Hunting for cows

Friday morning we had breakfast (Garry for the third time that day, we had coffee and buns at the coffee shop before anyone else was up and cereal at the apartment) with the Harders and Andrew, Steve's mentor, and his wife at a restaurant. I tried the cheese and onion sandwich. It was on toast with olive oil. Afterwards Garry and I took the car for a ride to find farmland and cows, the highlight of any trip for Garry.

We headed out on the highway and decided to buy a map, which showed we were on the way to Gibraltar.















We ended up parking and eating lunch there, but could not go out to the rock since we had not brought our passports for this drive. However the sight of it coming out of the fog was worth the drive.












Of course, then we were off to get inland and find farms.

We found cork trees

The only cows we found were red beef cows

That white stuff is cotton blowing around after harvest

Cow path, maybe?

Garry really wanted to find out what kind of trees these were, but the
 had been harvested already..
Not the tall one, but he'd like to find out what it  is too,

A plowed field

An estate/hotel barn with cows

We also saw orange and olive trees. Garry picked a couple wild oranges along the road but they were too sour to eat. We went through a few small towns and managed to get back to the highway with the help of the map and get back to Migas long before dark.

Almost sunset

We walked up to see the bullfighting ring before eating dinner with Jo and the boys.They do still have bullfights there.

More about Spain

We took a while to get to lunch on Wednesday because the car was not where Garry and Steve had parked at midnight the night before. They had parked between two cars on a street. Unfortunately they did not know that everyone else knew to move their car before eight am!

The boys on a donkey while we looked for the car

They talked to the tourist bureau people and found out where the car had been towed, not far but it cost 176 Euro to get it back! In cash to the police. They went back up stairs to check if giving it in cash was legit, but eventually we were on our way. The boys were excited about the first of their places they wanted to eat and we did some shopping, I got a pair of running shoes for 11 euro for all the walking we have been doing. We bought frozen stuff to cook in the oven for dinner that night at a British grocery store.


We went down to the seaside and got wet feet when a wave snuck up behind us while we were taking a selfie. There were big waves Wednesday. Garry went for a walk after we got back, and found the bullfighting ring here in Mejas.

 We discovered we had no oven that evening at dinnertime and cooked our frozen food in frying pans and the microwave. The car was parked in the one euro a day parking garage, we have been moving it every day, just in case it goes up after 24 hours.

The next morning Garry and I went for a walk and got coffee at the bakery. Confused the guy one coffee and two pastries. We watched the kids walking to school with their mothers.We were back at G42 in the morning, Steve and Jo spoke to the students about their mission experiences since they were here and perseverance. stick-to-it-ness in mission work when things don't go as planned. The students and staff prayed for them before the lunch break.

We went for lunch with Caleb (one of the interns that were in Zaporosia with the Harders this summer) and ate some real Spanish sandwiches.


After lunch we hiked around town a bit, Garry went up to the church on the hill with everyone, but I sat down on a rock for a bit, my sore knee is taking a bit of beating with all the stairs and uphill walking. They thought they could maybe see Africa from up there, but my view of the sea below was pretty good too.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the seaside. It was warmer so we went in t shirts. We walked along the path and the boys climbed up some cables attached to the walking bridge.

Nobody is worried as they go up

I was a little behind the guys

Then we walked up around an old fort. The boys got to peek in the windows. We are enjoying the palm trees and tropical plants and saw a flock of green parakeets land overhead as we climbed uphill.


There were hardly any waves. The boys got their feet wet and some seawater on their rolled up jeans before we went for fish and chips (did I say there are lots of Brits around? Mostly retired people).


The food was good, but we discovered a parking ticket when we got back to the car for 60 euros, we had not seen that it was paid parking after 4:30 pm when we parked at two. Luckily Jo found out at their friends that evening we could pay in less than 72 hours with an app and it was less than seven!

We are really careful where we park now.

Village News or a busy week

It was an event-filled last week or so in the village. We were up to 18 students after picking up another guy from Kirvoy Rog the Friday before and we had our annual Thanksgiving celebration dinner planned for that Monday.

Sunday evening, Garry got a phone call as we were getting ready to test the jacuzzi tub at the Crawfords. He didn't want to answer it because had just breed his sixth cow of the day, and had been driving all over to different villages, but wanted to make sure there was enough hot water to fill the tub since there wasn't the first time we tried it.
Note to the Crawfords- both hot water heaters need to be turned to maximum. Also if you do that and have two electric heaters on, you may blow the main breaker for the house. It is a shame that we cannot heat the house with gas as planned this winter. The company cut our gas line because of the renovation and it is going to take months to get through all the red tape. We are going to run a line from the barn, since we don't use much there anymore.

The phone call was not from someone wanting to breed a cow. He checked who it was since it had rung a couple more times, when he went to flip the breaker back on. It was Nellie and Garry had to go talk to Julia. Oksana (who got married last year) had gone to hospital in an ambulance. The village nurse thought she might have an etopic pregnancy.

They did surgery that night, Max drove in and gave the doctor 1500 grivna to operate. She was bleeding internally, so it was a good thing he did. No cash means no care in Ukraine. She came home the following Monday and looks good. They think she is still pregnant because it was twins and one was in the uterus, so we will hope and pray all goes well.

Monday morning two of the guys weren't there. Andrei who had been here for only ten days and we had celebrated his birthday with cake and gifts the previous Monday, and Sasha Bonderenko who has left before, took off after attending church in the village on Sunday. We're still hoping to track them down, we've had some leads.

I spent the day getting food ready, I cooked two big turkey breasts in the crockpot, one at the time, with BBQ sauce, and we had shredded turkey sandwiches. I also made pies and stuffing. I recommend the shredded turkey, it was really moist.

