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.