Men at work and church

 I have photos! and some video. Jeremy is working with Dima on the small cheese room addition that was already framed up.

They got quite a lot done on Saturday, although some guys got a little dehydrated working in the 27 degree heat. Garry promises to drink more water. Most of the crew is working on the roof replacement on the dairy barn. 

This morning they attended church in the village and Jack got right into playing guitar and singing with the children. You can see our projector has been put to good use in the church. 

The guys went back to work in the afternoon, and since they are short on wood for the roof, they tried splitting some of the 2 by 6s, as seen in this video.  They hope to get a delivery of lumber on Monday. 

Video sent to me by Oleg. Hopefully they work for you to see. It worked better for me if I clicked the small arrow near the bottom after clicking the big one on the video.

Hope you enjoy this peek into what the guys are doing. 

Cooking questions

 This morning I woke up at 4:30 and soon a message popped up on my phone. Not Garry, but Phil, who's the cook for the guys, asking about my stove, with a photo. Hopefully I was some help in figuring out what dial to turn and where (I think whichever dial it is, 350 is about 5 on the clock face). As you can see, all the dials are blank, and it's been almost three years since I used the stove in Ukraine!

Apparently he had an audience, hopefully he got the oven going. 

It looks like Garry took Phil shopping at the village store. I found that photo on facebook, still waiting to hear from Garry. I'm sure it's been a busy day.

Crossing the border

 I talked to Garry about nine am Manitoba time, they were waiting to get their passports back on the Moldova side of the border before entering Ukraine. Here's a photo.

I'm not sure how the timeline worked out, if they were early enough to go through a city that has a curfew, the trip would be three hours shorter. I don't know which way they went, but I know they got to the village at 2 am their time (6 pm here). I'm sure they were all ready to sleep!

in the air

 He should have two hours left on the long flight from Calgary to Frankfurt, (on Discover Airlines, they were trying to avoid a possible Air Canada strike) landing around 6:30 in the morning Friday  (11:30 pm Thursday here). Then they will have another flight to Moldova, where their ride is waiting with a van. Hopefully all the suitcases arrive with them.

The plan is they will be putting the steel on the barn roof damaged by the tornado this spring, and put the roof on the dry cow shelter that was started when Garry was there in March. They will do some finish work on the cheese house addition, and all before they fly back out to be home on October 9th! Hopefully I will have lots of photos to share.

On the way

 

After six days of driving silage truck for the boys, Garry is on his way to Ukraine. I dropped him at the airport in Winnipeg at 5 am, and he flew to Calgary. He met Jack, Jeremy and the guys at baggage claim, they were picking up their luggage at the next conveyor. From there on they fly together, until they get a ride from Moldova to the village tomorrow. 

One week

 One week from today, Garry and the guys from BC will land in Moldova and go to the village to fix that barn roof and work on an addition to the cheese room the staff has been working on. There's just not enough room to make and store everything they are selling now.  

The power outages are less, the power companies are recovering from the missile damage last month. They have a number of generators for when the power is out. The guys are bringing rechargeable batteries and tools. 

On September first, school started for the year, and little Danil (Alona and Nicholai's son) is seven so he started grade one! Oleg and Elena's son Nathan is in grade one too. I got some photos and videos of the first day ceremonies. Danil is on the left, and the boy in the middle is their older son David. 

Speaking of Oleg and Elena, they had a baby girl a week later! I'm sending some booties I made.

 

Hopefully I will have some photos and updates for you next week.