Victor brought out Daryl and Molly Porter (our boss as Garry says, he's the Europe Area director) out in the afternoon and they got to celebrate Thanksgiving with us and the students and staff who were there.





Tuesday  Garry was not teaching so we drove the Porters back to Dnepro, they were safely back in Kirvoy Rog by evening and we having picked up some stuff were back working on the Crawford's house.

Wednesday Garry taught class and we raced off to buy mirrors for the bathrooms and some other stuff late afternoon and got to Kamaskoya for our SEI followup class there. We went to Big Burrito restaurant. Never go there, it is not a burrito that they call a burrito on the menu. Fries Mexicali was wedges with chopped dill on... gas station hot dogs are better by far.




Thursday morning I taught cooking class - we made chicken noodle soup and Garry worked on the house. In the afternoon we left for small group at Steve and Jo's early because Garry had more cows to breed on the way.

Friday more cleaning tile for me and getting ready to paint the floor again. Some of it needed two coats but we still needed to walk on it to get to other parts of the house to work.

Then we were off with the puppy to get her shots and the vet and returned the guy from last week because he wouldn't work in the barn (it smells too bad apparently) Well, we hoped to get Happy vaccinated but ended up with flea stuff and have to bring our car sick puppy back sometime... then we got stuck in a traffic jam and Garry was late for class and afterwards we got stuck in another traffic jam on the way to SEI follow up group! We did arrive by 6:45 to open the door, and not too many people were already there waiting.

Saturday it was back to work for me, at the house until two when I started making pizza dough. Second week in a row my Friday shopping was to feed the whole group of students. Steve and Jo came out to the village around 4:30 when Garry got back from teaching English in Dnepro, they had a student meeting like Just Youth but just for our guys while I cooked nine pizzas for the snack.



Sunday we went to church in the village and on Monday we worked on the house and packed for Spain!

In Spain (hoping for no rain)

I finally got around to writing a blog post! Sorry about that, I really planned to get one done over the weekend, but I was still working on stuff at the Crawford's house in case they are here next week (I painted the rest of the floor Monday evening after washing all the tile with vinegar to get rid of the residue) because we are in Spain for a week with our fellow Manitobans, the Harders.

We didn't actually try the fries for breakfast but they must be popular,
ice cream cones  and coffee are big breakfast sellers here

Yesterday we spent the day travelling; first we drove to the Kiev-Borispol airport from the village. We left before four am, and had breakfast shortly after six am in Kremachuk. We had been pleased with the roads up til then, but the next hundred kilometers was a lot of bumps and swerving around most of the holes in the road. However we had no flat tires or other car problems so we arrived in the city of Boripol at ten am. Since we had two hours before we needed to be at the airport, we went shopping for towel bars and toilet paper holders for the house at Nova Lena before lunch at McDonalds.

We flew to Paris from Kiev landing as the sun set  and around eight pm got on a bus to the plane to Magala Spain.
















We got the luggage (Garry and I had been urged to check our carry ons for free) and the rental car and drove to Mijas where Steve and Jo went to Bible school. We got to the apartment after midnight and the guys found a place to park the car, somewhere else after we got the luggage out, since we are on a narrow one way street.





We slept in - it was after eight am when we went to find the bakery/coffee shop across the street. We got the exciting email that the Crawfords are going to be able to join us for the ride back to the village from Kiev next week when we return next Tuesday.












Then we went to the school to take in the morning lecture at 9:30 and when  class was over at noon we went to get the car and find a Burger King.

That's right, since the home of the whopper has come to Spain, and not in Ukraine, so we wanted burgers for lunch.

It took a little longer than we thought to get to lunch...

New generator

So we finally bought a new generator. We have been looking for one for two years since the cows moved to the new farm, because the old one was not big enough to run the equipment for milking. They had a method to make it work, it was used to power some stuff and the vacuum line was hooked up to the tractor manifold I think to power that.

So when Max was at the farm show he ordered a big PTO driven generator to hook to the tractor. They had gotten it ready but not actually hooked it up and ran it when it arrived a week or so ago.

When the power was off in the village on Wednesday last week, as afternoon milking time arrived it was time to hook it up. That took a little longer than planned as Max had to do a spot of welding to get the PTO to work so he was at the shop when Garry had asked if I wanted to get a photo of the generator in action at the barn. They used the old generator to power the welder.


So I got some photos over at the barn while Garry and Max were trying to get it going. They had a problem with the generator safety switch going off and stopping it as they tried to get the vacuum pump started in the barn. So they have to get a soft start for the vacuum pump so it will work correctly so it doesn't draw too much power as it starts up and stop the generator. This should save some money on the electric bill also.


 However, they cobbled something together last week so they could milk the cows. Garry had to run back to house for something so I went back before they got it running.

I did get some photos of everyone getting ready to milk.










The new heifer sheds outside the barn, the two closest ones are the ones built this year.

Still

We are still waiting to find out when the Crawfords will arrive in Ukraine, but they should know in less than two weeks. We should be finished with the house by then too. I've been really busy over there again this week (its still my excuse for having no time to read, write or crochet!)


I was going to finish the tile in the kitchen on Wednesday morning. I mixed the adhesive up and then the power went out from ten am to 4:35. It was either regular maintenance day (which often happens at the end of the month, or out to fix a problem somewhere). I put up tile that did not need cutting but almost every one around the tulip "window" needed to be cut and was after 4:35, just as the village cows were heading home. Time changed here last weekend.

The village cows as seen through the porch window of the house

The kitchen tile is up, the water is working over there, Garry and Max have fixed most of the leaks, and there are still a few details to finish but we hope to be done before this time next week.

I'll try to get another post up this weekend... or Tuesday.