Trips to the sea- part one with a farm tour

Somewhere at the Black Sea

In part one I will review our trip that ended a week ago, a fast trip (well when the road was good) over to Odessa to pick up our translator Nelly for the school year. Nelly left us several months ago when her mother had a stroke. She took care of her at home in her mother's apartment near Odessa after she was a patient for two weeks in the hospital (standard hospital practice in Ukraine as she was considered hopeless) until she passed away in July.

Garry and I met with a Canadian guy I had met on the plane in Toronto for lunch in Zaporosia Sunday afternoon, slipping out of church early (you don't really slip out of church in the village, everyone bids you goodbye). He was with a Canadian- Ukrainian group that works with orphans and other charitable groups here. It was an interesting two hours, at Puszata Hata (restaurant) we even talked about the possibility of opening a battered women's shelter in the area.


Around two in the afternoon we headed out of the city south toward Melitopol and then turned toward Odessa. Some of the roads were quite bad in some districts, but there were places with lovely new pavement, which is the sum of most driving in Ukraine these days, as some road repaving is taking place all over the country. It seems that they hope replace the old hole and patch filled ones, bit by bit.

Garry was hoping to get to the area close to the Black Sea near Odessa before nightfall, but we didn't quite make it. However, we pulled off the road near Odessa just after dark and found the sea and a resort town, I can't remember the name, but we bought a fridge magnet, I'll have to find it.
 We parked on the street walked to the waterfront, and eating a bit (and paying to use a toilet), we found a hotel, right across the street from where we'd parked. After being shown the regular room, we checked into the deluxe room, with a queen bed instead of two singles.

 We spent two nights and one day (Labor Day in North America) relaxing before returning to reality. We ate out, pizza the first night (best pizza I've had in Ukraine) staying up until 11 pm- late for Garry- and breakfast at the same restaurant the next morning, after sleeping in to eight am. That day we walked around, went for a swim and ate shaslik at night. We had an earlier bedtime the second night since we planned on leaving at 6:30 am to meet Nelly at the train station in Odessa at 8 am.

More food than we could eat

We woke up at 6:28, but packed up and left quickly. I am still having trouble sleeping about every other night because of jet lag (the second night I'm exhausted so I go to sleep at the right time) We got there just in time, traffic was heavy in the city Tuesday morning. They have a center lane going into the city that can change with the morning or evening rush hour, you can see it in this photo. Further into the city there were less lanes and we went much slower.

Odessa train station

Nelly arrived about the same time, and after she called the guy we were supposed to visit, we found out we could go and even though the GPS couldn't find it, we eventually got out of the city and headed in the right direction between Nelly and few phone calls back to the guy- on the road to Izmail (we drove through it on the way to Reni four years ago, I think we had the old GPS then.)

While I was taking photos, they were documenting our visit also

This pastor had visited us in Nikolipolia and wanted Garry to see his humanitarian project and ask about what to do with his cows he'd been given (as a side note, don't buy Christian organizations in Ukraine cows unless someone knows how to care for them, it generally does not go well and they do not make money milking them).

chickens upstairs

This group has a number of people living there they care for, some help with the farm; besides a few cows, there are a couple goats and pigs, plus laying hens and chickens for meat. The compound is an old Christian camp, and they have done a lot of work there fixing up the dormitory. They are growing food in a greenhouse.

They had the smallest Belarus tractor I've seen

The meat chickens were upstairs in the barn, here's a look down over the hens
and pigpen, the green house is in the distance

They had one potbelly pig with babies in a shed

The big problem is the climate is dry and the cows have little to eat. After we were shown the cows in the barn they were turned out onto a very brown field after milking. Right now they are in pretty good shape, but they don't have a lot of feed put aside for the winter. They are selling some milk and cheese in the local market right now.







We had a tour of the dorms, they have some people yet from Donetsk region, when the war was new they had 200 people living there. The kitchens are industrial sized but need renovation. They have remodeled a number of bathrooms already and were working on another. He gave Garry a jar of hot tomato sauce he'd made, they were very generous and it sounded like he was planning to retire when he took on this project and was very busy as overseer, manager and pastor.

