Azov Sea part two

Somewhat discouraged by the cool wet weather we talked about what to do next. I mentioned that we always see a billboard near Melitopol on the way home from Crimea for a place called "the Stone Grave" in English, and we've never checked it out. Garry looked at it on the internet and agreed it looked interesting, it is a UNESCO World Heritage site. I thought we could even sleep in our own bed that night, although Garry said that we weren't supposed to be back until Friday and it was only Wednesday.

 We headed back down the coast and decided to check out the other big resort city we bypassed, Primorsk (sea is mor-ray in Russian) as we drove closer to the shore we drove past several sanatoriums and resorts (they are almost the same thing, Ukrainians say they go to the sea for a rest) We stopped to check out one with colorful camel statures in front and ended up staying the night.

our room

dinnertime, sailor suits on the chair backs on the porch

beautiful gardens (our room was on the 3rd floor of the building behind me)

there was a "zoo" of birds- pheasants and peacocks

we tried out some exercise equipment

 The room was a little basic, with twin beds but we enjoyed an afternoon relaxing on the beach reading and watching the seagulls in lounge chairs (under blankets when the wind picked up) and the meals were all you could eat. Garry really enjoyed the breakfast omelet the next morning.





















Thursday we continued on under cloudy skies, taking a detour along a sunflower field to see if it went all the way to the sea. It did not as you see.

There's a village down there!

 Another detour so Garry could show me the beach where he went on the Saturday  before the VBS camp with Hannes, Andrei and tall Max. It was pretty empty with the weather and school starting.

I wasn't sure how they found the beach here

beach front cottage, anyone?

We found the historic site, even though the GPS died before we got there, the signage from the highway was easy to follow, and in both Ukrainian and English, which was a nice surprise, we often use the GPS for finding things. We enjoyed climbing on and exploring the pile of rocks, even if we didn't see any petroglyphs.

Sign says beware of snakes, we climbed up where those people are too

almost petroglyphs....

The admission was less than we paid to see things in Crimea, we got in for 20 grivna each plus five or ten for camera use, and then another  5 each to tour the museum, really a room of displays in the museum. (Still 8 grivna in a US dollar, so a good deal, we even bought a book, since it was in three languages, including English about the place.)

walking up to the museum- it was smaller inside

There was a timeline of people in the area

display in the museum of inside one of the crevasses 

We had a roadside picnic on the way home, so a real Ukrainian holiday!

Ate some of the "camping supplies"

sunflowers

Well I am in Canada, and Garry is in Ukraine for three weeks, yesterday I went to Winnipeg and took Seth and Jonah out for dinner, a movie and shopping to fill their mini-fridge/freezer. Seth has a field trip today so couldn't bring them home for the weekend, seems like they are enjoying university and their classes, so far.

I arrived late Monday and spent Tuesday night at our son and daughter-in-laws house, it seemed I had arrived just in time, but the baby changed it's mind and we are still waiting for his/her arrival, missing September 11th and Friday the 13th, both of the "due dates."

Garry has been busy with farming and his new English book club for Summer Institute students in two cities, Dnepropetroesk and even harder to say, Dnepropajisk. On Wednesday they combined the sunflowers and got 8 tons, which he is trading for 14 tons of "mookooka" the meal made from sunflower seeds pressed for oil. which will be the cows protein to go with the barley or the dry corn they will be combining soon to grind for cow feed.

this field is drying down to harvest time

 When we drove out to the sea we saw lots of sunflower fields, some were harvesting and some still blooming, where they had been planted after wheat was harvested this summer. They were pretty yellow fields, but a waste of seed this year with fall fast approaching!

Here are some photos.

Combine on the road, likely doing sunflowers

Not lots out there but a pretty yellow color!

The field by the sea Garry drove along the field road to see the sea

Roadside sellers in front of a sunflower field

Many fields looked like this, brown heads, or brown headless stalks

Some shiny combines heading to the fields

Vacation Ukrainian-style at the Sea of Azov -part1

Driving over the dam in Zaporosia, heading south.

