Rain, planting, frost and other stuff

We had half an inch of rain on Saturday, and most of it fell after four in the afternoon. We went out for lunch for Mother's Day (Sunday was a holiday here also, remembering WWII). We sat on the patio, since they have an awning at O'Hara's Pub in Zaporosia and had steak dinners- with an appetizer of French fries. We discovered they had inexpensive good food when we stopped there last year when Angelina was born (it's near that hospital, just off main street). It hardly rained while we were there.

Garry kept saying that we weren't getting rain like the forecast said, but it was supposed to be heavier in the afternoon. Turned out it was late afternoon and evening, it made the transplants he had put in the garden happy. At least until Monday morning. We had some frost Sunday night, and although the peppers and flowers didn't all die, a lot of the tomato plants did. Garry went out Monday and bought some tomato plants to replace them. Hopefully they will be as nice tomatoes as the beefsteak and roma ones we had.

The sunflowers that were planted first were just coming up Sunday, Garry took some photos, they seem to be unaffected by the frost. The corn planting was finished by noon Thursday and they then started planting the rest of the sunflowers, and are finishing up today (Wednesday). The hope is one of the sunflower groups will get the rain at the right time to get maximum production this summer. 

The corn of course will not have a problem with water, since it is irrigated. The new big plastic pipe was installed this past week in the big field, with Andrey Rudei and Vlad helping the guy who was putting the pipes together. This pipe will replace the big flat (when there's no water in it) hose that ran the length of the field connecting the ones that ran across the field. It sometimes came apart last summer, causing problems, so they decided to spend a little more and get something better. The pipe will be underground. That piece of lay flat hose will be turned into an extra run across the field, so there will be five instead of four that connect to all the little hoses underground. That means that hopefully all the field will get enough water on to grow good tall corn. 

For your crop report, wheat looks good, its getting taller, no flag leaves yet, it's been sprayed and looks like there will be lots of straw this year. Never enough straw, since we use it for bedding and feeding. Of course there will be grain also. The hay is a foot tall and will be ready to cut in a week, if it ever gets dry enough to make hay. They may have to make silage out of it and maybe some wheat too (so the can try double cropping sunflowers, two harvests in one year off the same field). There's only about a week's worth of hay in the mow to feed now, so hopefully it gets dry for a week or so.

There's a number of winter canola fields along the highway and they are starting to bloom. We don't grow any, but a number of farmers use them to rotate with wheat and sunflowers. 

Well hopefully they finished planting sunflowers, we are getting some rain this afternoon. It has been a very unusual spring, cooler and wetter than any in the the twelve years we've been here.

On Mothers Day I had a number of video calls from the kids and grandkids, we went to church in the village where they had an Easter service, since they were closed for the quarantine last week. It was too wet (muddy) for the couple that comes from a village across the fields to drive in this week. Christos vas Christ!