Christmas and birthday week

 At our house, we celebrate all week, starting with our daughter's birthday on the 20th, Garry on the 22nd and mine on the day after Christmas. so normally its a week full of family celebrations. However with covid restrictions we have celebrated mostly via the internet. We have passed gifts around and the crocheted gifts I was making all year were hits, the boys really liked their dinosaurs.

I had fun theming Garry's birthday party as 64, like the Beatles ' song... will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm 64... I told him we'd see. This morning I phoned my dad and he sang happy birthday to me. Garry got our younger boys to help him buy me a chromebook (since you have to order and pickup non-essential shopping, he couldn't just go to the store) which I thought would be good for writing blogposts. I'm trying it out now. 

Victor says things are going good in the village. The students are planning a big celebration for New Years Eve, but had one in class with Larissa on Christmas Eve. Traditionally New Years was the holiday celebrated in Soviet times, so it still is the important one for the students. Most of the group is in this photo from the 24th.

One more day

 Almost out of isolation. The kids drop off groceries and goodies, but Garry is more than ready to go to the barn, even if we can't get out much with most things closed here in Manitoba. A little snow is falling this morning and we are looking forward to livestreaming church in a few minutes. 

Isolation

 It's day five the arrive Canada app tells me. On Sunday Victor drove us to Kyiv, making great time, only five and a half hours. 

We saw a bit of snow halfway to Kyiv, but it didn't last long. We also saw a car pulling a trailer with three or four pigs in, and few other interesting sights. It seemed like Victor's vehicle had problems with a coolant hose leak, he went to check it out at a garage after we checked in. We bought dinner in boxes from the grocery store counter, heated them up in the microwave and ate at the hotel, because the restaurants were all closed for the weekend Covid lock down. Victor took us to the airport at four am, before heading home to Dnepro. 

We flew out of Kyiv at six am on Monday morning, and were happy not to have to pay extra for our checked bags as we'd thought we would.   We had a three hour flight to Amsterdam, and four hours after landing there, we boarded the flight to Calgary.  We survived wearing masks for nearly 24 hours, and on the flight to Calgary we had four seats each. Unfortunately it was a plane where the armrests only raise up a couple inches, so no stretching out to sleep.  That flight was more than nine and a half hours, and then we had to unload slowly for Covid distancing. Just as we were almost off the plane Garry realized he didn't have his wallet and returned to his seat to check for it. He came back smiling waving it.

We didn't have tickets for our final flight into Winnipeg, but after going through customs, we were excited to get ticketed for the flight that was leaving soon. Our third lucky break for the trip! It was a smaller plane, which was why the cancelled flight on our itinerary, the flight number had changed, but we landed at 6:45 in Winnipeg. The luggage did not make the flight, but they brought it out on Tuesday afternoon. We were asleep long before we would have landed after midnight on the next flight. The kids had dropped the car and keys for us at the airport earlier in the day, and had the hexaplex apartment stocked and ready for us.

Garry is finding isolation boring, even though I have made him lots of tasty meals, and have cut back on crocheting to play Sequence with him so if you see him online give him a video chat, or email me for the new house number, as the boys moved to phone here for our quarantine. 

Ready to leave

 After a busy week and a crazy day today when we got a notice that our Calgary to Winnipeg flight was cancelled and we needed to phone expedia to fix it (apparently sent while we were sleeping). Garry phoned twice, once at noon our time when we noticed the email (while he was getting ready to teach English) and again tonight because they couldn't fix it because the KLM office wasn't open in North America. He used up about 400 grivna on calling and waiting for them to figure out options, the toll free number does not work here. 

We now have the bags packed, we are entered into the ArriveCan app for covid requirements and will be ready to get into the hexaplex unit shortly before three am December first after landing in Winnipeg after midnight at 12:40. Our original flight had us landing at 6:30 in the evening, home before nine, after a very long day, since we leave Kyiv at 6 am (around ten pm Sunday in Manitoba time.) 

