Catching up

Back in Ukraine,  they are still powering the barn with the generator.  After about 2,000 dollars in repairs to the transformer,  the electric company came out to hook it back to the grid today (Friday) and decided that it isn't right yet. So its supposed to go get tested and repaired again before its finally working.

Garry definitely will be back in Canada before it's done, as he leaves Dnepro by train Monday morning for his flights from Kiev to Winnipeg on Tuesday.  He's had a busy week (as have I,  that's why you only get one post) what with trying to get stuff done before he leaves. He was teaching three mornings this week, including cooking class on Wednesday morning. 

He went to Kamskoaya for our SEI follow up group there on Wednesday evening.  While he was in the city, he took out cash from the ATM, so he could pay for more of the repairs for the transformer and pay the students this week.

Students in class Thursday at nine

Thursday morning,  while Garry was making feed and the girls were in their bedroom,  someone stole most of the cash in his wallet he left beside the bed. Not all of it, there was 4000 grivna left. He told me about it last night (his Friday morning) and I said it was likely the same boy from down the street. At some point today, they got the cash back, were promised that he (or they'd ) stop turning off the house breaker, and then Kolya reset the wifi password (somehow he'd gotten it after we changed it). He was the kid hanging out in the trees using our wifi in the summer, and the one who stole the cash before.   When we changed the password,  he came to the door and asked for the new password!

Tuesday Victor set up a farm tour for Garry and the students at a farm that milks 1200 Brown Swiss cows. He found it last month when we were looking for a place to buy special calf feed. This is the farm they bought it from. If you're wondering,  they have about 100 employees,  and 38 of them are milkers. Garry got photos on the tour.

Calf pens

Robot feed pusher

Birthday fun

Today Jonah turned 24. We actually had his and Seth's birthday party last Sunday (Seth was 26 on the 11th of November). I even made the cake, since I was home. We also had way too much food to eat, Seth,  Jonah and I were eating leftover chili until Thursday!

The cake was a throwback to the

 treasure chest cakes I used to make them (and some of their brothers) as kids, but this one was on top of a three layer chocolate cake.

The guys light 50 (48 plus two paper cones)  candles all over the cake, we sang happy birthday and they blew them all out. Jonah put one out during the singing,  it was turning into a fire.

Today I said happy birthday as Jonah walked past after I returned home this evening.  I spent last night and most of today with Andromeda because her baby sister finally arrived. I ended up splitting the time with Crystal's mom, who stayed with her during the day Friday because I had to be elsewhere.

 Seth had the first three hours when they went to the hospital Friday morning.  Every thing went well, and they came home around 5 this afternoon.  Andromeda was very happy to see her parents at home, and thought her new sister was interesting.  She will be three years old in two months.

The baby weighed in at 7 pounds 12 ounces on November 22nd and her name is Nova Mary Verhoog. She looks a lot like her sister did as a baby.

Ukraine update

This is an update on what's going on back in Ukraine with Garry.  He tells me that the fall field work,  plowing, discing and fertilizer spreading is pretty much finished.  They have had a few colder days, but the wet warm weather this fall has the winter wheat fields looking good.

Garry has had an interesting week,  he was running low on frozen bull semen. He breeds cows artificially not just at our farm, but for many people in Nikolaipolia and other nearby (and occasionally not as nearby) villages. Most people in Ukraine that have cows just milk a few cows. Some days he breeds four or five cows, all in different places. 

He's had a few interesting stories lately about breeding cows that I haven't written about.  Garry has been using Canadian Holstein semen we buy to breed cows since we started milking cows in Ukraine.  He's been breeding some cows for a couple generations.  As a general rule, everyone has been happy with the larger calves that get from the mainly Russian red local cows. Big bull calves turn into dinner (or income) faster. However,  last month he went to breed a cow for Max's friend Slavic in the village,  and he had a complaint.  His two year old heifer that calved recently is too big for his barn. She's much taller than her mother standing next to her. Garry offered to trade cows, Slavic has been to our barn to see which one he wants, but I haven't heard if he took one home yet. Garry has decided to buy some Jersey semen for people who'd like smaller cows. Here's Garry's photos of Valentina standing next to the big cow and her smaller mother.

Another day, Garry was driving through the village,  when a lady flagged him down.  She wanted him to breed a cow at her mother's house.  She rode along with him and congratulated him on how much Ukrainian he understands now. He thought that was funny, since all Ukrainian Garry understands is accidental,  since he set out to learn Russian.  However,  many people in the village and even the students use a mixture of the two languages.  In the village church Pastor Ivan only uses Ukrainian,  so we hear a lot of it, especially since the war started, as part of people in this area being more patriotic  now.

