Student dinner

 

Last week when we got home, we told the students I was not up to doing student dinner that Monday, but maybe next week. We were maybe overly optimistic, since we went shopping Saturday morning and Garry barely made it through the store, but after resting this weekend and drinkng more water, he's been feeling good today. We were hoping to do it outside for the first time this year, but as you can see, it was looking cloudy out by eleven am.

I had made brownies Sunday evening for dessert (cookies were one of the things I missed on the grocery list) and after a morning nap today  I chopped some cabbage, fried it in butter, tossed in some garlic powder and frozen chopped onions (I knew that they would be handy last summer) and tossed all that in crockpot one. Then I browned ground beef, more frozen onions and opened ten cans of beans into crockpot two for cowboy beans. 

I made some lunch after Garry got back from breeding cows, then we napped for a couple hours (see we are taking it easy) before Garry went out and I boiled some pasta to go with the cabbage. I mixed them together in the big pot and stuck it in the oven to stay warm. Then I peeled a bunch of hotdogs from their plastic wrappers and boiled them and put them in the now empty crockpot one to stay warm.

It was cool and had rained while we were napping so hotdogs over the fire was not happening. They came they ate and took home leftovers. Garry had fun playing with Angelina.

 Garry washed up the dishes, with a little help from a couple students, and then took off in the car for Nova Lenya to buy paint for a couple of the students to repaint the vents on the barn, they are pretty faded, they need repainting every three years or so. I am sitting and typing, height of ambition, and coughing a bit, too, so I have a cup of antiflem drink by me, as the sun is setting.

Crop report 1

 This afternoon we took a drive over to the barn and out to see a few alfalfa fields, so here's some photos. As far as our recovery from Covid, its a slow process. We aren't much better than last weekend!

The winter wheat looks really good, growing fast.

Here's a springing heifer in the calving pen waiting to have her baby.

Here's the bulldozer that's been working to clear the site for the new heifer shed, and the heifer shed that the new one they will be building that will look exactly the same.

Here's one inside the cow barn, milking had just finished before we arrived.

Now for the alfalfa fields, only maybe ten to 14 days to first cut hay! The new seeding of alfalfa, oats and peas that was planted right after Garry tested positive for Covid, and the mature field which will be baled.

Here's the baby chicks, growing fast in their newly painted house.

Spring has sprung

 The little chicks are outside in one of the little houses the students were building before Garry got sick. He had to wait until Monday to get them a real heat lamp bulb and a waterer, the hardware store in the village was closed Sunday. They just had the lamp from the house and it wasn't freezing, but it wasn't that warm overnight (8C). It's on Nikolai's yard, hopefully little Danil doesn't open it by himself someday. 

 He drove to Salone Monday morning and bought some seeds that Nikolai helped him with raking and planting in the garden. The onions and peas he planted around the time he got sick are up. He even took some of the tomato plants that had gotten frosted inside while we were gone and planted them yesterday. I pointed out four years ago we had eight inches of snow according to facebook memories, so it seems early.

Someone thought the litter box would smell less with the window open apparently. We have 18 sad looking plants. Luckily not every one was in that room. Box was excited when he brought back real catfood, and when I solved the litter box problem when I found a bag of kitty litter on the porch Monday afternoon. 

Up to yesterday, I was mostly lying down, taking my meds, drinking lots of water. Today is my last day of antibiotics. Then its just what the doctor considered preventative for a month. Monday I found my crocheting, although my hand is a little sore from the IV yet, I did some. 

Saturday night Garry cooked dinner, he made sloppy joes, although he  was kind of taking care of things betweeen drives to barn and shop to check out what was happening. He hung out laundry and washed dishes. Sunday I made lunch, boiling potatoes and turning his leftover meat into shepherd pie, but then I had to rest and he had to clean up! Monday morning I made omelettes and hashbrowns (which is why I cooked potatoes Sunday) before he woke up.  He mostly drives around supervising what is happening because we really do need to take it easy. 

The students are excited that the extra jobs are back. Saturday evening the bulldozer to clear the land for the new heifer barn arrived and started working, so before long the concrete work will start, and someone will be cutting up plywood pieces for the trusses they will be building soon. The boys were moving bales around yesterday as part of the site cleanup. Garry said he moved two bales to show them what to do and then he was wheezing for air, so his body is convincing him to not overdo it. He even took a nap in his chair after lunch. 

Garry was hoping for rain, but there wasn't any overnight, it's stilll pretty grey out this morning. Daffodils are blooming, the tulips are rushing along, the grass is looking like it could be cut (hopefully by a student as I don't think Garry's quite up to it this week.) I decided to walk outside and take a couple photos for this story and we now have some rain. Which is always a good thing, but maybe the cultivator will be heading back to the yard now. I can hear the rain on the roof now, so it's coming down a bit harder.

The famous upside down flowers are almost blooming too. In a couple days there will be bright orange flowers, you can just see the buds. They are one of the earliest spring flowers in the village every year. 

Home in the village

 Well, I left you on a bit of a cliffhanger! Some of you know that I went to hospital on that Wednesday morning when I felt dizzy and although I was not as sick as Garry at first, I ended up being pretty sick by that weekend.  When I was admitted to the hospital Garry had just been moved to the same floor I would be on. We started out in five person rooms but by evening Olga (who had visited with us with her kids last month) had helped us make a donation so we had a two bed room with our own fridge. 

day one

The toilet was down the hall for the whole floor, but it was good to have our own space. It was little scary when he was gasping for air in the middle of the night, Garry was on supplemental oxygen when I arrived, more on than off but he made great progress. By Tuesday this week they would have let him out but he was now the one taking care of me! 

packed up and hoping to go

The church ladies from Morningstar took good care of us, dropping off dinners and water for us. and on Wednesday Max snuck us some KFC sandwiches. I couldn't belive I ate a whole spicy sandwich, I think it was the beginning of my recovery. 

Friday morning the doctor really wanted me to stay the weekend but we came home with lots of drugs including antibiotics for me and I've been taking easy in a much softer bed and a toilet I can use whenever I want... and a shower, so I think it will fine. Some tasty McDonalds on the way home, Max drove us. Garry had lost almost thirty pounds before going into hospital.

with our doctor

Yesterday we even got our chicks back home, the plants are mostly good and Box is okay but really wishing we'd bought catfood on the way home. She's not a fan of dog food, which was all that was left.

Our covid tests are negative now, its just a matter of recovering from the effects of the virus. We have blood thinner pills and other preventatives to take, more for me than Garry,  it will be a couple weeks before we are getting back to normal. Garry drives the car around to check stuff out, and everyone stays far away from him (now that he's not sick). He's picked up groceries in the village and made me slopppy joes for dinner Saturday night. (No, they don't have dry cat food although he sent Sasha to buy chick food.) Apparently many people in the village were sick but not as much as us.

Going home!

Hospital

 Garry is in hospital in Dnepro. He went Monday evening after three days of trying to decided is he better or worse and not being able to eat because he was nauseous. We had gotten a home oxygen machine that afternoon, but he was feeling so bad, and the oximeter we'd gotten would  keep going down so what was the right number. Max drove him to Dnepro and he was looking better this morning when he called to video chat after oxygen and some IVs (antibiotics- they did a chest x ray and he has pneumonia).

I am still not as sick, just tired, with an occasional fever, and home taking care of the plants and the thirty chicks that hatched over the weekend. My Covid test last Thursday was positive too.