Hi everybody!
Spring has finally arrived in Russia. The lilacs are blooming and crops are being planted. We are now milking 1500 cows and they are doing well. We are having calves at this complex now. Right now there are only one or two born a day and sometimes we go a day or two without any births. We are bracing for 7 to 10 calves per day this summer!
We are spending Memorial Day weekend in Moscow for a little rest and relaxation and good food! Of course, they don't celebrate Memorial Day here in Russia, but we still can!
We are returning home to the U.S. on June 5th. We will be stopping in Pennsylvania on the way home for Kevin's nephew's graduation open house and we plan to be back in Michigan on the 8th. We think we will be home for a couple of weeks. We are looking forward to spending time with family and friends!
We hope everyone is doing well! Now that we have the internet at the farm it is easier to keep in touch with our friends and family. We have finally discovered facebook, so if you're there, look us up!
See you soon!
Kevin and Jennifer
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Monday, April 20, 2009
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Wind Damage
"Saturdays are usually quiet around the farm." we told our new interpreter... well, that wasn't true this past Saturday! We had really strong winds which knocked out the electricity and damaged two of the barns.
We also had 60 cows stranded on the rotary. After about an hour and a half we learned how to turn it manually. We had to use a truck and tow strap to get it started, and once we had enough momentum going, about 20 people pushed and continued it rotating until we were able to get all the cows off. It was quite a sight! Unfortunately, we were both too busy pushing and weren't able to get a picture!
We were without power for 4.5 hours. Where is that generator we ordered back in December???
We are now milking 1260 cows and we are still waiting for another 800 to have their first calf and join the milking herd.
Today is Russian Orthodox Easter and things are much quieter today, so far!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Hi all!
We are doing well! We have been very busy this past week. We had 600 pregnant heifers arrive at the farm from Canada this week. We were very busy getting the last barn ready before they arrived. Some of the trucks hauling the cows got lost and we spent all night waiting for them. So, we are tired to say the least!
We are now milking 1030 cows. Our employees are getting more efficient as the days pass and we are all still learning a lot. We have attached a video of the cows being milked. Here is a brief description of what they video shows: Each cow enters the moving rotary. Her udder is dipped with iodine to sanitize. She is then dried off. Then a third person attaches the milking unit. The cow continues to move around the rotary while she is milked and the milking unit detaches automatically when she is finished. She will continue her ride for a total of ten minutes and then she will exit and walk back to her barn where there is feed and a place for her to lay down. Very simple! This occurs three times per day. We are able to milk 360 cows per hour. The other video is from inside the rotary where the cows are looking down at us! You can see where the cows are entering the rotary and then on the left you can see where they exit after going for their ten minute ride. (If you look closely you can see a spray of water that we installed to make the cow reverse and get off the rotary. Some of them like to ride twice if you let them!) If you think it looks strange, imagine what they cow must think!
We are flying back to the U.S. on March 10 for a quick trip to renew our visas.
Hope to see all of you when we are out and about!
We are doing well! We have been very busy this past week. We had 600 pregnant heifers arrive at the farm from Canada this week. We were very busy getting the last barn ready before they arrived. Some of the trucks hauling the cows got lost and we spent all night waiting for them. So, we are tired to say the least!
We are now milking 1030 cows. Our employees are getting more efficient as the days pass and we are all still learning a lot. We have attached a video of the cows being milked. Here is a brief description of what they video shows: Each cow enters the moving rotary. Her udder is dipped with iodine to sanitize. She is then dried off. Then a third person attaches the milking unit. The cow continues to move around the rotary while she is milked and the milking unit detaches automatically when she is finished. She will continue her ride for a total of ten minutes and then she will exit and walk back to her barn where there is feed and a place for her to lay down. Very simple! This occurs three times per day. We are able to milk 360 cows per hour. The other video is from inside the rotary where the cows are looking down at us! You can see where the cows are entering the rotary and then on the left you can see where they exit after going for their ten minute ride. (If you look closely you can see a spray of water that we installed to make the cow reverse and get off the rotary. Some of them like to ride twice if you let them!) If you think it looks strange, imagine what they cow must think!
We are flying back to the U.S. on March 10 for a quick trip to renew our visas.
Hope to see all of you when we are out and about!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Our new year in Russia
Hi all!
We are finally getting caught up enough to send out an update on our progress!
Things here are going very well for us. We have made it through the lengthy Russian holidays and now everyone is back to work! We had very cold weather here (-11F), but now it is near freezing during the day. This is allowing us to get caught up on problems that occur on any dairy farm in extreme cold. We had frozen alley scrapers, frozen manure pumps, frozen water, no water and even power outages! These problems can be solved, but when two or more occur at the same time it is a challenge to say the least!
Our days are very long and sometimes the days and nights run together! We start our day at 7:30 am for the first milking, lunch is at the farm. We do run home for dinner and return at 8pm for the second milking. We try to be home by 9pm, but sometimes it is midnight. We have a very good staff and everyone is learning day by day. (ourselves included!) Don’t think for a minute that we are complaining! We are having an absolute blast!
We are currently milking 900 cows. We have about 700 more to have calves and join the milking string and another 800 will arrive on the ship in late February. The last barn is nearly completed and this will make room for the new shipment. We are milking two times per day now, but we have made the decision to milk 3 times per day starting next week. It will be interesting to see how everyone handles this next step!