This lady is the one who plays the accordion with the local singing group. They are mostly middle aged women who dress in costume and sing traditional songs at festive occasions.  We saw them when we took the students to that village day celebration.  She rode back with Garry after he breed the cow, and on the way back, she asked if he could sing something,  so he sang Amazing Grace in English and she joined in in Russian,  he said it was an incredible experience.  Her mother had a calf for sale, Garry buys heifer calves back from people that he breeds cows for. He only buys young ones, preferably about two months old, but sometimes he trades smaller calves, taking heifers and giving them the bull calves that they prefer. He has learned that the new ones don't adjust well if they are older, because they aren't used to large groups,  and become the bottom of the pecking order and don't grow well.

Back to our story from this week. Garry has been buying semen from a company that imports from other countries for about seven years. It's a two hour drive, partly over really bad roads, that I often go with him for. He has Victor call ahead so they know we're coming,  normally it takes maybe twenty minutes to get the liquid nitrogen refilled and the little plastic straws (or vial) of semen to go into the storage tank we bring with us.

Last month, Garry had run out of semen just before I returned and he drove down to buy more days before I returned.  He dropped the students in Zaporosia for their weekly shopping trip on his way there, and was very unhappy when it took a hour of waiting to get his semen. The students were done shopping and phoning him and he was still waiting. The students are used to spending two hours or more at the mall, so it may have been more than an hour.  

So early this week,  he was down to one straw of semen left, so he decided to squeeze a trip down to buy some on Tuesday.  Victor called to say he'd be there between 11 and 12. I am not sure if Victor went with him or not, it's a day Victor is normally in the village.  Anyway,  he (or they) arrived about 11 and went inside the office and paid in cash, and they refilled the tank with liquid nitrogen,  and told him someone would be there in 10 or 15 minutes with his order. An hour later, still waiting.  He went back into the office,  10 or 15 minutes.  Still nobody there. Garry asked for his money  back.  They said they couldn't do that. Eventually the boss came and tried to make it good, but Garry did get his cash back and had Victor phone around to find a new place to buy semen.

It turned out to be an old place, the Canadian Ukrainian Dairy Commission was where we first bought semen in Ukraine,  right in Dnepro.  We had seen them at a trade show last spring,  and they said they had semen again.  Garry and Victor were there most of the day Wednesday.  They bought semen for less than we'd been paying,  he even got ten straws of Jersey semen for people wanting little calves. They know a place in Dnepro where he can buy the liquid nitrogen.  He also discovered that milk is in short supply in Ukraine this fall, and they can get more than ten grivna a liter, our buyers are paying eight and a half right now.

 We are making a lot of milk now, so much that  the milk tank (refrigerated vat) can only hold 5 milkings instead of 6 (two days worth) as we are milking a hundred cows now. They can't start the morning milking on the second day until the one buyer comes and loads up his cans. Garry is disappointed in how poorly some of the fresh heifers are looking this year, they are small and thin, so he plans to focus on growing them out better before they get bred over the next year or so. There's always something to improve. 

I just talked to Garry and today while he was teaching English in Dnepro the transformer at the barn blew up. It knocked out the power in the village too. Yana said all her breakers in her house tripped at once. It even set the grass on fire near the transformer by the barn. They will be using the generator to milk the cows until at least Monday because the electric company's solution was to cut off the barn to restore power to the village.  Apparently we need to hire someone privately to fix the generator,  it's not their problem. Garry says it blew up the power supply transformer for the video surveillance they put in the barn when it went. He's not sure if anything else was damaged. 

Thanksgiving dinner

Last Monday we celebrated Thanksgiving at Scott and Shannon's house with the students and staff.  The Crawfords are hosting the students every other Monday for dinner with devotions, but we decided to have our annual Thanksgiving meal together there.

The way the house is laid out with the entry in the center gives the great room a clear space dividing the kitchen and livingroom areas. Shannon can finish in the kitchen while Scott is talking to the students in the living area without disturbing each other. It's very different from our house where I was tripping over everyone while making the last pizzas the previous Monday.

Scott had an interesting story about how faith in Christ changed his life, and then the group moved outside to the firepit to see some  color changes in the flames. Shannon and I finished getting stuff ready, Vova brought in his famous potatoes, Yana made two large salads and deviled eggs,  I made pork roast, and brought the cabbage beet salad the students made on Thursday in cooking class. Shannon made individual cheesecakes for dessert.

