mid-February

It was amazing to see how much snow had melted when we drove into Dnepropetroesk Wednesday morning - it was about 9 degrees on Sunday, and the sides of the road were nearly melted away, fields were clear, except for the shady spots, and places where it had been piled. It was melting all day, with some big puddles in the low pots on the road when we drove home around 5 pm- the road temp sign a few miles before the turn into the village was working (for the second time in the last year) and the air temp was three and the road temperature was plus 2. The temp dropped below zero today with the wind blowing so yesterday’s puddles have ice on tops and the snow flurries were flying for a while, as you can see in the photo.
I haven’t posted in a couple days so here’s the latest news- after taking it easy for a few days, swallowing a few Advil when I could talk him into taking them, and some free unskilled back massages by yours truly- Garry says his back is improving, although he’s still standing up really slowly.

Yesterday it was warm (above zero) and Garry and the boys and I spent most of the day in Dnepro- monthly team meeting was in the morning, it was good to see everyone and catch up on the news. One family just returned from a vacation in Egypt the week the riots broke out- luckily they had planned to spend all their time snorkelling in the Red Sea at their resort, so their trip was unaffected. Good thing we went last year- it was really strange to watch the news last week and see fire bombs flying in front of the museum we visited last May. The boys enjoyed playing Killer Bunnies, and some playstation2 with other teens. I had brought some spicy soup for lunch, and Orben did not need to add any hot sauce. When I say spicy, I mean edible, but hot.

We made a few other stops to trade stuff with a friend at the mall, and to buy the boys a new TV for their gaming station in their room- we had been trying to find one since Garry had given the “old” one to the milker ladies when he had satellite hooked up for them in October. All the stores had lots of flat screens – but no old-fashioned cheap ones. Garry and I had bought a few small appliances(coffeemaker and a toaster) at Foxmart about ten days ago, and discovered a whole row to choose from, so we told the boys we’d take them to get one when we were downtown.

Garry is excited- he thinks he has now secured about 80 acres to plant this spring- maybe 60 in corn and the rest in alfalfa (with peas and grain as a covercrop.) On Tuesday the “big dairy farmer” that we buy some stuff off (where we bought jhome-beetpulp in the fall) sent a guy over with a wagon to buy 4 tons of the brewers’ grains. His farm feeds corn silage and straw, and milks about a hundred cows. We are now milking twenty six, and are making over 512 liters a day. We have a new milk buyer- the original two, and the new one that started buying in January can’t take it all (at least not at the current price.)






Maxim has been working on welding and rebuilding the precept (wagon) we have been borrowing for about the last year from Serosia, one of the neighbours. Every time they use it something else falls off it. He got a lot done with the warm weather while Garry was resting his back, but ran out of welding rods yesterday. I took a photo of the progress just before dark today.
They are still looking for the parts they need to fix the one Garry bought when he returned in January- as you can see it’s a two-parter! They think they have the model number now, and hope to find the broken part. You can see why Garry was checking out the nice-looking one on the trailer at the farm show. It was made by KAMAZ, the company that makes trucks in Ukraine (former Soviet-style) the most common truck on the road (think dump truck like-not pickup truck- you hardly ever see a pickup truck here.)

Finally, Garry and Victor spent some time changing/fixing tires in that cold wind this afternoon- they went somewhere and had both the front and rear driver's side tires blow when they hit a big hole going slowly (like 10 or 15 km/hr Garry says- Victor was driving.)
Hopefully Garry and Maxim have better luck driving the highway tonight- they are going to see a basketball game in Dnepro. I turned down the chance to go, I prefer games when I am the mother of the players. By the way- congrats boys I hear you won last night in Winnipeg- and what do you mean Micah played part of the game after having spent most of the day at the hospital?

Mountain of brewers grain

Here's a photo of the truck delivering brewers' grain today. Last week Garry was contacted by the company and found out we could have loads of 27 tons delivered by their truck. This happened around the same time the guy from a couple villages over with the little truck that we had been buying brewers' grain from brought a load that he said was 8 ton, but Maxim and Garry thought was half the size of the normal load he'd been bringing. Along with his constant need for payment before delivery (even though he owes us money from getting fixed his truck last month when it broke) it made the decision to use the company truck easy.

