Trending at home

Hey, I don't often check the stats on our blog, but today after making some corrections to numbers in recent posts for Garry (including one in the corrections and additions post, ironically)  I PEEKED TO SEE if people are reading the blog more because of the extra time at home because of the virus. I'd say yes, our normal audience of Canadians followed by Americans are reading. In fact we were close to 3000 page views over the last month.

For some reason, we have a huge number of page views from Italy over the last week where they are number one, beating out Canada. I hadn't realized we were read so much in Italy. For the month of April, Canada, Italy, USA and then close together in numbers-Ukraine, Unknown and Hong Kong-  are at the top of the list.

For you computer geeks I can tell you that readers are 51% Windows users, and more likely to be using Firefox or Safari as browsers (over half in the last month are using those). Chrome is only at 20%, but it's good enough for me. Our readers seem way more likely to use a computer than a phone to read, too.

All time page views, starting May 2010, when I started counting them, by country-

United States 83864 Canada 83605 Italy 18697 Ukraine 18210 Russia 16123 France 5749 Germany 3336 Poland 1577 Unknown Region 1361 United Kingdom 1295

Over the last couple years, Canada has been ahead of USA almost every month, so I was surprized to see them in second.

The most read post this week and month is titled Almost. The all time leader is still from 2011, The rye is in a pile (don't ask me why it's number one) or number two (New post? from 2015) either, I prefer #3, which Seth and Jonah helped me make up as part of a homeschooling assignment- Top Ten Cool Things about Ukraine-  also from 2011, it has over a thousand views, half as many as #1, maybe it's the titles that does it. It was after I made the blog searchable (I didn't know it wasn't until a gentlemen from Manitoba asked me- google is still #1 for traffic). The rest of the top ten are from the fall of 2016, when we had important Canadian visitors and the cows moved to the "new barn".

I guess you aren't clicking on the suggested old post to read about the Mice in the Fridge, maybe I'll have to change it. It really did give a good picture of life here when we arrived on the mission field.

By the way this is blog post number 1345 that I've published, or we've published, I write and Garry reads sometimes and tells me what numbers I got wrong so I can go back and fix them. If you're really bored stuck there staying safe at home you can go back and read all of them.

I thought about making a list of my ten favorite stories on the blog, but I have a gate to paint today. However, I'd go to August 2012 if you want a good story from a trip we took to Crimea, it's called Camping on the Cliffs.

Almost summer

It's been so nice out the last two days we have been debating whether to plant the tomato plants in the garden. Garry says the forecast for next week is calling for a rainy week (not that it means it will really rain, but it might drizzle and be cloudy) so we should try it. I guess we'll just be ready to cover them if it turns colder. The corn is planted and the sunflowers are going in the ground again today.

The bees are buzzing in the fruit trees in the yard, you can hear them as you walk past. Definitely spring and that can become summer weather quickly here in Ukraine. It's 19 C (66F) at one o'clock in the afternoon, with a breeze that's sometimes shaking the flower petals out of the trees and across the yard.

This morning Nikolai and I helped Garry catch a couple cows to preg check. I thought we were doing them yesterday, but Garry was too busy yesterday morning. He was trying to get all the tractors out it the fields working, so he had the guys bring the rest of the trusses over here to the building site (the same lot as the house we've been building this spring). Just before lunch, he discovered he needed a hitch for the loader tractor they'd been using with the trusses, so he zipped over to Solone (nearest village with a tractor supply store) to see if they had one.

They did, he was excited to get all four tractors out in the field at the same time, so they could plant sunflowers and Max could spray at the same time, since the part for the GPS had come in. I was supposed to bring that back from Canada, but of course, we didn't go so they had to pay about four times as much when they located the part for the lightbar here.

They were also digging holes for the posts for the drive shed. Jessica's post hole auger got a through fixing from Max, he had it all apart and put in some new parts but he says in English that it's "not strong" so they are still doing a lot of digging by hand.

The boys are still digging the cistern at Scott and Shannon's house, they aren't going to measure it until Friday, but it looks pretty deep already. Of course, then Nikolai and whoever is helping mix cement and bucket it down to him will be busy for at least another week.