We had more food than everyone could eat, even after they went back for seconds before dessert,  Victor bought oranges and candy for everyone,  so they went home with their pockets full. The brothers Vlad and Valera were still working on painting the Crawford's house, after finishing last layer of stucco. They came for dinner, too.

After dinner, the two brothers spent the night at our house, after Garry discovered that they were sleeping in an abandoned house. They both took long showers.

Whoever had put them up when they arrived in the village the week before must have asked them to leave. They were ready to work on the house Monday morning before seven. We saw them standing around waiting for Scott to unlock the shed to get their supplies, looking cold, so Garry invited them in for tea. By noon we'd figured out that they had no place to sleep.  Tuesday they moved into the little house we bought on the first street that they'd asked about over the weekend.  They have a propane heater to stay warm, and Max is finding them more work, they may stick around all winter. 

Unfortunately,  I have no photos from last Monday,  because I had put my phone in my back pocket and forgot it was there, since I never put it there. After finding towels and bedding for the guys, putting away our leftovers from the dinner, I laid down on our bed, waiting for the bathroom to open up. It seemed to take an hour. I finally realized I could get in, but forgot the phone until I heard a splash. It's still in Ukraine in a box of rice. I brought my backup (the one that was stolen before).

Tuesday Shannon came with me to English class at 8 am, afterwards I finished packing and brought my Christmas presents for the students over to Scott and Shannon so they can give them out next month. I also realized that someone had taken a couple hundred grivna out of my wallet. The door was unlocked for about half an hour while Garry was making feed and I was teaching Monday morning,  that's probably when it happened.  Garry's locking the door all the time now.

Here and there, again

Well, my flights went as planned, except my last flight from Toronto to Winnipeg was delayed by de-icing, so Seth had to wait at the airport for about an hour to pick me up!

However,  I did get here before the baby arrived,  in fact, we are still waiting.  I am ready to hang out with soon- to- be big sister Andromeda when they head to the hospital. At this point, Crystal's hoping to make it to the annual Seth and Jonah birthday party Sunday afternoon.  They celebrate between their November birthdays.  This year I get to make the cake, since I am here. I am frosting it tonight, just in case I need to go down the road tonight.  If not, I plan to go to church in Steinbach in the morning. 

Back in Ukraine, Garry's keeping busy with the farm, students and English classes in the city. He taught cooking class Wednesday after I left. They made pancakes. Next week Shannon will take over my English class for the students on Monday and Tuesday morning.  They are pretty excited about it,  especially Julia. 

I missed telling a few stories last week. I'll try to tell them sometime this week.  Tuesday afternoon we had a staff retreat, an afternoon at the spa, with saunas and hottubs, and cold ones, too. After a couple hours relaxing we went to a Georgian restaurant.  We ate a huge meal for about 15 dollars each.

Visiting and pizza

We had no further intrusions into the house,  as far as we can tell, and Garry and Victor changed the locks on Monday afternoon.  Since we were out pretty much all day Saturday and Sunday,  I did send a bag over to the Crawfords to keep until we got the new lock and keys. We gave both girls keys on lanyards for when they leave the house, and have one for ourselves,  with the fourth key in Victor's hands. Lock sets come with four keys here.

Saturday  Garry was teaching at 9 am again, we left the village around 7:30 with two students in the back seat of the car, Valentina was going to Dnepro to visit friends  from central Baptist church,  she returned Sunday afternoon.  Vanya is going to the hospital for a month to be tested for a mental disability,  he's hoping to get a factory job if he does get it. They hire a percentage of handicapped workers, so he's hoping to get into the electric plant that did not hire him when he graduated from university this summer.

We dropped off both students and tried breakfast at KFC before Garry had to teach. It was interesting but we decided McDonald's would be better.  I had eggs and chicken bites and Garry had an egg and cheese on a bun with French fries.

I ran around shopping while Garry was teaching,  and picked up some lunch to eat. Then Garry was off in the car to find an English class taught by an SEI student.  Meanwhile I took two trams, first the number one from downtown to the train station,  then the eleven to where I was going to help with testing at another English school,  Tanya's.  I had to wait a bit at the train station, since an 11 was there when I arrived,  but pulled away as I walked over to it. Then I accidentally got off too soon, and had to walk a couple blocks up Rabotcha street. I was on time, but slightly out of breath.

Garry came later, some of the students got to ask him questions in English.  I got to ask all of them questions,  and listen to them talk about why being a teenager is difficult.  One said it wasn't difficult,  by the way.