They kindly offered us tea/coffee and Garry said we had time.  I was hoping it was the usual cookies and maybe candies with tea, so we could eat quickly. They had fried eggs (his wife apologized because lunch was not ready yet) and had a large amount of food for us to try before leaving, I could not eat the three undercooked eggs on my plate, I tried, but I kept picturing the mold on the kitchen ceiling they are trying to remedy. It is one thing I have trouble with in Ukraine, food prepared by other people, and how long it may sit before serving. I don't think the one I ate made me sick after all, but I was worried with us leaving for our trip to the sea with the students the next day.

Van next to the barn

We managed to leave about noon, with many goodbyes, Garry's deadline for taking off for home. We traveled the same route home as we had taken to Odessa, with the same hole-filled road before Melitopol to maneuver before dark. We did the McDonald's drive-thru as we went through Zaporosia and were home in time to go to bed to prepare for part two of the sea side adventure.

I'm here!

Sorry for my lack of posts this week, I flew back to Ukraine Monday afternoon, which means I landed Tuesday afternoon. I got a ride back from Kiev with Victor and his daughter Dasha, who had flown in the day before. We stopped along the way for a visit and home-cooked dinner with Victor's sister and mother (she's 82). The roads get really bad for a while before getting to their village, so it was slow going around Kremachuk but it improved in the Dnepropetrovsk region, where we met up with Garry by the big bull stature. I was home in bed by nine pm. (I would have gotten off the train in Dnepro after 11 pm).

Garry has been busy, they took delivery of a new plow the day before I arrived, and the guys have been busy plowing up the wheat fields. Today they made a deal on a used disc to work up other fields, like the sunflower ones that will be ready to do when the disc gets here next week. I am told it is neither light or heavy, so a medium size/weight disc. They have been looking at new and used ones all over Ukraine for the last month (or two), but they are buying the one they hired to work up our fields last fall.  They wanted to upgrade from the tillage machines we had to go with the new tractor. They sold the last load of wheat to the mill in Zaporosia that will pay for most of the disc. Wheat sales also paid for the plow. The price of wheat was 33 at harvest and they sold it at 48.5 this week. Our Quonset-type storage building was definitely a good idea. They got the shed all cleaned out this week, and did a little maintenance so they can store sunflower (seed)s until they sell it.

The combine driver who was so optimistic about the sunflower field while harvesting wheat started today on that field by the barn and says it is the best field he's ever combined. They had two tractors going back and forth with wagons to put it in the shed so he didn't have to wait long to dump it when he was full. Max had been reluctant to start because he was worried about the dryness, but they are testing at 6, and Garry tells me that 7 is dry.  We should be finished harvest (except corn) before the rain that's predicted for next week (if it comes). All the fields look good except one that had some problems with parasitic plants and fungus (part of that field was in sunflowers for a second year in a row.) We will be storing most of the crop to sell later. They may sell a couple loads for buying fertilizer for the wheat that will be planted this month, or after the rain comes (if it doesn't come next week).

This pile was much higher when we stopped by in the dark tonight

Today is September first, which the first official day of school in Ukraine, (and the first day of fall) so my facebook feed is full of pictures of kids at first day ceremonies. No, they don't really have class on the weekend, but many schools have the ceremony at nine am anyway! However, some schools will do it on Monday, the real first day this year.

We were at Just Youth in the park to celebrate the end of summer, games and a talk by Steve and snacks (I think our students all took extra cookies). Most of our guys and girls came with us, some of them say it's their favorite outing each month.


Garry and I are going to drive down to Odessa Monday to pick up Nellie, who's ready to rejoin us, just in time to translate for our classes.
Classes for our students will start next week, because this week we are having another retreat by the sea like last year. It's a good time to go, prices are down because everyone is back in school and summer is officially over, while it's hot enough to swim.
 Garry is preparing devotions about how God loves you anyway, our theme for the year. I am busy preparing to feed 15 people- breakfast, lunch and dinner for four days. Almost every student is coming, except our new parents and recently returned Julia and Dima,  since someone has to milk besides some of the staff, and the trip to the sea is a reward for a long summer of work they missed. However, we need a second car or van to transport everyone there and back, so they may come down on the last day.
Alona and the baby should make it home this week, he is gaining weight now. They  won't be coming even for the day, maybe Alona and Daniel will make it to next year's retreat.

New students

Just before I left for Canada we got a new student, Tolik. I asked Garry last week, and he's still there. Sometimes guys come and after a week or even a day, they go back to what they were doing before, even if it's living in the street. Garry also told me that Valera (the new one that came in the spring)'s younger brother who came for a weekend in July is also going to be a new student.

