More cement...or what they did while I was gone, and again today!

Here is the concrete they poured while I was gone to Canada

I heard a funny noise, they
 were pulling rebar over to the barn with Victor's van!

the end of the barn

Cement truck backing into the barn- load #3 after lunch

 I cooked them a big dinner and some ice tea, they came back around one o'clock to eat. I think they ate sandwiches last week when they were working, so they were happy to have me back. There was spinach cheese soup, followed by salad roasted potatoes and beets, green beans and hamburgers.







 Afterwards, I caught a ride over to the "new Barn|" with Garry and Victor as the cement truck arrived to take photos.

Putting the chute together- the driver is
 banging it together with the end of a shovel

There is a second motor that runs the cement pump on the trucks

Garry has put his brother John, who's visiting to work
(in the center of the photo)

Maxim and Andrei are levelling the cement with a board

Garry putting on the finishing touches

Made it themselves out of boards

One more load to go!

They dug out the floor under the door
 to get the cement trucks inside to pour

They rented a jackhammer to break cement under the door,
 Garry did that before the cement came this morning,
Andrei is trying it out while they wait for the next load

They used the generator to power the jackhammer

Unfortunately the fourth load did not come for a long time after I walked home, the last truck makes a second load and it broke down again. They had several breakdowns last week, including the truck #3 that backed in on the first side last week, and blew the starter for his cement pumping motor. Garry says they touch two bare wires together to start it and sparks fly every time, but that time something went wrong and he couldn't start it. Since the 4th truck had arrived Garry talked them into backing the broken truck out, and using it's started on the other truck after unloading it. They also had to do some welding on one truck last week. However, the work is getting done for the renovation, they will pour more of this alley next week.

Almost ready

It's Mother's day and I am not really ready to catch a plane back to Ukraine Monday morning, but that's what the ticket says. Jessica drove over yesterday with Jonah and James to join everyone for dinner, but all too soon Matt and Kari and the girls headed home to bed- having to take a detour because of a nearby forest fire.

This morning after breakfast we got into three different cars to go to Matt's church, the first and third car to leave had no trouble getting on the shortcut road to Piney, but Noah, Micah, Luke and I got sent the long way, because the water bombers were out again this morning. After church we went across the border to Roseau Minnesota to the Pizza Ranch buffet, AND MY MEAL WAS FREE! Afterwards we saw as we drove north that the smoke was billowing again, with a warm high wind blowing, the two cars going back to St Labre had to go the long way through Woodridge, while Jessica's car headed back to Morden. Someone will drive me to the airport early in the morning, unless all the roads are closed and I have to stay. There seems to be another fire on the other side of us now.

The smoke as seen behind Josh's house yesterday afternoon

Garry has been very busy with cement work for the barn remodeling project for the last week, although he took Wednesday's holiday to see a Cossack horse show with his brother John, who came to visit, and they drove to Kharkov yesterday. He promises to be at the airport in Kiev when I arrive Tuesday afternoon.

Noah was out to the barns around 11:30 pm and told me to come see the fire in the dark, it is close enough to light up the sky. He tried using the new camera in the heifer field to get a photo. Makes you glad we are surrounded by fields that are getting planted! When I went to sleep at 2 am the sky wasn't orange anymore, good thing the wind died down. I was up before 5 am so Micah could drive me to the airport and made it back to Ukraine with no delayed flights, since I was at every airport for  hours or longer!

Part #3- a day in MB- calves, calves and more...

Havilah trying to get calves to eat grain

Here are the calves being fed, which happens twice a day. There have been lots of changes in the three years that I have been away, to make the job more efficient since there are more cows and so more calves now. Matt brought the two younger girls along to work , and play with Grandma, so we went out to help-watch- Micah feed the calves.
Whole milk is pasteurized to feed the calves to kill any disease-carrying pathogens, then cooled to the right temperature to drink. They fill seven 3 quart bottles at once and put them into a cart to move the milk across the road where the calves are with a $-wheeler, or Micah can pull it there.