So Garry decided to get the load from the company (it seems the other guy is now offering loads of slag to pay off the loan now according to Victor, he was very upset about the new deal.) Today we may have figured out why- it seems like all his loads he brought must have been short because look at all the brewers' grain that came out of this load!
Garry says that this is the best-looking delivery truck in Ukraine, too. Well, the first guy was a good deal at the time, when the company wouldn't sell us any because we weren't a regular customer from the summer, when they have more than they can sell. I took the photos when the pit was overflowing, before they dumped the rest on top of some plastic on the ground. There is a mountain outside now. We may need to figure out how much more brewers' grain we can feed the cows.
One of the challenges of our little business is helping people without getting cheated. Ukrainian businessmen are expected to be tough, and sharp dealers while Christians are supposed to be giving(and we are here to help people) Garry is planning to dig a second slightly larger pit in the spring to hold the rest of these big loads- and maybe some of the village will want to buy a little brewers' grain for their cows?

Garry has a sore back (for our children- remember when dad had the bad back about 7 years ago- the summer we drove out to Oregon and the Lava tube caves?- same problem) He now says he should not have carried the milk cans from the street to the church at Morneingstar. Now he can hardly lean over to tie his shoes (or fork silage- Maxim will be busy for a few days) Hopefully rest and Advil will solve the problem- if not he may consider Victor's solution of massage or something else that will fix it. Last time it took months- he drove out to the west coast and could barely straighten up and walk when we got out of the van. The three boys (Seth, Jonah and Luke) raced through the caves ahead of him- he had to duck and they didn't. It was one of their favorite parts of the trip.

Sunday report

A year ago, I only posted on Sundays, giving a report for the week- now I sometimes post everyday! Once again, it’s above zero C today- there are puddles and slush everywhere. Garry tells me that the fields are even looking green in places. Garry and the guys left for church a bit earlier this morning, since they had 160 liters to drop off at Victor’s church and were bringing 100 liters to Morningstar. I stayed home as I was feeling a little feverish with my cold.
Unfortunately, they forgot to bring the empty pop bottles we had saved up to take (empty plastic drink bottles are the container of choice for the sale of Ukrainian liquids.) When Garry phoned at one o’clock he said church had been longer than normal, and it’s the first Sunday in the month, so there was communion. He said they would likely be bringing back some milk, as many people had forgotten to bring containers. As soon as they were finished he and the guys would be heading home (I assume after a stop at McDonald’s- the boys are always starving after church.)

The ladies dried off (stopped milking) another cow yesterday, Garry thought with just 25 cows milking the average would be at 20 liters a day per cow. Yesterday's milk total was 498 liters, and they continue to milk well. The cow giving the most has 28 liters a day. Many of the village cows are dry now, so we sell milk to many people in the village who come to buy some for making sour cream, cottage cheese and drinking.

Garry tells me he has more people in the village wanting him to breed their cows bred artificially. Apparently the last bull in the village has been made into dinner. Wednesday evening he bred one, he says he’s not sure if she’ll get pregnant as she was very skinny. The owner told Garry in Russian that they are very lucky that he has come to the village to live and do this. Later he called Victor to say thanks again and say he wanted to come over and see what we are feeding our cows because they are fat. So Garry’s demonstration farm may be working, if people are noticing the differences between the cows here and the rest of the village (we are however milking regular Ukrainina cows like everyone else- just management is different.)


When the vet came yesterday, he confirmed a number of pregnancies in the herd, which should allay Victor’s fears that the semen we bought is no good. Garry has been telling him that some cows are pregnant when he checked and some have come back in heat like the ladies say, but that is normal, and it probably has more to do with the cow than how she was bred. One of the cows was bred twice to the neighbour’s bull before Garry got his liquid nitrogen and tank for breeding cows, and she did not get pregnant either. On our way to Kiev, Garry showed me where they go to get the liquid nitrogen near Dneproprejisk, I took a pic of the "big bull" by the turn into the bull stud.