Two old students are coming back. You may remember that Julia (or Yulia) and Dima left in the fall for Kiroy Rog and got married there in March while the team was here. Garry and Eugene went to the wedding. Well, being independent has not turned out so well for them and they have been asking to come back periodically as they have not found jobs that they could do. So we will have three married couples living in the three apartments this fall. Kolya and Oxana, Julia and Dima and Alyona and Nikolai.



If you follow Garry (or Victor) on facebook, you will have seen that our very newest student, Denis arrived early in the morning on August 20th. Alona's water broke at two am and they called for an ambulance which arrived 20 minutes later. The little 2.4 kilo guy was born a half hour after they got to the hospital. Nikolai rode in the ambulance but had not seen the baby yet when Garry and Victor arrived there in the morning, so they all met him together. Apparently Nikolai was so excited he had only put on shorts and sandals before leaving and had no shirt when they got to the hospital.

Ironically, they had planned to have Victor go with Alona to her appointment on Wednesday to find out what to do when she went into labor, since her due date was supposed to be early September, but we don't need to worry about it now.

We got some used baby clothes and a crib and stroller donated by students from English Institute and church members from Morningstar in Dnepro for the new baby. They were excited to help out. Garry had better pick up the crib sometime soon.

Finished chopping corn

While I enjoyed one more week in Manitoba (with one to go), Garry finally finished making his silage pile for the cows. He was hoping to finish by Tuesday, but a breakdown on the chopper made them wait from Monday to Thursday evening for the part to be made by a machine shop in Dnepro. They finally got it Thursday evening and got back to work later on Friday morning after putting the machine back together.

 They were selling wheat Friday morning (from the storage building that had to be loaded into a truck) so they had some delays getting the chopper back together. They plan to buy a bigger better plow that will work on the new tractor with the proceeds of selling a couple loads of wheat.
Luckily the chopper held together for 14 loads Friday and the last 18 on Saturday and they covered the pile with plastic. Garry tells me they will need to fix a few things for next year, including the blower that shoots the silage into the wagon.

 He tells me there is definitely more corn silage to feed the cows than last year, but he says it's hard to tell how much more. Quality is much better however, you can see more grain in the silage than last year (corn silage is made by chopping up the whole plant while it is still somewhat green, cobs and all, the more grain the higher protein in the mix of cobs, leaves and stalks). 

The other cornfield and some short rows in this field that they left standing will be combined for grain in the fall. While some parts of this field were very good, some were not good, mostly because they were unable to get it all watered when they wanted. This new field is large and slightly uphill, so the water did not flow as well as they thought it would. They are limited by the amount of water pressure in the irrigation pipe, and they can only pump water at night when the water is being pumped through the lines. Next year they plan to purchase a water pump that will be movable (on a wagon) so they can make more pressure and get up to ten times more water on where they want. If they can get a small irrigation gun to shoot water onto a field, they may even irrigate some alfalfa, and get more hay off less acres.

So the irrigation project is a success, but it could be better. The guys have been busy rolling up the irrigation lines. The big lay flat is rolled up and put away for next year, and they have pulled up all the plastic tape from every row and a truck is supposed to come pick it up to recycle and they will pay for us for it. They will also take the bales of plastic tubing from last year that are sitting near the house. It is not reusable, we have to buy miles of it every year. The rest of the irrigation equipment is stored away for next year.

I was talking to Garry this morning before I left for church in Steinbach; afternoon there, of course and he was off to breed a cow in Molazaharina. He said he'd already bred a cow in that same village earlier today after church. He was also telling me about the lady last week who didn't want to pay after he bred her cow because she said that it should be free because he'd already bred her this year. Garry said fine, then don't call me to breed any more of your cows! She finally decided to pay 200 instead of 250 grivna. I guess he'll go back sometime. Hopefully, that cow is pregnant.

Meanwhile, here in the center of Canada, we are dealing with smoke from the west.

Chopping corn

I am writing from hotter than Ukraine Manitoba today. I arrived Monday evening after a couple of nice flights and a delay of over an hour because the Toronto airport was shut down because of a thunderstorm shortly after I arrived there. I got bumped up to a business seat over the ocean, next to an older lady who did not speak English.
 All in all everything went well and Jess, James and Abby met me at the airport. Tuesday morning I helped get ready for Abby's second birthday party.





