Week two stories

 I've collected a few more stories from Garry in the last week.

He talked to our friend Sveta in Dnepro, whose son Alex (he's maybe 40) has been working from home, staying in the apartment to avoid the draft. He is married with two young children and went outside one night to throw the garbage in the dumpster and got picked up and is in the military. Since he has a university degree, he will be an officer. Alex just finished basic training and fell and broke his arm badly so he has a three month recuperation before he goes now. 

A few video links where you can see Garry from the Facebook for Farmer Garry cheese and milk product sales page  /Ferma Garry video- on farm and Birthday party You'll notice that Garry is wearing his PJ pants in that one, one of those days his jeans wear getting washed and the party is at our house!

Garry sent me this dog photo and said that when he was there in the fall this dog was very sick and they thought would die, and so he was surprised to see him looking so good.

I was talking with him the other evening (his time) when a group of the girls ran into his room, little Sofia was crying apparently they had heard a loud explosion outside (probably something hitting the city). Sofia was born after the war started, she will be four this summer. 

To calm her down they went outside to look at some new kittens in the shed with Garry. I saw a very pixelated baby striped kitten on the videochat. Garry's phone doesn't work so well outside so when I talk to him he's getting wifi in the house or barn.

Mc Donalds in Ukraine always has specials and it looks like a taste of Canada now with a Maple BBQ Royal cheeseburger (you know it as a quarter pounder) and the Mc Crispy Hot Honey. I don't know if he's tried them. Apparently not, because Garry said he's only been there for breakfast, he had a Mc Muffin special with two sausage patties, BBQ sauce and grape jelly.

Looks like the winter canola fields are blooming, as there's a yellow field in the distance behind that horse and wagon. Garry is still wishing for a really good rain, only drizzle since he arrived. 

Max with a new piece of equipment in the garage (or shop). I'm trying to remember what it is, I know it's something we don't have here in the shop in Manitoba. The brothers there would like some things Roman is using here, like a fancy grease gun. 

Garry got some honey for his toast because he tells me that this time there is no more of the jam I canned left at the house. It has been more than four years since I was there.

Garry did preg check eight more cows this week, ones 35-45 days pregnant and he was able to confirm five as pregnant, so a pretty good ratio. He's pretty happy with how it's going. He also checked some fat cows in the dry cow lot that they'd put out with the bull because they were favorites they didn't want to sell. They were pregnant now but cows dry for nine months or more aren't very profitable. Garry's putting in some new procedures to make sure cows are going to be bred artificially a couple months after calving.

They are now delivering milk to the city five days a week, Monday through Friday. There's delivery for people who order more than 1000 grivna of milk and cheese products and new service where they sell twenty litre jugs to people who resell milk to their neighbors in Zaporosia. They pick up the empty jugs when they bring new ones. As far as I know, Garry has not been on any milk delivery runs this trip.