Road trip extras

Here are a few photos from our trip that were interesting, a vendor on the sidewalk in the city with some plastic up to protect her goods from the weather, plus a photo of the snowplow we passed (amazing, we saw two plowing the shoulder of roads) and a photo of the only highway in Ukraine that is more than 4 lanes (as far as I've seen) the one that goes from Kiev to Borispol (where the airport is- it's about 50 km from one to the other.)
You can see the street vendors are still trying to sell in spite of the cold and snow. On Friday afternoon we noticed one village we drove through had milk, sour cream and cottage cheese for sale, with a display set up on a bench or table near the road in front of the house. Another place it was jars of honey, and one village has handmade brooms for sale- Garry stopped and bought one from a little old lady, who was very happy for a sale. I wasn't able to get a good photo but the houses in many villages had huge icicles in neat rows on side of  the roof because of the corrugated asbestos that is the most popular roofing material in Ukraine for houses and sheds. We did see a few houses with  a traditional thatched roof, with a coating of snow on top.




It's Saturday afternoon, and it has been a nasty day even though the temperature has hovered around freezing, it has rained and snowed at times and the wind is blowing. Garry has been busy trying to make cheese with about 20 liters of milk out in the milkhouse. I brought back some rennet tablets from Canada. He started this morning and he must have got curds to form because he came in a while ago to borrow my colander.
The vet was supposed to come to preg check cows, and to check Zera and some others who have not been bred yet, as they have not shown heats. Seth and Jonah were busy with their last dissection, as we are ready for the biology test about the heart and blood. I just mised up the dough for pizza as we have returned to watching Lois and Clark on Saturdays thanks to DVD sets from Micah and Noah for Christmas. McGyver has been moved to Wednesday evening- athough we are unsure what food to feature with it- I suggested Macoroni and McGyver, but we've open to suggestions!

Interagro 2011- Kiev Farm Show

Here are some photos taken at the Kiev Farm Show, we had registered online, so when Garry said look we get to fill these out in Russian- I said try taking our printouts over there, and we got tags to hang around our necks that the girl scanned at the turnstile.
It was free to get in- other than filling out the form.







In many ways it was like going to a farm show in Canada or the US, there were a few exhibits with dairy stuff, many more aimed at pork production including one that had a show with tapdancing girls around 11 am. There were 2 Canadian exhibitors we found- one from Ontario that Garry chatted with trying to sell pig genetics (in Photo) and one from MB next door with pig equipment.

Many exhibitors did have someone who spoke some English, so Garry was able to make some contacts with equipment dealers and we talked with a young guy from the company that sells DeLaval milking equipment in Dnepropetroesk- he's supposed to call next week.




There were exhibits by seed companies, sunflower, wheat and corn (including one that had the corn on rollerskates in the photo) and a lot of exhibitors showing cabbage and other vegetable crops, and potatoes. Most large exhibits featured tractors and equipment. The Russian equipment company that bought out the Bueller plant in Manitoba makes the red and white equipment in one picture. There were sections of German, French and Dutch companies in the center of the first building. There were three buildings, connected by plastic walkways, it was quite warm in the buildings. I ended up carrying my coat as you can see in the photo from inside the third building.





We had some bread and cheese and borsht before heading outside to check out some equipment displays (we had missed breakfast- didn't pass any McDonalds on our way over to the show from the hotel- although we must have seen ten driving around the night before.) Garry checked out this used corn planter for sale- looked like it had come in from North America and had been painted up (even the seed boxes.) There is a photo of a 36 row one too, but I don't think we'll be getting one like that!

We left the show around one o'clock, and thought it would be easy driving at that hour, but got in one traffic jam going over the bridge- a couple dead cars in one lane and a fender bender going down seemed to be the problem, It took an hour to get to Borispol (where the Kiev airport is) but the rest of the trip was fine, we really noticed that the region around Kiev has much less snow than here, you could see the winter wheat sticking up through the snow in the fields. We got through the rough section of the road before dark (as in many potholes, it is much easier for Garry to do the pothole shalom and save the tires in the daylight) getting to the halfway- home McDonalds around 5:30 for a quick supper.

