A long time between posts - SORRY!

So, since we last posted any news the chicks have hatched - 28 of them! Some pretty cool colours, no  plain old white chickens for us!

On Monday, March 25 we repaired the box Yana had for raising the chicks and put it in our porch so we could plug in the heat lamp. Scott went with Victor to a neighbouring town to pick up the chick starter feed and medication for the water. The chicks have done well this past week, although there were a few casualties. There were a few weaker birds and we have lost four, so our flock is now at 24. They are eating well, and you know what that means! We have fertilizer for the garden!

One or two days old

Almost two weeks old - they are getting their wings.

The team from Salmon Arm left Tuesday afternoon to go to Krivoy Rog to visit friends there before flying home Thursday morning from Kiev. They had brought us silicone, so all day Thursday I (Shannon) was in and out of our bathroom caulking the tub. Ukrainian silicone doesn't hold for very long and the was water leaking into the next room. Hopefully, that problem has been successfully resolved.
Farewell to the Salmon Arm team
Saturday evening right after our lesson, Scott drove a group of the students to a youth event at Central Baptist Church in Dnipro. While he was gone, I made myself an apron from fabric I bought at Ozerka (the huge outdoor market in Dnipro).

I bought fabric to make aprons for the dairy barn, so now that I've made one apron and Yana tried it on and it fits great, I will make one for her to try out before I make a few more for the students to wear during milking time. They will be made from a flexible, fake leather kind of fabric in hopes that they will be quite water repellant. They will have large pockets to hold the cleaning rags used to wash the cows' udders before the milking machines are attached.

Work continues on Yana's house. The plan is for her to move back in tomorrow, even though the water is not yet hooked up. Her mom is planning a visit this weekend. Teresa is grouting the tiles today and Garry is supervising some of the students as they move in some furniture. More pictures of the final product in a later post.

Progress

The kitchen

Coming along

Language study has its ups and downs and this week it was more down than up for Scott. In English, people are the main thing that have genders. Not so in Russian! Every noun has a gender -  male, female or neuter, and you must get their pronouns right. The pronoun 'it' has many forms, and you need to know the gender of the noun to be able to use the correct pronoun. Very confusing for someone who got out of school to forget such things!! At our lesson on Tuesday, Ulzana tried to shed some light on this and I think it helped Scott a little. We had some laughs and he has not pulled out of his hair yet!



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