Maps

 Here we are in the village, the Ukrainian name is on the map but many use the Russian, so we've always used Nikolaipolia in English. Turn right at the marker and you will find out where we live on Centralna street.

The village is in the little piece of Zaporozhyia oblast region that pokes up into the Dnepropetrovsk region, two kilometres from the highway between the cities of Dnipro and Zaporozhye. This one's an old map with the old city names. After Crimea was taken in 2014, many cities had name changes to de-Sovietize them, including Dnipro, or Dnepro. A pronunciation hint, you really don't use that D when you say it.

Here is one with the new names on (it shows the route some friends took to leave Ukraine this week.)

A better idea of what I mean about where it is, more of a close up anyway, in this map of Dnepropetrovsk region. See the skinny piece to the left of the river? The village is right at the top.

To see where the war is being fought here's a map, with a similar map underneath that shows where Dnipro and Zaporozhye are located and our village between them, close to the bend in the river.

The people in the village think it will all be over soon, with Ukraine repelling the invaders. Which means that Max Boradin won't be wanting to fly back and enlist. Garry's not  only one who can't sleep this week.

I'll have to tell about our day tomorrow morning, since I spent five hours trying to cancel our flights. Apparently cancelling our flight to Kyiv because they can't go there didn't cancel the trip to Montreal and Vienna. Couldn't do it online and couldn't get through, but we aren't flying tomorrow. Or today now. Good night.

Update

 Most of our Canadian friends and American ones are driving out of Ukraine now. Our staff and students are still safe in the village. I talked to Max via video chat this afternoon, his daughter Vika was doing schoolwork remotely at home like in the pandemic.

There are no lights on in the village at night and the windows are covered so they can't be seen by the Russian forces. Max says people have come from the city of Zaporozhye to stay in the village. They are selling milk for seven grivna a liter to cover expenses for production, unless people can't pay for it, then it's free. The village stores have been able to get bread to sell, people usually buy it every day, although other things are in short supply. The students are eating some of the vegetables I froze last summer for the daily noon meal together, I'm told.

 Like us, Max can't believe this has happened. He says there are Russian troops at the other side of Zaporozhye coming from Melitopol.

Sunday we'll be in church, no fresh snowfall this weekend, and Garry's going to lead prayer for Ukraine at both services, afterwards we have lunch at our house for the family, it was planned as part of our going away time. Of course now I'll be unpacking our suitcases Monday instead of catching a ride to the airport.

So far

 I've been answering lots of private messages the last two days, while turning our house in Manitoba upside down with our youngest sons decision to move into their own place now that we aren't leaving for the foreseeable future.

Garry especially is feeling very far from all the people we know and love in Ukraine. We follow news reports, Max Boradin is constantly talking with his friends who have joined the defence fighting against Russia troops, yesterday they told him they might not live to talk again but we're off to defend Zaporozhye.

The farm is okay, students and staff are milking cows as usual although no truck came to buy milk yesterday. Garry talked to Max Rudei the first day of the invasion. The day before they had been spreading fertilizer on the wheat fields and preparing for spring. The replacement motor for the skid steer arrived in the city but they couldn't get it now, the business was closed and driving there was not certain. They had heard an explosion near the village that morning, probably a missile, but no one was injured.

So far there is electric and WiFi in the village. Garry even got a video of two of the students delivering a calf. We have video chatted with some of the students and Victor, apparently Dnipro has been quiet after the bombing the first morning. He will be recovering from the hernia surgery for at least a week. Some of our Canadian friends and colleagues are trying to drive out to neighboring countries right now.

Our Facebook feed is full of photos of the war, pleas for help from NATO and donations for the army information on what to do if there are injuries or in case of bombing. Please keep everyone in Ukraine in prayer.

Pray for the people of Ukraine

 After thinking we'd be flying into Ukraine next week for the last three weeks, even when the airlines had cancelled flights into Kyiv this week (we were flying in March first and so far no email cancellation had arrived when I nervously checked each morning) this evening we realized that isn't going to happen. We're going to be looking at giant piles of snow for now. Sunday we couldn't go to church as yet another blizzard rolled through Manitoba.

