung treatment. According to Alona,  who called later Friday night,  they're saying he needs two weeks of treatment. Danil gave me a big smile when I said "hello Danil" on the video chat. I tell the students I'm going to teach him English. 

Wednesday Garry drove Nikolai,  Alona, baby Danil,  Valentina,  Leila and Sasha down to the sea for their holiday. He hoped to leave at 7am, but ended up at the barn longer than he planned,  Yana phoned about a heifer that was calving. They drove out of the village at 8:30, and an hour later Garry phoned to say that he was stuck in a traffic jam in Zaporosia.

In fact it took three hours (normally less than one) just to drive through Zaporosia. He said everyone including the baby were great, and once they finally got over the bridge, (there are two bridges and one has repairs ongoing this summer) the rest of the trip went great. He got them checked in at the hotel he booked, they found an inexpensive cafeteria style cafe to eat at, went swimming and he got home before dark.

Today (Friday) he left at 5 am, with Julia and Dima (who returned last week) so they can have a day at the beach while he picks up the rest of the gang. The Mazhara family are today's milking crew, since they went to the sea last week.

Garry, when he's not driving to the sea, has had fun with the Harder boys, helping August with his fan experiment and watching cartoons.  We now know all about Captain Underpants.

Yesterday Garry and I needed to meet Victor in Dnepro to pick up (at one office) and register (at a different building) our new residence documents. Since we had the boys, they had to come along.  I downloaded a couple games on my newly found phone for them, and told them to charge their phone so they could play on it. Two devices for two boys.

Before leaving the village we had to pump up the front tire with the slow leak, straighten out the seatbelts so the boys didn't have to sit right next to each other (the students rarely wear them, but how the seatbelt from the center bench ended up wrapped around the third row grab handle twice, I don't know! ) Then we took the field road from the village to the gas station since Garry had not filled up since driving to Kirvilola and back on Wednesday.  We discovered that the gauge was not working properly while driving Clay and Bev to the airport (did I write about having to push the van again? ) Some nice guy in a truck stopped and pulled us into a gas station to fill up with diesel and we got it restarted. Anyway I don't think the boys would have been as good at pushing as Clay and we now know there's not really three bars left, after it worked for months.

As Garry was driving along the dirt road between the trees and the pasture field where you could see the 20 cows and herders from the second village herd (they go out the other side of town) when a red cow that had been left behind stepped out of the trees onto the road a meter in front of us and Garry braked and swerved to miss her. I don't think the boys noticed,  they were playing on the phones in the back seat. Made our hearts beat faster, like in the old Diamond Rio song, there's a cow in the road, and you swerve to the left, your heart skips a beat, and you're scared half to death... I was not quick enough to get a photo of her.

We didn't have to wait too long to pick up our new cards, but the second office, after we waited in line where Victor had been a month earlier with Daryl for half hour, we got to the front and were told it was a different room. With a new longer line. Luckily the batteries lasted until we were done.

The boys were excited about a late McDonald's lunch, and then we stopped at Morningstar church so Garry could talk about the building project for next spring with him. They want to add on a large room for the sanctuary, the room they meet in (it's a house the are slowly remodeling,  upstairs there are bathrooms and classrooms for SS). It is much too small for the congregation, as you can see in the  photo I took last winter.  It's standing room only until the children are dismissed for Sunday school after the praise singing.

The boys made friends and played hide and seek with a couple 12 year old girls who were in my SEI English classes. They mostly spoke Russian after the girls asked if the boys did. We  got home after four, and Garry was off to check fields and breed somebody's cow in another village.

He got a cob of corn from a field in that village last week, here's the naturally watered corn cob (on the left) next to the one he pulled from his irrigated field yesterday.

It looks like the custom corn silage guys won't make it here until next week,  which should be just the right time, Garry said.  I'm going to make the boys some breakfast and wash more clothes before the girls take over the washer this weekend.

Garry just phoned,  it's a beautiful day at the sea, they got there about 8:30 am. Definitely beat the traffic. 

Next, please!

Well, I was able to enjoy our last couple days at the sea with less symptoms from my summer cold. On our last night there we went over to Victor's hotel to have dinner with his family, they had arrived that afternoon for vacation. Victor is really enjoying spending weeks with his grandkids.

