Almost done

 It seems like I am almost done with my quarantine or self isolation, tomorrow will be day fourteen! date of publication may not match, I haven't changed my phone from Ukrainian time yet. Tomorrow I will clean up and get ready to move to the main house on Thursday. 

Monday evening Garry and Victor did student dinner. I saw them eating watermelon before dinner. There were hotdogs and marshmallows too. 

Tuesday the chopper broke at 12:30, and it took some time to get it fixed. Max went to Zaporosia for parts. They did chop two loads at the end of the day.

I talked to Garry about 9:30 tonight, or 6:30 am tomorrow in Ukraine, and he was just going out to start. He says it's getting light later in the mornings. It's still hot, in the thirties Celsius. 

Four more days...or three?

 

Four more days of self isolation... Yup, I am even tired of unlimited crochet and Netflix! Yesterday I watched Matthew's church service on YouTube live, and had one family of visitors in the afternoon. We talk out of the living room window. Most days someone drops by for a little chat, or drops something off if they go to town. Saturday afternoon there was a thunderstorm that piled some little hailstones on the deck.

Garry video chats with me a couple times a day. He says it's nice because I am always available. Normally when I get home, I am busy hanging out with the grandkids or driving to Morden to hang out with our granddaughter there, he says.

He's been busy. The plan to start making corn silage on Friday got delayed by having to fix things... Like the machine that chops the corn! The forage harvestor didn't make it more than twenty feet the first morning before they spent the day repairing it. 

Saturday morning they were up at six am again and this time it didn't work much longer. They needed some "half moon keys" to fix it this time, and didn't have any on hand.  The part was not available to purchase in Ukraine, so Garry bought a piece of metal and they used a grinder to make some, and it worked.

That afternoon they were able to chop three loads while testing the machine, and were ready to get started for real. 

So Sunday morning at six am they started again and this time they kept the machine going until five pm, when they had a flat tire on one of the wagons. 

It's an old machine from Canada, and Garry brings parts for it in his suitcase. In fact, the Crawfords brought parts for it when they came in July. Last week Max was cobbling together the best pieces of old gathering chains and welding a better chain because the one on the chopper was so bad that they wished they'd replaced it. It's a really heavy part to go in your suitcase.

So they have gotten a couple days in, Garry starts in the morning with neighbor Andrey driving wagons back and forth between the field and the barn where the silage bunker is. Around one o'clock the second crew of Rudei's take over. Garry tells me that he thinks there is more crop than last year, maybe sixty percent more. He thinks the fertilizer was applied more evenly this year which helped it be good all over the field.

From my phone

 

Well, I managed to login to blogger, now we'll see if I can post from my phone. I traveled light without my laptop, and so I will see how good the new phone friendly interface is!

Traveling went smoothly, although wearing a facemask for twenty four hours does get a little old, it was worth it to get to Manitoba. The kids had parked my car at the airport and I managed to pick up the keys and drive home arriving about one am at my temporary home.

I'm at the farm hexaplex in the family unit. The kids stocked it with food, books, yarn and the internet is working. Some of the kids have stopped by to chat through the window and leave stuff by the door for me. One more week of self isolation and I will be able to go to the house and hug them. 

Garry has been busy, they have almost finished putting the steel on the roof of the shed. Unfortunately they were one sheet short for the roof. Fortunately, they hadn't gotten the order in for the roof on the straw barn, so they just ordered an extra sheet. 

Yesterday they started rolling up the big hoses that water the big corn field. Max has been busy fixing up the chopper because they plan to start making corn silage Friday.

When Garry got home from driving me to Kyiv last week Friday, he discovered that the irrigation system was down again. They have had several "blowouts" this summer on the main line and it takes several days to fix so they did not get as much water as he'd liked on the cornfields, but enough that he's looking forward to seeing how much it will take to fill a wagon up. 

While driving to Kyiv we saw some very sad cornfields that weren't irrigated. It was a hot dry summer as usual. 

going home

We're in a hotel in Borispol (where the Kyiv airport is) and it's 4:22 am. in a couple hours I will be able to check in and get on my first flight to take me home for a couple weeks, and Garry will drive back to the village.

He plans to join me for September, if all works out, his corn silage harvest will be later than normal this year. He'll be busy finishing his building projects.

We are mostly moved into what was the Crawford house, we had a picnic for the students Monday evening with hamburgers and smores.

a different group, a different experience

We are still at the sea, we'll pack up and go back to the village tomorrow morning after breakfast. Right now I am typing one handed while holding little 11 month old Matthew. he's enjoying a cookie to divert him from the fact that mama and papa have gone swimming. Yesterday while Garry and I watched him and Angelina while everyone went swimming, he got so upset Garry carried him down to find them.

The ants are going to love all the cookie crumbs we're making. It's harder to do our own thing with so many babies and parents needing things between meals, we're finding. Garry made good time driving to the village and back, with only a couple construction detours on Sunday. Since we gave up the four person room, Dima and Julia, who don't have a baby are sharing a three person room with Valentina and Angelina. So far the babies have been good at night, although when Garry arrived and 23 month old Daniel wouldn't stop screaming, the lady who checked them in asked Garry what had he brought here.

Well, Oksana and Kolya had a laugh when they saw their son covered in cookie crumbs when they got back from the sea. Garry, who went with them has not made an appearance yet, but maybe they sped up when this latest thunderstorm swept in off the sea. This group is getting a lot of rain for their days at the sea. After swimming Saturday evening and Sunday ...

This was the point in the post when the thunder and lightning caused a several hour power outage.
It's now Saturday night and we drove back to the village Tuesday morning. 

...the stormfront moved in late Sunday afternoon and it poured all evening and night. We were watching the baby so Valentina could walk to the bazaar after dinner and she and Julia and Dima got caught in the downpour. Garry took a photo when they showed up to picked up Angelina. We  wrapped her in a beach towel to keep her dry as they headed to their door.

It looked like it might clear up Monday morning but after breakfast, another couple showers rolled in.  We walked down to check it out after the rain and found the high water and lots of people taking selfies with the surf.

It cleared up after lunch and the students and Garry went down to swim after lunch. They had a nice swim in the waves, before the next storm came up.

Garry decided to walk to the the chebureki stand, for one last one to eat (see photo of the fried treat) and came in while the thunder and lightning was crazy close, it was pouring rain, and the power was out as I mentioned above. He took a nap.

I was trying to figure out supper without cooking, while the rain continued to pour down for hours. It did come back on before supper time. Some of the students were playing Uno under the shelter after it slowed down. Valentina was happy it came on because she had runout of mixed up milk for the baby.

No one was sad to pack up and head home after breakfast on Tuesday morning. The drive went well once we got out of town, we had to go around a number of hoses pumping out flooded hotel lots as we drove off the "spit".

The kids and the babies were pretty good, other than Danil's singsong repeat he does sometimes. However the detour was interesting (as in narrow through villages and lots of potholes)  and  rather long as we neared Zaporosia and then we accidently ordered one less hamburger and fries at Mc Donald to go with the juice boxes than adults and so I started my diet.

We were glad to get back to the village and start moving into the house (Crawford's) next door. It's Saturday night and its still a process, hoping to be mostly done by Wednesday when Garry drives me to Kyiv for my flight to Canada.

Wednesday morning we spent the morning with Victor doing our temporary residence stuff again (the cards were ready to pick up and then we had to go to a different place to register them for the year.

After that we picked up a new Sasha to try out farm life. In spite of a physical handicap, he worked hard, they were baling third cut hay on Thursday and Friday, and many of the student knew him already. He'll be back in a week or two.