Winter wonderland

Here are some kids walking home from school today, it was tough going with several inches of wet snow making the footing slippery. That was a report from Garry when he walked to the store for bread at noon, before it started snowing harder. The thermometer was right around freezing so the snow was melting off the roof with water dripping off the eaves, but don't worry it's supposed to get colder this week.






This afternoon I finally went outside to take some pictures in the barn, and decided to show you the driveway the guys shovelled out this morning when Victor came. The driveway that goes through the grapevines has to be done by hand- you can't get the loader tractor into it from either direction. Out by the road the gas line is too low to drive the tractor under, and the yard is set up so you can't go through the back yard either. Sunday evening it snowed some more and the wind blew the snow into three-foot high drifts.

This afternoon around 2 pm the snow was falling in blobs, we have at least four inches now! The camera got snow all over it when I took these around 3 pm- I had to dry it off before popping up the flash in the barn, just from walking out one door of the house and snapping pictures around and walking up the barn driveway (plowed with the loader tractor- we paid the gas company to raise the line over that one) and into the barn.


You can see some of Maxim's projects while we were gone. He screwed some red steel siding to the big gate on the barn side and made a second small gate there- the idea is one for cars, one for walking and both to get really big equipment into the yard.
He also found an old cattle trailer and welded up some new sides for it- and someone painted it blue, looks pretty bright against the snow.



Garry and Maxim went to breed a cow in the village while I was out there- Max was moving the car while Garry walked to the barn for the semen in the photo. Garry tells me one person in the village requested Maxim breed his cow after Garry got back because he thought Max had gotten one pregnant while we were in Canada. When Garry was breeding the cow the owners asked if he would be willing to trade the two-week-old heifer calf they had from another cow for a bull calf. Of course he said yes.




When I got to the barn,the ladies were just leaving the barn, having finished the second milking of the day and were heading back to their house, the summer kitchen. As you can see the laundry they hung out earlier didn't look to be drying very fast.



Mint is happy to be running all over again, there are no chickens to chase now, with the snow the neighbors have them all shut up in the coops.

The snow did slow up so we drove to Zaporosia to meet Marina and Masha, two of Garry's VBS teachers for dinner as planned. The road out to the highway was two tracks, the highway was mostly slushy with a few bumps of snow to drive through, but Garry had no problems driving. The girls translated the menu at the Chinese restaurant for us, and we had a lovely variety of dishes, although Garry had to request the rice before he would start eating the main courses, our sizzling dish was not sizzling by the time it finally arrived. We had a wonderful time, and a safe drive home after dropping them near their apartments.

Quick note

It's 1:30 am so I'll make it fast. As you can guess I have not adjusted to the new time zone yet! Last night I went to bed at midnight and slept through to around 7 am, so tonight I thought I'd try it again. However, I started looking at Garry's 1000 piece puzzle and the hours got away from me! This is the before photo, taken when Garry went to bed, there are about 70 pieces to go now.

Today was brewers grain selling day, and business was brisk. They put 5 scoops into the pit with the bucket loader to sell this morning. Right now they are still using the stuff that was bought and bagged (with an ag-bagger) back in the summer. This time of year the supply is low and unavailable due to the holidays at the brewery. The last couple weeks it was too muddy for people to drive to where it is in the tubes in the yard beside the barn and today it was too bumpy, because the mud has frozen with big tractor tire tracks in. Garry tells me that more people are buying now, they sell twice as much as in the summertime.

Tonight I made sushi for the first time. The boys at home- Micah and Noah- make it often, so I thought we'd try it. They came out a little fat, but tasty with cooked shrimp and fake crab and shredded carrot for filling the rolls with the wasabi and so on for taste.




Last night I did homemade pizza after our trip to Dnepro, so Garry is getting spoiled now. Except for cooking his own breakfast, since I have been sleeping in, he's so nice.

Friday we went bowling, got our photos done for our new visa documents, dropped them off for Victor to get the paperwork started, picked up the empty milk jugs there, and checked out the new kitchen he's putting into his house. Then we got groceries, since we were a little low on stuff. Last night it snowed a bit again, today it felt colder because the wind was blowing, but not really cold (says the people who live in Manitoba.)




The kittens are starting to climb, so its a good thing the puzzle will be done soon, I have to put my yarn away befre I go to bed. Trying to find the best substitute for my missing crochet hook, I pulled the scarf I was working on apart after working on it a while. Now there is a big pile of extra yarn until I get bck to where I was. For some reason the part I redid with the steel 6mm hook looks closer than the plastic 5.5 mm did to the part I did in Canada with the steel 5.5-- the one security took away in Vienna. I am sure Xaris or Havi will never know the difference when they get this scarf.

I am here..

Still recovering from my trip home, since I had trouble sleeping on the overnight flight from Toronto to Vienna, even though I had an empty window seat next to me. It was bumpy with the seatbelt light on most of the way, and I have trouble sleeping in a car. For me, it is too much like trying to sleep in the car when there is turbulence on a plane. Garry thinks I have control issues and think that being awake means I can fix any problems that occur, however I think sleeping in the car makes me dizzy most of the time.