Monday we had student dinner- 

If you know our students, you'll see an familiar face is back. Andrey has been working in Dnepro for several years, but lost his job and came back last week. Vlad brought his fiancé, Lena to dinner. His brother Valera is still in hospital, but has opened his eyes, so maybe he could come out of the coma.

After sending the two guys away last week, I was surprised to find we have a new guy this week, Gregorie, or Gosha (sounds a lot like Losha). He arrived a couple days ago, and seems eager to work, the other students say he's better than the other boys. You can find him in this photo from Larissa's class. She plans to do her class twice a week now. 

Friday night we celebrated Thanksgiving with our American friend Jessica and she brought an American family of three working with MCC. Little Juliette was the star of the evening, and really enjoyed petting Needles. The rest of us enjoyed the food, Jessica made a delicious pumpkin pie.

 

Garry was busy getting lots of things done, Julia and Vika painted Yana's fence white, and leaves were raked and burned. A neighbor came and complained about the burning leaves. Everyone in the village seems to be burning them for weeks now. I thought all Ukrainians loved burning leaves, weeds... but not this guy. He said you should put them on the garden and they make the most toxic smoke. I guess he's never smelled burning plastic or tires... 

Here's Garry's new grass seeding. It won't look like this in January, I'm sure.

Well it's one am and we leave here at seven am, Victor will drive us to Kyiv. I have half a suitcase of stuff to send to his kids and grandkids in BC, and the other one is dominated by Steve and Jo's crokinole board, it just gets in an old suitcase. There's a few crocheted presents in there too.

Weird week- updated

 It was a strange week for us. On Monday Garry was helping the students put up Yana's fence. It's been more than a year and a half since Yana's house remodel, and they finally got the piles of dirt from digging the cistern and septic holes moved over the weekend. They cut down some trees and removed the old fence to prepare for putting the new picket fence some of the students have been building. Garry told me that they made almost exactly the right amount, there was only about a foot and a half of fencing left and they had just paced it out to measure. Here's the after photos I took Saturday. Or rather they will be here when I find Garry's phone, my battery had died. Found it on the dresser. 

Saturday, what happened the rest of the week?

Garry had a cold. Tuesday he planned to get the students going on cleaning up brush around the barn and putting plastic on the windows since it seems winter is arriving soon. Temperatures have been around or slightly below freezing, even during the day. Monday was the last day I am hanging out laundry until spring, it froze instead of drying, I discovered when I went out to get it. 

So Tuesday he felt unwell, weak, coughing, and of course, with covid on our minds with the loss of dear friends and our retired pastor in Manitoba, he thought it could be the virus and pretty much stayed in the house until he was feeling better Friday. Garry would go over to the barn in the mornings and check if there were any cows to breed, he'd breed them and then watch movies the rest of the day in his chair. 

He cancelled English classes, we cancelled American Thanksgiving plans with our American friend Jessica (luckily, it's not until this week so we will try again before we leave for Manitoba.) I made him special meals and even made bagels and baked cookies on Thursday. Chocolate chip, he's still snacking on them for breakfast, even.

Friday he was feeling better and got the guys started on the window covering project (good thing because it snowed tonight- the ground has a white blanket as I type at two am  !) I had students show up for cooking class at nine, just as I was making Garry an omelet. Since I hadn't thought about Friday being cooking class, we made omelets. Julia went home with the pan and proudly sent me a photo that evening of the omelets she made for supper. 

Saturday morning we dropped the new boys at the bus station in Dnepro (they were a pair, and while one would show up and work his shifts most of the time, the other did not and the students were all complaining about them) Garry taught English and I went shopping. 

He dropped me at Central market to look for something for the Christmas packages for student gifts, and I took the tram (now six grivna to ride) up the street to near where he's teaching to complete my shopping. It was a little crowded, they kept announcing that people needed to wear their masks and one woman near me coughed a lot. I used my hand sanitizer and wished I had brought extra masks. My spares had gone with the boys at the bus station. 

