Photos from Ukraine

 The staff and students in Ukraine have facebook so we are always updated on things in the village. Garry usually has a video chat with Max every week, so he is updated on crops and whether they can sell them. The answer to that is usually that they can't get enough for them to cover the cost of growing them. This year they only grew as much corn as they needed for silage to feed the cows. They hope to sell the sunflower crop, when it's harvested at a decent price, it was the one crop that has been easier to sell since the war started. They were worried about having the funds to pay someone to combine, but someone that owed the farm money got some cash and paid them. Max says people in the village are learning to get along without money. 

There was a birthday party for one of the new girls that came last year, in the photos you can see many of the students who have been around for years, and some of the new ones. Two new guys arrived recently to our little community.

That's the birthday girl with Sasha and Leila

Looks like a hotdogs and watermelon picnic. Garry is planning another visit to the village, probably in November. 

Arrival

 Last year we found out that Max Rudei (our farm manager in Ukraine)'s brother and family were living south of Kherson where the Russian army was in Ukraine. They escaped through Russia (they have relatives in Russia) and were living in Poland for the last year. They applied for the Canadian visas for displaced Ukrainians, and finally they were able to fly in August 30th. 

Garry picked them up at the airport in Winnipeg and spent a couple days helping them do all the paperwork and applying for various things you need living in Canada. They are very happy in the apartments at the farm and the kids have started school. We had to drive them the first week until the bus started to pick them up. 

Roman doesn't know much English, but his wife Tanya has some (about as much as I do Russian) and the kids studied it last year in Poland. Roman is working on the farm, milking cows and even driving truck sometimes when they were doing corn silage last week.  Tanya has started doing some calf feeding now, too. 

We were at the farm for more than a week because Garry was driving truck for silage chopping, but he was ready to head back to the lake and do some fishing. I am finally feeling normal again after more than a month of recovering from being sick.