Off to Kiev or Kyiv

How do you spell Kiev in English? Not that way according to our GPS! I guess it spells like it sounds- British. Thursday morning, someone tapped on the bedroom window to wake Garry up to help with the milk sale (mostly carrying the cans out to the vehicle.) Maxim was off to visit his family on Tuesday evening after we returned from the boys' dentist appointment, and to buy a new welder in Khersom. Victor's old welder was stolen back in the summer, and we had borrowed one like it from one of the neighbors. However to do some seroius welding we needed to buy a better welder. Max also helped his mother buy a heifer calf, so he returned about 10:30 Thursday morning.

Garry was quite excited to have another heifer calf- a very black one Thursday morning, from a very wide black cow. The cow had 9 liters her first milking, so she should be a good one. Garry and I left to drive to Kiev. We had hoped to take the overnight train Thursday evening to see the Farm Show there, but there were no more tickets for sale to return on either the express or the overnight on Friday to Dnepro.
When we left the village it was snowing, and the roads were sloppy for the first hour or two, but then it cleared up. We ending up driving through McDonald's about halfway to Kiev for lunch around 3 o'clock, trying out the new Ukrainian burger special which is a big burger with the works (bacon optional) on a dark rye bun.

We got to Kiev after dark, following the GPS to the center of the city, where I took some photos around 7 pm. Then we followed the GPS over to the exhibition hall, and tried to find a hotel nearby. It was an exercise in frustration when the GPS kept taking us to what it said was a hotel, but it wasn't-mostly apartment buildings. 

Finally we headed further away, ending up near the circus (and train station.) The first couple of real hotels there were full, so we ended up in a beautiful expensive place,(that's the lobby in the photo- marble floors, and there was a white grand piano at the back near the elevators) the Opera Hotel, at TEN PM.
After a good night's sleep on a very nice bed (as you can see) we headed off to the show shortly after 9 am. I'll tell you all about it in my next post.

We arrived back in the village at 9:30 pm,(Friday) after a stop in Dnepro to pick up some welding supplies for Maxim at Victor's house. While it didn't snow in Kiev, Dnepropetroesk and the village got at least four more inches of snow!

Traffic, tractors and teeth

Here I am again, giving up and going online at 1:30 in the morning. Since our return to Ukraine a week ago, I have twice gone to bed at 10 and woke up a couple hours later, and mostly been unable to sleep until 2 or 3 am. Meanwhile Seth and Jonah fall asleep before 8 pm and get up at 4 am. So we've got the lights on alot.

Yesterday Garry successfully got his block water heater attached and working on the tractor- the first time they made too many turns and it couldn`t get the air out of the system to move the water, so he picked up some more clamps before playing basketball on Sunday. So Maxim was busy spreading manure from the pad behind the barn (I believe they are piling it in one of the fields we rented to be spread in the spring- but its getting moved anyway.)I took a photo as he passed the house today.

This afternoon we headed into downtown Dnepropetroesk to the orthodontist office. It has been nine days since the big snowfall and with the warmer weather (it was just over freezing today) even the icy sections are melting away on the highways. Snow clearing around here is different than at home- no plowing the sides of the road, so melting snow runs on the highway. Turn-arounds and merges tend to be unplowed and the turn into the village is like a Y with a lot of snow in the top of the Y. One track for going in and one for going out. Based on last year, it may stay that way until all the snow melts. There are good reasons for the potholes to form here. You can read more about winter driving last February- March`s posts. 

It was interesting to check out the new parking patterns downtown with the snow piled up (the sidewalks are normally popular parking spots- some people park diagonally onto the sidewalk, even if they are hanging out on the street, some park more parallel- not that I`ve seem anyone actually parallel-park except Garry) All these things tend to make three lanes going one way down the hill into a tight two. Two-lane traffic can get kinda iffy as you can see in the photo, in Ukraine having a nice car seems to get you more rights in driving and parking (if there isn`t a sign saying no, you can park there- even if you`re blocking traffic is the motto)

Both boys have new elastics to weave through their braces and wear all night, Seth had me take photos in case he forgets how it goes. Jonah was excited to find out he no longer has to wear his headgear (his siblings were calling him Hannibal Lecter while we were home in Manitoba)- he`s worn it every night since September 1st, except when we were flying. Both boys had milkshakes at McDonalds on the way home, and Jonah squeezed some fries in past his elastics.