The bull calves are in the old hutches, Micah drops off some bottles of milk to them on the way to the calf barn

The calf bottle cart is detached from the 4 wheeler and pulled into the first calf barn

 This is the barn I took care of calves in until we moved to Ukraine, it has individual pens and replaced the hutches inside a shed barn about 5 years ago. It wasn't big enough for all the heifer calves under 6-8 weeks, so last year the boys built and second large barn next to it, this barn is for the newborns now, until they are drinking  and doing well.

This new calf needs a little help finding the nipple to drink

The new calf barn is to the left of the smaller one

They started building it last summer and using it in February or March,, they are very pleased with the calves that have come out of it and the ventilation system compared to the other barn.

Micah is putting bottles of milk in the holders

This calf barn has group pens of 10 animals, the calves put their heads into headlocks (they can't escape and drink someone else's milk) Micah flips a handle to lock them before he hands out bottles, when every calf is done drinking, the handle is turned so they can run around again. They also have water and all the grain they want to eat at the front of the pens.

These calves moved in from the other barn last week, sometimes they need help finding the right place to drink. This side of the barn is not completely finished.

The girls think grain is as fun as sand to play with

Micah is collecting the empty bottles from the barns

 The girls and I go play on the trampoline and in some sand in the front yard, since it is such a nice day out. Micah collects his bottles and takes them back across the road to wash and sanitize them. The long white barn is where the three to six month calves move to, it was the original dairy barn that was transformed to a heifer barn before we bought the farm.

The girls go home around four pm, and I work on some paperwork for the barn, among other things, before I know it it's almost nine pm and the third milking shift will be taking place soon. The guys are still planting, and working up the fields to plant, and spreading manure as it gets dark....good night!

A day on the Farm MB- part two- field work

I got to drive the car to help move all this stuff from this field, which was finished, to the next new corn field

 

The corn planter folds up to drive down the road

The boys rolling up the hydraulic hoses- they have to use a tractor since the Ford truck's hydraulics aren't working, the truck has fertilizer in to go into the planter with the corn seed

Joel heads to the shop for a welding fix on the planter first

Noah and Josh go to the new field, but then they decide Noah should get the rock picker with the red tractor, to get a few more stones out of the field before planting (this is Karen's field- all the fields are named.)The field below is the largest field, it's named Big Tex, I believe, because someone said it was as big as Texas when they first started plowing it up, after they bought it 2 years ago, it used to have buffalo in it, which is why there are fence posts.

I took Josh back to the field to get his truck,we both stopped to say hello to the neighbors who were out for their daily morning walk.

  then I followed him back to the yard where he loaded a pallet of a different corn seed to plant in the is field- a silage variety, he's just driving past Uncle Bob Grenier's house, our neighbor who passed away recently, we pasture heifers on his quarter section, next to our house

 

Now Josh needs a different tractor to run the truck hydraulics

 

Setting down the new tillage equipment

Unhooking the hydraulic hoses

It's really big, but it will do the job!

Windy out today, but warming up, there were 850 acres of corn planted at the start of the day, and this field was finished by the end of the day

 

 

Here's why they are short on tractors- this tractor caught on fire and burned near the shop, shortly after returning from Matt's farm (yes it was turned off too!) It was only 3 or 4 years old, too.

The boys retired the old manure tankers this spring, replacing them with a drag line which delivers the manure right into the fields with a very long hose. In the second photo you see lagoon one being agitated and the liquid is then pumped through the hose to a field more than a mile away! The sand used for bedding the cows ends up in that first lagoon, which is why it looks so different than the second lagoon, which looks like a big pool, You may notice that the lagoons are made of cement with a black liner material to prevent any manure leaking into the soil under them.The blue tractor is applying the manure to the field near where the corn was planted the day before. After the field is manured, then Noah comes along with that big new 4WD tractor and the tillage machine Josh was unhooking in the yard to prepare it for planting.

 

A view of the barns from the lagoon, looks like the calf feeding is for the next post!