 Saskatchewan teacher Bev really seemed to enjoy walking around, buying souvenirs at the seaside. Clay and I went for one last swim in the pool Friday morning, even though the temperature of the air and pool had dropped quite a lot from the previous days, while Garry went to swim in the sea.

 We drove back to the village Friday afternoon, stopping at the mall in Zaporosia for a late Mc Donalds lunch (hey we were all used to eating lunch after 2 pm while teaching anyway) and bought some groceries so I could make pizza for dinner.




Victor said Max (who had just returned from the sea) had a problem with the skid-steer, and had to fix the feed mixer. It turned out he was making feed for the cows Friday morning and the bucket fell off the skid-steer into the mixer, which was running. Max had to do a lot of welding to fix both pieces of machinery.




When we got home, I noticed a few things out of place in our room, and eventually we realized that someone must have thoroughly searched our room, because some things were on different shelves, boxes were left open that had been closed, and my clothes hamper did not have the shirt I spilled pickle juice on as we left the Saturday before on the top of the pile. Early Saturday morning I noticed that  my old phone was in my underwear drawer, it had been on one of the shelves. We took Clay and Bev to Dnepro to catch their first flight on the way home. It was mid-afternoon when I remembered that the "new" used phone we'd bought from Clay had been in that drawer when we left home the week before, I searched the drawer twice, then the other drawers in case I'd been mistaken about which drawer it was in. Nope, the expensive phone was not here anymore. They left two cheaper smart cell phones (including my Samsung they must have found first, I would have never even missed that one) and one LG I'm pretty sure they did not find. They also took half a bag of tootsie rolls from my sock drawer, but so far, nothing else seems to be missing, there wasn't any US cash in the room, except for a couple of 20s, which are still here.

Update, looking for something in my sock drawer this afternoon. Found the phone. 98% sure it was not there Saturday. Someone definitely moved stuff around in the room... all's well that ends well?

The girls were not in the house all the time, during afternoon milking often both are working, seems like someone knew the schedule and that Garry is not big on locking doors. At least it seems they did not steal anything from Clay's suitcase, although it arrived in Saskatoon with no wheels!

The students were excited that we were back Friday or maybe just because they wanted to know when they would get their three days at the sea! They are going on Wednesday, when the weather warms up again.

Saturday Garry was excited about possible rain in the weather forecast, and Sunday morning it was wet, and got wetter while we were at church in the village with the girls. Garry and I had surprise translation this week, as Olga Rubel, John's translator was there. It's always nice to touch base with her. It was a birthday celebration after church with tea, cookies and candies for one of the ladies. There were about 20 people in church this week, Olga brings a couple ladies from another village who used to attend here when she comes.


It rained pretty much all day. Garry checked the rain gauge over at the Crawford's house Monday morning (Garry got it long ago, but never put it up, Scott said he wished he had one, so I found it) and discovered it was the most rainfall of the summer, 1 1/2 inches or 37 mm. The guys can roll up the irrigation lines in the cornfields. The corn has matured a lot in the last two weeks, so Garry thinks they can make silage when the custom guys are in the area this week.


Monday morning I was washing sheets again, because we were expecting company, Steve and Jo and the boys. The boys will be staying with us for six days or so while their parents are off on an anniversary trip to Italy.

Our missionary friend Jessica is coming back from the states in a couple days and will probably take them the last couple days, since its an eight day trip. Garry took Steve and Jo to the train station this morning, and will pick them up next week.

It's sure to be an interesting week... again

The wonder of water

The guys got third cut hay baled up last week and most of it put away in the mow. We had 40 acres of the old seeding of alfalfa that they plan to plow up this year, although it's still pretty good looking. That field was totally dependent on rain for moisture. They got 3 wagons full of bales. Then they cut and baled the newer small field that was irrigated.  They put water on twice (equivalent to an inch of rain each time) and there was about a half inch of natural rainfall. Still not as much water as Garry wanted, but they needed water on the cornfields first. They plan to buy a second pump next year so they will have one for corn and one for the hayfield. The 25 acres produced ten wagons full of bales of alfalfa. There are 150 to 200 bales on a wagon. Next year we'll have a lot less land in alfalfa and still make more hay.