Saturday evening he took students for groceries in Zaporosia and I stayed home by myself. Angelina's daddy arrived in the village this week and watched her while mom went for groceries. I had her a couple afternoons, keeping her well away from the sick man. I discovered she can roll over now. 

And here is what the pretty green lawn looks like covered in pretty white snow Sunday morning.

So nice we did it twice

 

Here's Sasha blowing out his candles Saturday at five pm. He liked his framed photos and socks present. We had about a dozen students in for a piece of cake and most of the them went shopping with Garry at the mall in Zaporosia. Since there were so many going, Kolya and Okana and little Matthew went home because Garry had a bag of diapers here to buy instead.

I decided to stay home with Danil and baby Angelina, so the trip might go faster. It wasn't as easy as watching just the baby in the afternoon when she slept the whole time Valentina was gone. Twenty seven month old Danil was into everything and kept the baby awake most of the time. He's learned two words in English, hello and no. He also points to cow pictures and says moo, and meow for cats.

I said no a lot. He tried to take the baby's bottle, pacifier, opened the oven, stuffed in some of the plastic cups he was playing with (he likes to stack them) sat on the door... luckily it wasn't on.

 I gave Garry my list but he didn't get much off it. He was doing the three month handoff of cash to our friend Marina from her friend in Canada, so when she called he didn't buy more items than he had already. Then he thought he had everyone back in the van after getting Valentina through the checkout, but Dima was looking at tools with Sasha when he finally located them. The students were disappointed, Mc Donalds was closed for the weekend quarantine, only the Ashan grocery store was open. 

When Garry was in Dnepro, everything was open, the mayor there decided not to follow the quarantine, as did several other big city mayors, so we'll see what happens next weekend. 

Sunday morning, Garry had a phone call (his phone's working, although it may need a new battery still, it needs charging pretty quick) from the faraway people, their other cow was in heat.

 It was a pleasant drive over there, we had several animals cross the the road in front of us, geese, chickens (Garry had to swerve around a rooster who decided to follow the hens across the road as we went past) and as we arrived in the town, a flock of turkeys that were in the road in front of a bridge.

 Twice we saw pheasants and once hunters- but not where we saw the pheasants. Unfortunately, after we arrived, and Garry took a straw of semen out of the liquid nitrogen tank and put in the his thermos of warm water to thaw, he realized that he had not put his insemination rod (or gun) back in his tool box, so we had to drive all the way back to Nikoliapolia to the barn. He'd bred two cows at home last, and must have left both rods in the room where he writes down breedings in the book. 

So we drove back, and then returned. Both times we made the turn by the Kolus sign (that's what the head of wheat is called). We saw a couple older people on our trip out gathering branches for firewood, with the weather turning colder. One old man had a branch about 12 feet long he was carrying,

The people are so happy that Garry comes to breed their cows, they offered to pay for the extra trip, but Garry assured them it was his fault. He says he'll be checking everything is in the box for a while before heading out to breed cows!

We checked out some fields on the trip, some one's raps (winter canola) we drove past. Sorry I zoomed too much, it's blurry! Garry had to stop and check what was growing in one field. Apparently someone is trying winter peas. 

The trip was shorter than before because it was dry enough to take the shortcut through the fields to Molozaharinah, so it wasn't quite as long as the other times we've gone there. Garry has gotten stuck in the mud hole you see going through the swamp. 

We also checked out our winter wheat near the barn, and I got a photo of the silage pile. Garry is pretty excited that they were able to get old tires to hold the plastic down this year, instead of using dirt. They hope to reuse the plastic next year, too, and are rolling it up as the feed the corn silage. 

Sunday afternoon, Valentina had no one to babysit while she was milking again, and like the day before baby Angelina napped the whole time. Hopefully she can get someone when we leave in two weeks. Baby's daddy may be back in the village then, after working in the city for a couple years, Andrey has lost his job, and hasn't been able to get another. 

You can see the barns from across the fields, the shiny new roof on the hay barn expansion. Nothing is planted in this field, its where they are/will be piling manure this winter.