We spent today (Wednesday) with family, Matt and family had driven out from Saskatchewan last night to see us before we flew back. I was planning to finish one more grandchild hat before leaving, although I had been avoiding serious packing of suitcases- they are still mostly packed from the beginning of the month when we were supposed to go. Garry was really wishing we'd gone earlier when flights were cancelled last week. 

As far as we know everything and everyone we know is okay, except the airports in Kyiv, Dnipro and Zaporozhye have apparently been bombed. So I'm assuming that email will arrive tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's a few photos taken at the farm this week. Note the lack of snow, compared to here in Manitoba. 

As the message I received from one of our girls said "how are you in Canada, the war has begun." 

Pray for Ukraine, for everyone we know there, our students, staff, others we know and those we haven't met yet, for missionary families that are still there, and for Max and Garry tonight as they wish they were there with their friends. And for Victor, who is in hospital in Dnipro this morning after hernia surgery Wednesday. 

Weekend

 Garry decided to make mozzarella cheese Saturday morning since he wasn't going to referee basketball with the tournament cancelled because school was closed Friday. The boys have a little extra milk right now. Here's a few photos. I took them while we were video chatting with Angelina and Valentina in Ukraine. Little Angelina is talking now.

He's a little disappointed that he didn't fly back to Ukraine last week since it seems like airlines are starting to cancel flights this week. Of course he really wants to go back to see how everyone is, we've been gone for more than three months.

It was really cold out this morning and we forgot to plug the car in last night. Forty minutes wasn't long enough so we ended up staying home from church today. We watched the live service at eleven am, and our son's sermon from Saskatchewan.

We did watch the Superbowl with the family. Some of Garry's mozzarella was turned into pizza. After being home this long, even the little girls love to play with grandpa.

Ice fishing adventure

 So we're here in Manitoba for two more weeks (assuming Russian troops stay out of Ukraine) after valentine's day. I've been cooking with buttermilk and catching up on things I didn't get around to doing before we were going to leave last week. Plus making some crocheted hats for grandkids, so far Spider-Man, the Hulk and Marshall from paw patrol.

Monday evening we enjoyed speaking to a life group at church after having dinner and board games with Doug and Marcie. Wednesday night Garry was off with the boys because the Winnipeg Mens league is on again. They even won the basketball game. It was nearly midnight when they got home.

Garry's refereed a couple basketball games this week, but several were cancelled because school was closed today, so no weekend tournament. Thursday night was cancelled because there was a storm and blowing snow. 

Anyway, when Garry got home Wednesday night, he asked if i wanted to go ice fishing with them Thursday morning at five thirty. I found my old boots and dug through the suitcases looking for my warm leggings to wear under my jeans.

We were up and almost ready to go when Josh and Noah pulled up in the pick-up. It was still dark when we got to the lake and unloaded the snowmobiles, but the sun was just rising when we found the lawn chair they left to mark where they fished last time. Actually my chair, Noah had grabbed it from the garage that day.

It didn't take long to get set up, but Garry's plan to shovel the snow away from the area to set up the tent on, wasn't the best idea, because when they drilled the holes to fish in, water bubbled up from the lake and we ended shoveling snow back in to adsorb it. Unfortunately the heater got wet and then froze. 

Eventually Josh decided to cook some garlic sausage on the camp stove, which was dry, then Noah held the heater over it and melted the ice, dripping water pouring out of it. The little tank ran out of propane, but luckily it did melt enough, and we started warming up after it got started. That was about the time the snow and wind started outside. 

We had a great time fishing, even though Josh forgot the frozen minnows so we had to use fake ones. Unfortunately the fish didn't like them. The wind was blowing harder and suddenly it tried to blow the tent away. Everyone grabbed for it as we sat in our camp chairs. The tent came back down with Josh and I sitting on the outside and Noah and Garry inside.

 We got it back in place and Garry and I held on while the boys went out and piled snow around the side and put in a couple anchor stakes to hold it down. Which it did, although a big gust would have us all thinking about where to grab it.