Anyway I ended up taking a nap when we got back to the house after Garry picked me up at the airport, it was nice being almost here when I landed, though, instead of having to get home from Kiev. There was no snow, but the tree branches were all white with hoarfrost, contrasting with the dark trunks. Sorry, no photos since the new camera was buried in the back seat in my carry-on.




That was Tuesday, Wednesday Polo came into the house for the afternoon and jumped all over me before settling down for a nap. I had already been welcomed home by Needles (who's back in the house when he wants, like this evening) and Box, and got to meet her three kittens. The black one is the climber- he can get up on the chairs, I have started calling him Black Box, but we'll see. The other two are striped, but one has a little brown spot in the middle of it's forehead. Black Box has just climbed up my pantleg to my lap and is trying to get on the laptop now. Now he sees that Box is nursing the other two kittens so he is climbing back down.

Garry has been doing jigsaw puzzles since he got back, with the occasional help from Maxim and his brother Andrei, who is back helping Max work on his house. He has glued a big water Greek seaside scene to a piece of cardboard and is working on the really hard one I gave him for Christmas last year- a 1000 piece Canadian flag made up hundreds of tiny photos.



I have only been able to put a couple pieces in, tonight I went back to crocheting, after finding a new hook. Security in Vienna insisted on taking my metal crochet hook out of my carry-on, so I am missing the 5.5 mm of the set Garry gave me for Christmas! Lucky I had a plastic one the same size with the others in my checked luggage. They told me they could mail it for 17 euros, so I hoped I had another one.

Box jumped on my lap when I got the crocheting out and insisted on having her head rubbed like in the old days before she had kittens. This morning- Thursday- there was a nice white coating of snow, although it is much warmer here than Manitoba! I hear that the big freeze hit when I left. Tonight I sort of have the house to myself, since Garry has run off to Dnepro to play basketball. I will try to get some photos out in the barn tomorrow. So in a week or so it should feel like bedtime at the right time for me. The eight hour time difference takes me a while to adjust to.

On my way

I am sitting in the airport in Toronto, waiting about 2 1/2 hours for my connection to Vienna, where I will connect right to Dnepro. I have been so busy this week finishing projects and saying goodbye that I have not done a single blogpost! Since Garry left two weeks ago I got to celebrate Noah's birthday, and babysit or play with my granddaughters more than a few times- one day we made puppets, as you can see in the photo. Yesterday I drove out to Morden to say goodbye to our daughter Jessica and Jonah, who is living with her while attending high school.

This morning I got to say goodbye to Josh and Noah about 5:30 am before milking time, and a hug and promise to email from Seth, who was getting ready for the school bus when Micah drove me to the airport. We got to Winnipeg in plenty of time, although there was a lot more traffic than when I drove in with Garry on January second, since it was a holiday Monday.I paid for my extra checked bag and the nice agent didn't care that it was just a little bit heavy- I must have stuffed in too much stuff after it weighed in on Thursday at the vet clinic eight pounds light! I always seem to leave that Russian history book I want to read behind, maybe next time!

Garry has had a busy week, when I talked to him one day he had taken the new highway - the one they were building an overpass for all year on our highway between Dnepro and Zaporosia. The road crews started in March and they were still finishing it when we left on December 2nd, the last couple weeks they worked almost round the clock to try to make a deadline. Garry says the new shortcut cut his trip to refill the liquid nitrogen in the semen tank to about the time it takes to drive to downtown Dnepro, instead of a half day to go there and back. This way we avoid driving through Dnepropetroesk and it gets to the other highway really close to the old bull stud where Garry buys the Liquid nitrogen- I had a post in September about when we drove there, that shows the lady pouring it into the tank with a steel pail.

On Sunday he told me he had to sweep the entryway of the house, because people kept coming to the door to wish him a prosperous new year by throwing in wheat, and there was grain all over. On the evening before he had little girls coming to the door dressed up and then reciting a rhyme, and he would give them money, because he had no treats to give out. In case you are wondering - it was old new years from the Julian calendar, celebrated in the Orthodox church. The holidays never seem end in Ukraine, it is about two weeks of celebration, things will be getting back to normal when I get there.

Off-line for days

Garry has been unable to get on the internet since he got back to Ukraine. His laptop, which we had left in Ukraine, has a on/off button that has been causing me problems for the last two years. Sometimes you had to push it five, ten, fifty times to get it to turn on. Last spring when the boys were using it for their schoolwork, one day it must have been about a hundred- with a twist down and to the right which Jonah discovered worked better the summer before. That day we printed out the grade reports just in case, since the boys were almost done with homeschooling for the year! I have just been leaving it on, with the exception of power shortages, although it seemed to work better lately, when I had to turn it back on.

Maxim was always turning the computer off with the button when he used it to check his Russian facebook, and I guess he was still doing it, because when Garry got back, he couldn't get it to turn on. He took it into Dnepro and got it fixed for 50 dollars he told me on the phone. However, since Maxim went home to his parents that same day- Wednesday, Garry was unable to go pick it up when it was fixed on Thursday, so he was still unable to check his email.