Birthday days

 Well Garry is off to teach English, with his phone charging in the car and hopefully going to work now.  Yesterday evening it was displaying a dire message about replacing modules but I googled it and it could be dirty contacts for charging and so I cleaned it this morning, which hopefully fixed it because phone stores won't be open until Monday as Ukraine has moved to an essential (grocery and drug stores and take out for restaurants) service only open for weekends. If you are wondering, I see the problem in where he is going this morning, but they said they are having classes.

Last night we were a little busy with other things, yesterday morning for cooking class we (me and four students, every one else was working) made an apple walnut cake which we enjoyed as Denis' (one of the very new students) birthday cake at six o'clock. We also had Misha's very corn covered pizzas, along with a couple pizzas I made before he arrived at five to make his pizzas. Garry and the students also played games while waiting to eat. Denis got a cool Canada toque as his gift.

This morning I have a pile of dishes to wash, we are still working on the what to do about moving/buying a dishwasher problem. I think we are going to buy a narrow one to go by the sink, but it will be the new year before we get one, as we are flying home for December. Mostly we just need (wish we had?) one when we have everyone here eating, because we don't use disposable plates and cups. 

I'm actually getting ready to bake a chocolate cake as long time student Sasha Borchuk turns 27 (I think) today, about ten years older than the new guys, anyway. Sasha is cheery guy, willing to work, but tends to forget things, we think he's got fetal alcohol syndrome, because he will forget instructions on how to do things halfway through a job. Sasha is getting some framed photos and several pairs of socks, because he's always asking for some. That's Sasha in blue giving Misha a hand with grating cheese. He hates having his photo taken, and makes me delete ones he doesn't like.

 I'd better get to work, because I think from the message I received from Valentina she's working this afternoon and no one wants to watch Angelina. Normally one of the other moms do it, but a couple days ago she showed up at one o'clock with no one to watch her, so I was babysitting for a couple hours. Angelina was a little grumpy before I got her to fall asleep. Garry pointed out I was sleeping when he came in, and took a photo. Of course he said we could babysit and then went to find something else to do!

This evening we are taking a masked group of students shopping for groceries and I believe, mittens from what I understood yesterday while we were baking. Right after the birthday cake cutting. 

Re previous post- Latest update on Valera was the hospital is giving him until Monday to show signs of improvement.

Troubling times- updated

 We see that back in Manitoba, there's a two week lockdown (except school) because the covid rates are soaring. Here in Ukraine, Garry has always said, well, it isn't in our village. When we got back from our trip, the students told us it was. On Saturday, Garry was ready to put me on a plane, and come when he got things straight here- we are planning to fly out around December first for Christmas anyway.  Garry asked around and yes, two doctors and three people had tested positive in the village, but apparently no one was in hospital.

Ukraine seems to be planning a weekend lockdown until December, only grocery stores, pharmacies and take out food open on Saturday and Sunday. 

We just got three new students, two that plan to stay until February when their trade school is supposed to reopen, they were here (on the couch, right side) for student dinner Monday night. Another guy who was very interested in coming, he was calling Victor constantly on the phone, arrived Tuesday afternoon, and apparently left again that night! He was supposed to have a tractor driving license, too. 

Sunday at lunchtime Vlad showed up (former student, not tractor driver) to ask for a ride to Zaporosia, his brother was in hospital, he'd been hit by a car and was in a coma. The doctor thought it more likely he'd been beaten over the head, as he had no injuries to his hands or legs. They couldn't operate yet, because of the swelling on the brain. He's still in a coma. 

Valera (also a former student) has spent the spring and summer mostly drunk and often stealing things. It sees like he was drunk Saturday night and was out by the highway gas station and got a ride to another village where he was found. Vlad has been going everyday to pay for his care, collecting money from everyone he knows. The two brothers showed up last fall with no where to go, and Garry let them live in an old house we own and gave them a job finishing the outside of Scott and Shannon's house. After a few hiccoughs, Vlad seems to have straightened out his life, and quit drinking, but is very upset because he has taken care of his brother since they were in the orphanage, and his chance of recovery is slim. Please keep both brothers in prayer.