Afterwards I went to Steinbach and watched a double header in softball and have been hanging out at the farm... except for a thrift shop run to buy two dollar jeans to take back for the students.

Garry has been busy back in the village chopping corn since Tuesday morning. That's right, he's already making that bunker full of corn silage (last year he chopped about a hundred more acres to make less corn silage). He told me that they were still chopping around the headlands on the big field Thursday, getting about four wagon-fulls each time around the bigger corn field. He said it takes ten minutes to fill the wagon, but fifteen for the wagon to come back empty from the barn, so sometimes they have to wait.





 Victor sent me some photos. As you can see, the new New Holland tractor is pulling the old New Holland chopper. So far it has worked beautifully, with no problems.

They decided to chop the bigger field because they will pay by the acre for combining grain and there will be more grain per acre on the smaller field since they got the water on it faster. Garry does not think they will need to cut the whole field to fill the bunk, so they would combine the rest of the field when its ready in the fall. This is the field where you go out the end of the village and cross the narrow dam by the pond to get to it, so it does take longer to get there with the wagons than it would the irrigated field from last year, which is why it was the original choice for making silage, until the corn was a little better there.

Irrigation is a wonderful thing, other farmers are making corn silage out of corn that is only about six feet tall. Ours is at least ten, with two cobs on many stalks.

Not a computer geek

Geek was one of the slang words I taught last month at SEI. It's been "one of those days" (that's an idiom, not slang). I am supposed to be the computer savvy one of us (when the boys went home to Manitoba we lost our tech support) and yesterday after updating this blog and a couple others I am in charge of, I tried to send our supposedly monthly prayer partner newsletter in a new format.

 I am ashamed to say it has been at least two months since I have sent one out. Sometimes I send it at the beginning of the month, but often it's whoa, this month's almost over and I haven't written one... so it comes near the end.

Normally I just write an email once a month, bcc it (that means it hides the addresses) and send it off, but I was trying to add all the things that are supposed to be written on it (legally as EFCCM mission associates), so I decided to make the newsletter an attachment, like other missionary updates we get. I wrote it in Publisher, but still kept it simple. Outlook wanted to attach it as a cloud thing, so I went with it and sent it off around 11 pm our time.

I noticed that I had gotten a couple undeliverable messages right back, so I went into my groups to delete them. One person had passed away and the other might have changed email providers without notifying me, I try to change them as soon as I get them.

This morning I got up before six- Garry was going out to rake hay- and found a couple of emails from people who could not open the file when I checked, so I decided to go back to a plain e-mail and copy and paste the important stuff at the bottom, I even got the logo to work this time. I had fooled around trying to get it into the original newsletter for an hour before giving up last night. I did get it inserted on this blog yesterday, it is so you know who we are associated with.
.
I sent it off in my new (old) format and then noticed the same two messages about undelivered emails were back again. I went back into my groups and deleted them again, and clicked on save this time! If you would like to be part of our prayer partner group, and find out how to pray for us each month, drop us an email, and I'll try to add you to the lists.

 Of course if you are a regular reader of the blog, you might know what we are needing prayer for better than we do!

August already?

I am not sure where July went... I came back near the end of June, we went to the conference in Kiev, we taught English and then went down to the sea with Clay and then it was August. Next week I am off for Manitoba again, leaving Garry here to make corn silage in two weeks.

As soon as they finish hay, they will need to start pulling up the irrigation lines. It looks like there will be lots of silage and then dry corn to combine later. While the sunflower fields are looking a little dry, the corn fields are still very wet and we have not needed to buy much water during July. Wet ground does not dry out as fast, so it looks like we are done with water for the year in the fields.

The third cut hay baling was slowed down when it kept raining, they made some hay that got rained on a couple times after they cut it, but its been dry since Monday and they are hoping to finish soon. The guys (and Leila) are really appreciating the hay elevator that came in the container a couple years ago, we finally got it working, so unloading is much easier now. All the rain made a good cutting, there may be almost as much as first cut, and fourth cut will be taking advantage of all the moisture in the ground, so it will be good too.


We had a relaxing couple days with Clay at the Sea of Azov before Garry dropped him at the airport yesterday. He got to experience some of what its like to live with three 20 something girls Tuesday night. They couldn't stop laughing and chatting and helping by cleaning up; usually before you are done with your knife or cup it's in the dishwasher.