Adventures

Spring is over, it lasted about 10 days. And now it's summer time. We've been outside alot and I'm attempting for the second summer in a row to get some decent grass growing in our yard. Although I'm already a step ahead of last year because I found a big gallon size bag of grass seed in town this past week, so that was awesome. And my little flowers that I started from seed are doing pretty good, I'm thinking about taking them outside and planting them.

I need to get going on my veggie garden if I'm going to have one. I've been trying to get Josh to bring over one of those fancy tractors and till me up a garden. But he's too busy. I even stopped in the village and tried to talk to Luba, she's this nice lady we will give rides to if she's walking to town. Anyway Luba didn't know what in the world I was talking about, I was using my VERY limited Russian and a whole lot of hand movements and trying to ask her if she knew of someone who had a rotatiller. Well she thought I stopped to give her a ride and kept telling me taxi. And pretty soon she says good bye and a taxi pulls up and she leaves me standing in the village wishing I knew a little more Russian. So needless to say, I don't have a rotatilled garden and have been working away at it with a shovel. And my big dreams of my big garden are getting smaller and smaller with every shovel load of dirt I turn over. At this rate I might be ready for my garden for next year!

An old babushka swore at me the other day as I drove through Kotlacova, I'm sure of it! She gave me her worst stink eye, pointed her boney crooked finger and spat out a few words that I'm sure were not, kind! I think she thought I was the one that ran over her chicken last week. But it was Sam one of the cowboys.

I went to a new open market last week while waiting to pick up the guys from the cattle drive, and was trying on a summer hat, the owner of the booth says something to me in Russian and I tell her my best phrase, which is "I only speak a little Russian." She replys "Oh, the hat looks good!"  in English! I was in shock!ha She asks if I'm Austrailian, and I tell her I'm American. She looks me up and down and says something to the effect that I don't look like an American. Maybe because I was in my work clothes, and cowgirl boots. And all Russians think Americans are weathy movie stars.Sorry lady if only you knew! Anyway she says something and wants us to follower her. So we do. We go into this big old warehouse, and I'm starting to wonder if this was a smart thing to do. We were lead through these halls with the most aweful neon green walls. The whole time I'm wondering if I should grab my kids and run! Finally we turn a corner and are in a huge inside open market with TONS of booths. The lady leads down a walkway and yells, "Meet my American friends" to everyone around us! She had a friend who had a booth, and we stop there and are expected to buy a real Russian trinket. The only problem with this 15 by 6 foot rectangle booth is the fact that 3/4 of it is filled with "adult content" items such as nudies possed on mugs! Here I am staring bug eyed at all these things! In one corner there is a wall of kids items so I hurry up and grab two balloons, pay for them and leave! You just never know what you will find in Russia my friends you just never know.

Calving has started here at Kotlacova. That means I don't see my husband a whole lot these days. One of the first calves was premature and the boys and I went out to the barns to see what was going on. We see Josh working on a calf trying to get it to live. Merritt says, "Dad give it PCR!" ha It was pretty funny, Josh says "you mean CPR?" Anyway they tried that too, and about everything else, but in the end it died.

But this week has been good. Tonight we went out to bring Josh a snack and he gets a phone call, so we drive him over to a far pasture where two buckarooskis (as we like to call them) are sitting on top of the panels. They were suppose to be ear tagging a new calf, but I guess the mama was more than they could handle!!ha Because when we pull up and Josh gets out one of the buckarooskis yells "HEEFER CRRRAZY!!" Merritt and I were laughing so hard in the pickup while Josh takes care of the calf. It was priceless. I wish we had gotten there sooner to see the heifer try to eat those buckarooskis for lunch. As we drive away we just keep saying in our best Russian accents "HEEFFER CRAZY!!" over and over and laughing. I bet days like today those buckarooski's wonder what the heck they signed up for.