Getting ready to go

 Well our plane tickets are bought, Garry and I fly out of Zaporosia November sixth at 4:30 am. Vienna to Toronto, then on to Winnipeg about twenty real hours later, landing at 6:30 pm. Our return flight is three months later, so we are leaving the staff and students to adjust to the new routine. Garry says he feels good about handing off the student work, pay, and problem behaviour off to Oleg three weeks ago. If we are not here the students can't come complain about his decisions, although they may try over Facebook.

The student lunchroom is going well, except for a couple guys who think they'd rather have the 500 grivna that's deducted from their new higher salary for it. Garry and I told the staff that would happen, but they need to wait them out now that they did it, they just say it's not an option to opt out.  The food is good, Valentina goes down to the new house at noon on weekdays to get hers in containers and brings it home, everyone else eats there.  Elena has helped them, but Kolya and Julia have done most of the cooking, so far.

We dropped in Monday about 12:30 with the twins' birthday presents and desserts. Misha had asked for Napoleon cake, and I made apple pie for Vasili as usual, since he prefers it to cake. It was my first try at Napoleon but they all liked it, including Garry, who had two pieces. I had one bite, since I am avoiding sugar.

Of course, we are busy getting ready to be gone so long. Garry is working on the remodel of the bathrooms at the barn, one back to working order, and one to be turned into the guard room. Three of the guys are working  rotating twelve hour shifts at the barn on the new schedule. Last week he tiled the floor to raise it up so water from the milk house doesn't flow into the rooms anymore. Today he was working on installing the doors, one new, one was reusable. Dima was his assistant since he loves the handyman jobs.

Fixing the bottom of the wall is next, I think he left Dima working on it, he's off to get a massage. Garry made the mistake of helping the students pull up drip line three days ago, so his knee is sore and this morning he woke up with a stiff neck too. 

 

One of the cornfields has been combined, the other should be done this week sometime.Garry was excited to check it out on Saturday afternoon when we got home from Dnepro. If you look closely you can see the combine in the above photo. The corn is going in the new Quonset, as planned. I can even show you a photo of the doors since my phone is working again.

Garry decided to mow and bale up the cornstalks this year as part of the dry cow ration instead of straw or oat hay they have been using in their TMR mix. There's some stacked in the shed already.

It still hasn't rained, although it's in next week's forecast. We'll see if it stays and actually rains, because it's had rain in the long term forecast a couple times this fall that has disappeared. Garry's considering replanting the first wheat fields they planted before it rains, it's been so dry they think some seed has died.

Saturday and Sunday afternoon we were in Dnepro as Garry did his last English classes for a few teachers, just two lessons for another and he's done until February. 

While we were in Egypt, Dnepro, and Zaporosia, along with several other areas of Ukraine went into red zone for covid. You are supposed to show a vaccination certificate to do many things now. Garry decided to buy tickets for the English movie showing in Dnepro Tuesday and we were the only ones in the theatre to see the Bond movie! At least we had bought the cushy couch chairs in the back of the theatre to make it worth it.  Afterwards we had interesting ( and tasty) hotdogs.