I called Garry Saturday morning (today) afternoon there, and discovered he was in Dnepropetroesk, waiting at Dafi (one of the malls) for Victor to pick him up to go back to the village. He had his computer, but the battery had gone dead about the time he had gotten into hotmail. It only lasts about an hour normally.

This morning Garry said he woke up at 3 am- he says he thought he heard someone knock on the door and he couldn't get back to sleep, so he drank coffee, watched TV, and then feed the cows at 5:30. At 7:30 he walked out to the highway and caught a marchutka van into the city around 8 am. He went to Victor's church for a Ukrainian Christmas service, which he said was like regular church with more singing, and lasted two and a half hours. Garry said he enjoyed hearing Daniel (Victor's 17 year-old son who visited Manitoba this summer) sing, and Dasha, his 11 year-old daughter, also sang and recited a poem. Victor had to drive some older ladies home after church, which is why he was at the mall, waiting for Victor to pick him up.

Garry knew he had a ride back, since Victor was planning to come out to the farm this afternoon, because the empty milk jugs were at his house from when he sold milk on Thursday, and needed to go back to be refilled for Sunday's church milk. Garry tells me that we are selling milk for 4.5 grivna per liter and I think 6 or 7 on the church and Thursday milk. The people in the village with milk to sell are getting 5 grivna now, so it must be selling for at least 10 in the markets.

Yana is back at work this week, her face infection she had just before we left had put her in hospital, so her parents had been milking the cows. Garry says the cows are doing well and Maxim found and fixed (welded) up and old cattle trailer during the time we were gone. He also told me that it snowed about two inches on Tuesday, but it melted away and it rained/drizzled all day Thursday, so it was muddy outdoors.


In other exciting news, Box had three kittens while we were gone. Maxim is trying to convince Garry that Needles is catching mice and is happy outdoors, so four cats are plenty in the house (like three little kitten count as cats!) Look at the photo at the beginning of this post, where Needles is trying out the Box we made for Box to have the kittens in, and tell me, does that look like a cat who is planning on staying outside? He does like to go outside and that's fine, but I don't believe he wants to stay there. I am putting my foot down on this one, since Garry mentioned that the cat tried to come in on Wednesday but Max chased Needles away from the door. I'll tell Maxim when I get back if I see him doing that it won't be the cat outside the house!

Manitoba farm tour

Garry went out with the new camera we got for Christmas to try videoing in the barn, here are a few photos he took while he was out there. He wanted to show it to maxim I think, so here is a preview for everyone. I may have to go out with the video camera to tape instead as the indoor video looks pretty dark, the stuff outside looks great, so I assume its a lighting issue. It was December 31th 2011 and the boys- Seth and Jonah- the ones who were in Ukraine were milking in the parlour that day.

















The dog is Rolo, one of the puppies that was born last winter when we were home for Christmas, I took these photos Sunday morning (January 1st) when it was snowing, trying out the new zoom.

Garry made it there

After a long goodbye- in the photo Havilah is talking with Grandpa- Garry is off- our visas arrived in the last mail possible, before the New Year's holiday on Friday December 30th, so he booked his ticket that morning for the morning of January 2nd (the ticket for the first went up in price while he was on expedia.ca) Garry has made it back to Dnepropetroesk.

For the first time he flew right into Dnepro instead of Kiev, and he said he was feeling fine when I talked to him a couple hours after landing. He made it back for the missionary Christmas party today, he'll get to the farm later, so I can phone again for a complete report about what happened while we were gone on Wednesday.

His first plane from Winnipeg to Toronto was an hour late, but he had a longer layover- 5 hours there anyway, he says they left Toronto late but made up an hour so he was into Vienna early and had three hours before the flight to Dnepro. The only hitch was his luggage - he had some trouble with his vacuum pump parts (for the machine milking system) that was his checked luggage and customs. Victor came through to interpret for him and after 15 minutes and a few grivna (luckily he had some in his wallet) he was on his way.







We had a good time ringing in the new year here before he left, we had the family all together for the second annual pizza extravaganza on New Years eve. Garry even stayed up until midnight, playing Rummy-O with some of the kids- Luke, Seth (pictured) and Jonah were milking the cows, since all the regular employees were off that night.






This year I made dessert pizza to finish off the pizza eating- we did had some leftovers, with Jess, Luke (assisted by his younger brothers after the afternoon milking was done) making one, and Micah and Noah, and myself making two regular pizzas. Jessy also made an exciting mini-pizza for the girls, where Havi chose the toppings.













Keziah wants a drink! she's pretty good at climbing and finding as a younger sister
















Sunday morning the wind (and snow) was blowing like crazy so we went to Matt's church. We enjoyed hearing Xaris sing The B-I-B-L-E during the offering, then 3 year old Havilah, who stood next to her sister while she sang, also sang it with the microphone without practising beforehand with their mom Kari who played the piano for them, Havilah missed started one line, but Kari circled back on the melody and Havi restarted where she left off and finished it. Too bad I forgot the camera, they were adorable.