I was thinking last night after finishing this post that I should add- Valera is a good guy when he's not drinking, and a good worker, he was getting jobs working on building projects in the village because both he and Vlad have a wide skillset including bricklaying, plastering and so forth. 

Vlad just stopped in to talk to Garry, but he's off teaching English, I only understood part of what he told me, but the news about Valera did not sound good, because he's been five days in the coma, and the police still don't know what happened. 

Yesterday was interesting, in the morning Garry drove Vlad in to the hospital, another student to the clinic to get a refill of pills, and picked up parts for the water system next door. Our water quit working in the afternoon, so today he had to run in for yet another part. Seems like we spend a lot of time with hardware purchasing.

Just answered the door again, the guys wanting to get paid for pulling dripline this afternoon. I told them Garry would pay them in the morning. Misha reminded me he's coming over to make pizza tomorrow evening. I gave him pizza pans for his birthday before we went to Egypt. He even sent me a photo of the first pizza they made with them while we were there.

Some of the students with Larissa, who comes from Zaporosia once a week to teach Christian ethics.

Garry came in yesterday after helping the guys pull up dripline for a while, it was so cold that it was freezing up in ice as they pulled it out of the ground. They went until dark, and then Garry told me he had to go back to the far away place to breed another cow, and I should ride along to help find it. We managed to not get lost and even found the house without calling them. Better yet, we found the turn we missed the last time, although it was a pretty wide turn onto the road, because it's hiding in the trees!  

This morning the world was very white with a heavy frost and there's snow in the forecast for Sunday and Monday. Seems like winter is on the way.

Fall is here

Today must be the official start of autumn in the village, as we now are using "salty" well water as the irrigation water was turned off for the year. I can never decide which is better/safer? the untreated water from the Dnieper River or the very hard ground water that ruins water heaters and things. That's why we buy drinking/cooking water. Garry and Max were busy this morning switching pumps and changing over the system here and next door. 

It has frosted a little but that killing frost is expected any day now. The students and villagers started wearing winter coats now, they were complaining about the cold weather before we went to Egypt. I keep getting asked about socks and most of them needed new boots purchased, since they were done wearing the plastic sandals most of them wear to work in the summer. 

Garry thought he'd mowed the grass for the last time before we left, but after we got back, he was mowing and raking on Friday while I was baking muffins with the students for cooking class. The grass had gotten quite tall while we were gone. The yard still looks good, and his new grass seeding behind the garage is turning greener.

The village cows are still going out to the field, usually they continue grazing until it snows, but the people chasing them don't look happy. There is some green stuff out there for them to eat, since we had a couple rainy days, although Garry tells me that well levels are low because there wasn't much rain this summer. The cows come back around three in the afternoon now, since time change came it's dark out by four thirty.  

The guys are out in the cornfield for hopefully the last day of pulling up dripline. They get paid bonuses, but no one is too excited to go out there, except maybe Vasa, who worked all day yesterday by himself. The corn sold for a better price than last year, since non irrigated corn mostly made about 20 bushel to the acre, ours did 220 or more. 

Garry is off taking a couple students to Zaporosia, so I'm cooking a pot of soup for lunch. A small pot as we gave away the soup pot to Julia (one of the students) last week when she said she needed a bigger one. I will turn it off and reheat it whenever he gets back, I'm still trying to figure out cooking on the gas stove, I've always had electric since we left New Jersey almost forty years ago.

 I did make some good pumpkin (butternut squash) pies for student dinner Monday night. They were a little leery about eating them, what is it? I was asked, but they finished their desserts. Garry and Victor were more enthusiastic. We had mac and cheese, cabbage salads, meatballs and duck- because Saturday afternoon, Max Rudei's mother came by with one all cleaned and ready to go in the oven.

Angelina is almost six month old, and keeps putting her toes in her mouth, and was grabbing food off my plate. Matthew still prefers his aunt and uncles (like Misha in the photo) to us! Garry tried out a new game after dinner with the students.