Afterwards,  Tanya took us to dinner at a Gergian restaurant.  It had delicious food and interesting decor. Garry introduced himself to a couple English teachers who arrived at a nearby table before we left, they were from the United States and Canada.

Sunday morning we left before 7:30, since we had decided to go to Daryl and Molly Porter's church in Kirvoy Rog.  The road there is much improved,  with some sections newly paved, and most of the rest of it has been patched. Some of that is still pretty bumpy,  but a huge improvement over the highway's normal condition.

We arrived so early we got the GPS on Garry's phone to find a McDonald's for breakfast. We just had Mcmuffins (Garry had the chicken one) but you can see in the photo that there are many interesting choices.  French fries are now for breakfast,  or kasha (oatmeal) or McToast (the circle with cheese). At ten o'clock the place filled up, that's when they start serving the non-breakfast menu.

Then the trusty phone GPS showed us the way to the Bridge church.  I had never been there, and Garry was there last January while they were still finishing the building.  The small building is nice and seems big enough for the current congregation.  They said many people were absent this Sunday,  but it was a nice service.

Adam and Luba led the praise and worship singing, in Ukrainian and Russian. Luba is a great translator,  Garry thought. Daryl was preaching in English,  of course.  Afterward there was tea, sandwiches and fruit. I talked to Roma, who was disappointed that Kolya didn't come with us. I showed him pictures of the baby on my phone.

Afterwards we went to the Porter apartment so they could pick up their bags, they were going to Hungary Monday  morning to visit the missionary families there and set up details for our European conference next June (they are still looking for child care and music volunteers if you want to see Budapest). Since we were coming they canceled their bus tickets, and we going to drop them at Victor's house in Dnepro, so he could take them to the airport in the morning.

Before leaving the city we stopped at a cafe owned by someone in their church for a bite to eat.  The cafe had amazing murals painted by the owner.

It was a fast uneventful ride to Victor's house, other than Garry getting a phone call about breeding a cow after getting home. We were home in plenty of time to get the cow bred before watching the Eagles game on the wifi.

Monday morning I was back teaching English at 8 am, and the lesson was about come, so I said "Come to my house at 5 pm. I am making pizza."

So we had pizza in the evening,  after I spent a couple hours pulling up the last of the beets and carrots from the garden. It was a full house, with the students,  and the Crawfords and Victor.

Its amazing how the other students help take care of baby Daniel. Now  that he's crawling and pulling up on everything,  he's into everything.  I had to rearrange my cupboards after he  broke a glass bowl last week.

 Former students, brothers Vlad and Valera showed up in the village this weekend.  They are between jobs, so Garry hired them to finish the last coat of stucco on Scott and Shannon's house. They started today. In the rain.

Intruders

So tonight I can tell the story of the missing money. In the last post I mentioned that someone took some money out of Daryl's bag while he was here last week.

Really, now that we thought about it, the story starts back when I came back two weeks ago. Garry and I had to go to the hardware store Nova Lenya,  and invited Leila to come along, since Valentina had gone to Dnepro,  as she often does on her Saturday off. As we left, I locked the door and took the key. At least I thought I did.

When we got home, in just over an hour, there were two neighborhood teens at our door, Garry said they were coming out, I just saw them standing there. The door was unlocked, so Garry said it must not have been locked. Maybe it was jetlag, and I only thought I locked it.

The next day, Garry asked me if I took his red licorice.  He said he'd only had a couple pieces out of the bag he'd brought from Canada.  We bring our favorite candies back with us and slowly eat them. Yes, there are wonderful tasty treats that you can buy here, but for me,  American Hershey bars, and for Garry (although I usually eat a couple licorice) Twizzlers,  Rockets (to Americans- Smarties) and peanut butter cups. He can make a package of twizzlers last for weeks.

Anyway,  there was no bag of licorice,  and I didn't eat any. Garry opened his bag of rockets, and didn't really worry about it. Then last Thursday,  Daryl's money was stolen. As we went to bed, I noticed that Garry's cash box was empty, and there had been money in it the day before, I'd had to send one of students down to the store for butter, and I'd grabbed 50 grivna to pay for it. Garry wasn't sure, but there probably was a couple thousand grivna there. To top it off, his rockets were gone off the dresser. 

Friday night Garry stayed home while I took the students shopping, so nothing happened, although he put out some questions about who might have taken the money. Two of the guys were out drunk on the street later that night, Max saw them and told them to go home.

Or maybe the candy was gone on Saturday.  Saturday morning we left the village at 7:30 am, Garry was teaching a couple of English classes and I was going shopping.  As an extra precaution,  we locked our bedroom door and I took the keys. Both girls were home, and we found out later, were milking the cows that afternoon,  and locked the door when they walked over to the barn. They hung the key in the hiding place that they and Garry had been using.

