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.