We got the heater back on and returned to fishing, and talking and opened a bag of Doritos. The holes were no longer in a straight line along the edge of the tent since it had moved a little while going up and back down. Since the cook stove had no fuel left, Josh rigged up a way to cook hotdogs with the heater.

 The boys were teasing me that I was bad luck and that was why we weren't catching anything, but just maybe it was the lack of minnows, since they'd had them last time.

After a second round of hotdogs, I thought I had a nibble around twelve forty five so they decided to fish until one o'clock and go back a little earlier than they had to, since Garry and Josh were referring that evening. They were going to save time on filleting fish. The wind seemed to be blowing less, however we found drifts around the snowmobiles and you couldn't see the shore, or our tracks to get back to the launch. Did I say no one else was on the lake? 

Anyway, everything got packed up and in the sled, and we hopped on the snowmobiles. Did I mention the last time I rode behind Garry on a snowmobile it was more than forty years ago? The ride back took longer than twenty minutes. In fact the snow finally stopped about twenty minutes later, and we weren't sure where we were on the lake. We stopped a couple times and checked the GPS on Noah's phone and figured out how to get back to the truck. 

I climbed in the truck while they loaded everything up. However I'd left the door open a crack and had to move some snow off my seat. The drive home was a little slow, because we'd gotten quite a lot of snow. Garry ended up napping after the basketball games were cancelled for road conditions. In the morning, a lot of roads were closed for blowing snow, although it wasn't too bad out here in St Labre.

The chair is still out there, hoping to see it again.

Keeping busy

 

Although I think Garry is regretting not flying back on Thursday, he's been finding things to do. On Friday he decided to make butter. Josh found the cream separator they bought on the internet last year- it actually came from Ukraine- and Garry spent two days making butter in my kitchen. 

I've been trying out recipes using butter and buttermilk, so far we've had pancakes, buterkoek (Dutch butter cake) yeast buttermilk biscuits (which were very like ones from a can) and today I'm looking at doughnuts, cookies and coffeecake recipes.

Since we're still here I cooked Sunday night dinner for the nearby kids. Lasagna, biscuits, salad and buterkoek. You see those big meals for the students in Ukraine are just like at home. We also went to church Sunday morning, even though we got another several inches of snow Saturday. There's bigger piles outside than we've seen in years.

I made a couple hats for grandkids this week, tonight we're sharing with a life group at church, and I really need to unpack part of the suitcases I was stuffing last week to find some of my new clothes, Garry's other pair of work pants and the yarn I was going to take, but now can use before we go...

Garry has the rest of week booked to referee or play basketball with the boys every evening, and we will have lots more grandkid time. Garry is excited that one of our two year old granddaughters has finally warmed up to him and runs over to hug him and play when they visit. 

Meanwhile, things in Ukraine are quiet. This is a drone photo of the barns in Ukraine.

Delay

 Today, we were supposed to be putting the last things in our suitcases and saying goodbye for our flight Thursday morning. However, yesterday Canada changed it's Ukraine alert to do not travel to Ukraine. The day before we were discussing with others how'd we were going because it was only for non-essential people and Garry feels pretty essential, me a little less so.

However, with others worrying about our safety and the new higher alert, Garry decided that we could rebook for two weeks later. The first flight Austrian offered after that for no charge was actually a month away when I phoned, so we'll be arriving March first, which gives the situation time to resolve for everyone's peace of mind. Of course, Garry was influenced by how well everything has been going while we have been gone for three months. So maybe we are less essential, which is a good thing as we are getting older.

So this morning I was pulling things out of my bags, hunting for the Fitbit charger I packed yesterday morning. Garry is off to the barn checking on heifers to breed, and he can do more referee jobs with Josh, and maybe I'll go ice fishing too. Of course more time with the kids and grandkids.

If we were already in Ukraine, I don't think we would be leaving, just have a plan in place in case we had to, like in 2014. Keep the car full of fuel, maybe pack a go bag. 

I wonder how much I need to unpack, and how much can stay in the suitcases for a couple weeks.