We got home about 2 pm, and discovered one of our male students standing outside the house. He was the one that Garry had let live at our house for a while this summer (and knew where the key was hidden).  The door was wide open to the house, letting in flies trying to escape the cooler weather.

I carried in the new drying rack I'd bought,  since Garry was going to investigate a rumor from one of the neighborhood kids that one of our students had been seen with a fat stack of cash at the store.

I noticed the girls' bedroom door was open, they usually keep it closed. I started pulling the plastic wrap off the drying rack, calling out, since I assumed one of the girls was home. I heard a noise, then the girls' door banged shut...

I knocked on the door, calling the girls names, something seemed wrong. No answer, the door was locked. Garry came in, with the student who'd been outside,  I went looking for the key for the lock (not the same as our bedroom door,  which was still locked, I checked in passing. As Garry tried a bunch of possible keys, I stepped outside and saw the girls window open. Our robber was gone.  Garry and the other (helpful) student took off in the car to chase him down.

I opened our bedroom door and looked in my travel backpack,  my other phone was gone.  I'd used find my phone to lock it in the summer when I couldn't find it,  so I looked on the phone in my pocket. The phone that had not been on in more than a week was on 16 minutes ago. Garry had just returned with a hundred dollars Canadian that they'd found in his wallet in his room.  He went and caught him again, and he said the phone was back in the girls bedroom.  He then found it under a rock on the side of the street.

The girls had returned from work at this point and did find some candy and cookies from our bedroom in their room, after our helpful student climbed in the window to unlock their bedroom door.  A speaker and a battery pack to charge the phone reappeared, courtesy of some kids in the street.  Garry promised them a finders fee if they could get the cash, too.

At this point, we knew one, most likely two of our guys had robbed our bedroom Saturday.  They were the two had been drunk, so they had some money it seemed. One had Canadian money that had disappeared from my backpack at some point in last ten days. I also found a long forgotten key that used to up high in kitchen on the bottom shelf. I wonder how they/he opened the bedroom door...

 I was missing a couple American twenties and ones. Luckily all my cards and passport were still there, and 40 Canadian.  I'd been sure I'd had more, plus a little US in my wallet, but wasn't sure exactly when it had disappeared.

Maybe more of the new students were involved (the old ones are pretty loyal, as one said on Monday, when Garry and Victor talked to all the students about trust and forgiveness, I'm ashamed that one of us would do this, all you do here is give us stuff).  Maybe the neighborhood kids were involved,  they fenced some stuff back to us...

The student that got caught left on Tuesday,  telling Garry it was all the helpful students idea, still claiming not to have stolen the money.

Thursday night we took the students shopping, locking the house, and apparently Garry turned off all the lights, too. I had taken my backpack,  and phones,  just in case.

When we got home, I was sure someone had been in our room,  because my crocheting was on the floor and I set it on the dresser before leaving.  Then I couldn't find anything missing, so I  decided I was paranoid.

As Garry went to bed, he saw a cat in the bedroom.  Not Needles, or Box. This cat had come through the wall. This summer we had a leak in our bedroom closet floor, that we thought was from the bathroom.  In August,  while I was gone,  Garry took some walls apart and found the source, a pipe behind the bathroom,  he opened up the wall behind  the bathroom from the attic/cellar stairway  in the shed attached to the house.
He also had cut open the drywall in the bedroom trying to find the leak. We first discovered a cat could get in our bedroom last week when Box appeared at two am peering over Garry's side of the bed.

 So it seemed like one of the outdoor cats had gotten in while we were gone and knocked off my crocheting and some books.

Garry finally had time to work on closing up the wall Friday morning.  Cats weren't the only thing getting in the bedroom.  It was minus nine celcius last night, and a lot of cold air was coming in with the cats.  The cat, I assume Fake Needles (he looks a lot like Needles),   made another try to get in around one am, but I yelled and banged on my nightstand and the cat retreated.

Friday after school,  while Garry was working on the wall, a different neighborhood kid showed up to talk to Garry,  he said he saw someone come out of the house last night after he saw lights, and one of his classmates was spending lots of money on candy.

Garry phoned Max,  who found our new suspect,  who, after blaming it on the guy who left, finally confessed and said he'd handed the money off to his friend,  who with encouragement from his mother,  found the money. Including a little American money.  They claim to not have a key, however, they look a lot like the kids who were at the door when we got home two weeks ago. We're getting new locks and keys.