We planned to camp on our trip, so Garry packed the car full of supplies, except the cooler Sunday night. Monday morning we were on the road around 6 am. I tried to take a photo of the early morning sun, and discovered that When Andrei borrowed the camera for his trip, he reset the language to Russian, and somehow set the camera so it was trying to save on the internal memory instead of the sd card. I spent the next half hour changing it back to English and trying to get the photo card to work, as you can see I was successful.

When we got home, Garry found out that Andrei's girlfriend accidentally erased all the photos on the sd card, on the way home from the waterpark they went to, while playing with the buttons on the camera when it was in English.

Look Sunflowers in bloom! 

We found Berdansk, which is where we were headed, and the city waterfront, in about three hours.

Small beach!

Since school has started , many things were closed

We ended up finding a hotel of sorts, since there was rain in the forecast, and took advantage of the only hot day on our trip to get wet and lie in the sand on the beach in front of the hotel. Our room had a fridge so the stuff in the cooler went in the freezer (I never did cook anything on our trip it returned home and we ate it on Friday and Saturday!)
We did eat some of the stuff that didn't need cooking, and went out to a nice little restaurant the first night- it rained while we were there.

Garry enjoying childhood memories 

Breakfast on the balcony

view from our room, we aren't sure what the other people were doing there

We stayed two nights, and found the city center the second day, walked around for a couple hours, just before the rain came down hard for a while, bought dinner at a fast food place that wasn't Mc Donalds before heading back. So once again, a good night not to camp!

a little windy

dinner

Changes

For the last week, we have been milking twice a day here in Ukraine, tomorrow Yana goes on vacation for a month, and Max B and Andrey will help Jenia milk. When Yana returns, the guys will milk with her, since Jenia will be retiring, she is 55 and can start collecting her pension.

They have milked 3 times and day since they started here, but Garry thinks it will save money, on soap, paper towels, and electricity to run the vacuum pump, and we really don't need to make more milk. This week they sold three cows there are more cows milking than stalls. We have a few slackers who are not able to have another calf, so they are the first to go.

Max B getting dusty- he sat down in the house and left a cloud behind

Max R moving bags

 

Friday the guys were busy moving three tons of barley in bags over the mill in the village where it was ground, but back in bags and put in the upstairs of the barn to feed the cows. Garry took some photos. Afterwards we had pizza for late lunch.








Garry bred 4 cows today, Max R bred one this afternoon when Garry had a meeting after church, if there are any in heat for the next couple days it will be Max since we are going camping for a few days. Next week I am heading back home to see the kids and meet our new grandchild, who is due to arrive in the middle of the month.

Nice udder on the first 50% Holstein to calve

Garry is very happy with his first heifers that have calved from the first cows he bred to Canadian bull semen, they look nicer and milk more. 30 liters a day instead of 12 from the ones with barnyard Ukrainian bulls for daddies.

He enjoys driving around seeing the calves tied out that are from cows he bred, Recently a man showed him two calves he had that were a couple months old. one who from a cow Garry bred, the other the same age was from the neighbor's bull. He was getting Garry to breed his cow because the 50% Holstein calf was much bigger, growing faster than the other one, he wants more like it.

Education Day Holiday is Sept 1st- even on Sunday

Lots of cars at the village school for the ceremony

Kids dressed up outside Mc Donalds, boys wear suits

Today was the first bell ceremony all over Ukraine, the first day of the new school year is always a holiday  on September first, even if it's Sunday. Church started an hour late to accommodate families attending at their child's school. Turns out many families celebrated at McDonald's after their ceremony, so many people were in line when we stopped on the way to church that we had to order lunch, they flipped the boards over just before Garry got to the cash register to order (at 10 am)! Everyone was very dressed up as you can see in the photos I snapped today.

Saw a couple girls with sashes on

Black and white are the colors as you see

This little girl was skipping crossing the street with her mother and sister

Waiting for church to begin

These hairbows are very popular with the small girls- the bigger the better!

Two more girls who had the first day of school

After church Garry with his buddy Maksim

Who wants milk today?

Ready for school?