 I had to stop typing a couple paragraphs ago, Alona came in to beg for water to drink for the guys working over there. It took me a couple seconds to figure out what she wanted, she talks fast and uses more words than I can understand, so my mind had to pick out what I knew before I could say yes and fill a bottle for them.  Right after Garry came in to get some hotdogs out of the fridge for Sasha Borchuck, whose helping in the field, filling the planter with bags of sunflowers and fertilizer. Right out of the fridge, if you are wondering, Ukrainians eat them cold often. He even took some ketchup for them. He was going to buy him a bottle of Coke to wash them down.

The virus

Whenever someone sneezes or coughs in front of one of the students, you immediately hear "Veer- rus!" Since the winter canola is blooming now, I have my usual seasonal allergies, so I have resorted to taking a cold and sinus pill at least once a day.

The quarentine was extended on the 22nd (it was supposed to end on the 24th) until May 11th. I have no idea if it will end then, Ukraine doesn't seem to have large numbers of people in hospital, but who knows how many people who are sick have not been tested. 

It has definitely made planning difficult. We had moved our trip to Egypt from the end of March to April 30th, and just this week when the quarentine was extended, rebooked it for the end of October, when the Red Sea resorts won't be too hot to sit on the beach, and hopefully will be open. We can't even make plans for July, when we should be teaching in Dnepro for Summer English Institute, depending on what the quarantine means by then for having three weeks of classes for what is normally 120-200 people.

Of course, we had planned to be in Manitoba on April 19th for Max Boradin's college graduation. We could not fly, and graduation was postponed until October 9th. We hope to be there, if it happens. Yes, Max did finish his degree online, and is back working on the farm in Manitoba. He had hoped to take the intensive TESOL course, as he wants to get a Masters and then teach English when he returns to Ukraine to live. However the program is cancelled because of COVID-19. He had also hoped to come visit Ukraine sometime this summer, but who knows if that will be possible either.

Here, we are wearing masks if we have to go to the store, and trying hard not to go. I have been stress-crafting. I realized  a few years ago that I tend to make things for people when I am worried about them. Twenty years ago, Jessica was having tests in Ontario due to her severe migraines and I redecorated her dollhouse. I am currently crocheting Christmas presents for the entire family. The little grandkids will be getting dinosaurs.

Garry is just happy to be busy, the crops are going in, and they are building sheds, since the house is (almost) done (still waiting for those boxes of flooring to come in). Today they moved a bunch of the finished rafters over to the yard for the machine shed. 

He's also spent a lot of time mowing the grass and weeding over in the Crawford's yard, and taking care of his seedlings that he grew, and a couple tomato plants Scott and Shannon started before they went to Canada. For the last week, they go out in the morning and back in at night. The hundred peppers are still in the windows, except for the couple in the box with the tomatoes.

Let's go to the barn

Since the cows moved to the "new barn" and the classroom to the new building, I don't hang out there much. In fact, I told Garry when we moved to Ukraine I was retiring from farming, so it's his project. However on Friday morning I was recruited for one of my old jobs I did in Manitoba, writing down information during herd check.

Since Garry has brought the ultrasound machine back from Canada, he's become his own vet, checking if cows are pregnant. Max built a palp rail to put about six cows in (seven if they are small) so Garry can use it. 

First Garry and a couple students walked around finding the cows on Garry's list that were bred two months ago, then they chased them into the parlor. When they had six of the correct cows, they went into the area to be checked. 

Then we checked their eartags to make sure we had the correct cow, and I marked if she was pregnant or open (not pregnant). Then we did a second group, about half were pregnant, and half got injections of hormones to make them come in heat (be ready to breed). Of course, I wrote all of this down on the clipboard, so Garry knew which cow was which when we were done. Apparently the students were not as good as Garry wanted at this, so I now have a barn clothes outfit and rubber boots.

Today (Monday) was the day they should have been in heat, one was yesterday, and another this morning, according to the students milking. When Garry checked them, four out of five were ready to breed, so he did that, before we checked ten more cows. 

The locked cupboard with the meds, and records (the students 

sometimes think the notebook is spare paper and pages 

with breeding dates would disappear)

This time, four cows got injections, so they should be ready to breed on Thursday. Five were pregnant, including a cow that was four months along that we checked just because the students thought she was in heat this morning. Cows show heat by jumping on each others backs and standing sill, but some cows just seem to fool around when other cows are in heat, even if the they are pregnant. 

Friday I took some general barn photos, just a little tour for you to see what it looks like now. Like here's the heifer  barn they built last year.


Here's the hay (straw) shed that they are expanding this spring (the one where Garry hurt his knee in the hole). It will be about a third twice as longer I think he said (or maybe 60%, depends on the day, I've heard both now). You can see the new rafters sitting inside. The steel roofing is ordered already, so it should go fast once they get the posts in the ground and start building.

If you are wondering, here's some cow facts about the farm now. So far in April, 22 cows have had calves. The three months before averaged about 3 calves a month (or fresh cows) I think, so we are making lots of milk now. 500 litres, three times a day, so 1500 1800 litres each day. correction - or maybe just more since he told me? 600 litres a milking, selling 550 and feeding 50 litres to the many baby calves. Milking about 80 cows now I think, with a lot of dry cows and heifers outside where the sheds are. 

About one day of milk

The milk tank (refrigeration) can only hold four and half milkings, so we need the milk truck or the other buyer to come about every day, the truck from the plant is coming three times I week I believe. Garry plans to buy a larger milk tank next year. 

We could actually sell more milk to the buyers, so Garry banned all small sales, where people would show up during milking a buy a few liters of milk. He also figured it would be a good thing with the quarantine for the virus. 
The students made a sign for the door, which Victor says has (had?) two spelling mistakes. He also said the sign they made for the building site had spelling mistakes. Oh, well.

Milk not selling- I think

Here's Artom making feed for the cows, he was doing a good job when Garry got back after Christmas, so Garry didn't take back the job of making feed every morning like last year. Now he listens to sermons on the internet every morning before starting his day.

Moving day and other corrections and additions

You may not have noticed if you read the posts as they come out, so I'll give you Garry's latest corrections, since he read the blog this morning. It was 60 hectares of corn, or 150 acres that they planted this week. They are starting to plant sunflowers and they will have about 225 acres  300 (new correction- not entirely my fault, they just realized they had 50 more to plant and are buying more seed) of those, mostly smaller fields that were in wheat last year. There are a few more acres this year, I believe they got another share of land and took 60 acres out of alfalfa. Because they can irrigate the new alfalfa fields, they don't need as many acres in hay. They plan to start watering the hay fields soon, if it doesn't rain a significant amount this weekend.

Even though there is a possibility of showers in the forecast, this morning the sun is shining in through the window behind me on our hundred pepper plants (we had great germination on the seeds I brought back, but we can't tell which seedlings are which kind of pepper, I brought back three kinds of hotpeppers, and green bell pepper seeds. Last year we bought "hot pepper" seedlings, but they weren't really hot tasting, so this year we're growing our own, and going to plant most of them in the garden in a couple weeks. I freeze chopped peppers to use for cooking all year, and usually we end up buying bags of them from a roadside stand. Maybe not this year, though.



The tomato plants are enjoying the days outside already. 


I'm enjoying a cup of chai tea (actual chai tea from Tim Hortons, a gift from one of the children, not just tea, which is called chai in Russian) in a very quiet house, Garry has headed over to the barn, as he does every morning, which is why I can write a blogpost, since I still need to use his computer (we were supposed to be in Canada last week for Max Boradin's gradustion, hopefully we will be there in October, the new date, and then I was getting my tablet).

 Leila with Canadian Muktar

 As part of the big move, Leila and Vika moved out yesterday, when everyone began the process of changing houses with Kolya and Oksana moving into the new house. There was a glitch in the original plan, but it's very quiet here with only Valentina left here. It took a while and many helping hands to move all Leila's stuffed cows and dogs... and clothes.



Dima and Julia will move into the apartment (group home parent side of the old "new house" where the older guys live that Kolya and Oksana moved out of after making some repairs and painting. Dima likes to be a handyman. Originally the girls were going there, it may still happen, Julia likes the idea better, the guys are messy. 

Those of you with sharp eyes may have noticed that Valentina has been putting on some pounds in the photos lately. We discovered that she was pregnant after Christmas, much to everyone's surprize, and now the baby boy is due in a month. So she's staying here until we can see how she makes out as a mother. She never gets upset and is always smiling and laughing, so it should be okay.

 We discovered that most social services have shut down during the quarantine. Even the HIV clinics were closed for a couple weeks, but the one in Zaporosia reopened and gave out four months of the free medication. Quarentine was extended untill May 11 this week. 

 So we hope to be empty nesting in a couple months, when the plan is that she (and baby) move in with the other girls. Unless we get more female students in the fall, then who knows? Maybe we will find some more group home parents.