The days are moving quickly for us and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring! We will be flying to the USA on March 10 for a quick trip to take care of some things at home.
We are finally getting caught up enough to send out an update on our progress!
Things here are going very well for us. We have made it through the lengthy Russian holidays and now everyone is back to work! We had very cold weather here (-11F), but now it is near freezing during the day. This is allowing us to get caught up on problems that occur on any dairy farm in extreme cold. We had frozen alley scrapers, frozen manure pumps, frozen water, no water and even power outages! These problems can be solved, but when two or more occur at the same time it is a challenge to say the least!
Our days are very long and sometimes the days and nights run together! We start our day at 7:30 am for the first milking, lunch is at the farm. We do run home for dinner and return at 8pm for the second milking. We try to be home by 9pm, but sometimes it is midnight. We have a very good staff and everyone is learning day by day. (ourselves included!) Don’t think for a minute that we are complaining! We are having an absolute blast!
We are currently milking 900 cows. We have about 700 more to have calves and join the milking string and another 800 will arrive on the ship in late February. The last barn is nearly completed and this will make room for the new shipment. We are milking two times per day now, but we have made the decision to milk 3 times per day starting next week. It will be interesting to see how everyone handles this next step!
The days are moving quickly for us and we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of spring! We will be flying to the USA on March 10 for a quick trip to take care of some things at home.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Christmas season in Moscow
Hi Everyone!
We are spending a few days in Moscow seeing the sights and visiting friends before returning to the farm.
Here are some photos we took in Red Square today.
In the background you can see the Kremlin, St. Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's tomb, and the gloomy sky!
Saturday, December 13, 2008
On the road again...
Hello everyone!
We are heading back to Russia today! It may be a few weeks until we get settled before we are able to post another blog entry. Have a great Christmas!
Kevin & Jennifer
We are heading back to Russia today! It may be a few weeks until we get settled before we are able to post another blog entry. Have a great Christmas!
Kevin & Jennifer
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
While here in the US, we got a chance to visit Jennifer's brother Kent and sister-in-law Beccy at their home in North Port, Florida. The weather was beautiful the entire week we were there. We had such a great time so we decided to plan another visit! We are returning to Florida on Saturday, Oct. 25th for another week! We will be staying in a beach condo on Siesta Key. Jennifer's mom and Kevin's sister Julie and brother-in-law Jeff will be joining us on this trip. We are looking forward to a great time!Our return to Russia has been delayed for a couple more weeks. We are waiting on paperwork to arrive from Russia so we can obtain our official "work visas" before returning. As far as we can tell at this point, we will be in the US until mid-November. We are looking forward to returning to Russia, but in the meantime, we are enjoying our time in the US!
Sunday, September 28, 2008
September 20, 2008
We are doing well and are getting adjusted to life here. The weather was very warm in the 90’s a few weeks ago, but now it is in the 50-60’s and raining a lot. We are guessing that winter isn’t far away!
We are finally moved in to our apartment after a month of “tomorrows”. It is small, but we expected that. They have done a nice job remodeling it. We have a new bathroom, floors, doors, heaters, walls and paint. The colors they chose are pastel green, orange, and purple. So, it reminds us of Easter! It will suit us fine as we don’t expect to be able to spend much time here after the cows arrive.
On the weekends there is a large open market in town. We go there on Saturday mornings and buy all of our fruit and vegetables. We bought several bags of vegetables for $4. A lot of the vegetables come from local gardens and the old ladies wait to sell you their produce. The market is quite large and has everything you can imagine from cloths to bikes to TV’s. Most of the stuff is from China; so we have our own little Wal-Mart! We of course have a small grocery store and many convenience stores. The very large grocery stores are an hour away in Belgorod.
We believe we are the first Americans to step foot in this town. At least you would think so by the reactions we get! Everybody is very nice and patient with our poor Russian language skills! We are learning new words every day but are very far from carrying on a conversation! Luckily we have a very good interpreter at the farm. But we are on our own in the evenings and weekends.
We have finished chopping corn silage. It was a painfully slow process considering we have three choppers and 16 semi-trucks. The problem is the distance we have to haul and getting people to work more than eight hours per day. But I am pleased with the quality.
We are finishing storing 2500 tons of barley and wheat in Ag-Bags. This has gone very well. We will start harvesting high moisture corn soon. We have 2000 acres to combine. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Sugar beet harvest is in full swing. I have never seen so many beets! At home 40 acres of beets is a lot. Here there are 500 acre fields of sugar beets. There is an endless parade of trucks hauling to the plant. The sunflowers have all been sprayed by a plane to make them dry quicker. They are now all brown and I would guess that they are close to harvest.
The first ship load of 1100 cows is still delayed. With this being the first cows to come to Russia from the U.S. everybody is being extra cautious. They are now in the middle of a second 30 day quarantine in Oklahoma. The last date we heard was an arrival of October 28. The second ship load of 1500 cows will be selected in the next few weeks and then go through their quarantine process. At this point we are hoping that they get delayed too so that we don’t have them all arrive at once.
With no cows to manage, we have decided to make a quick trip back to Michigan while we have time. We will fly home from Moscow on Friday and will be in the U.S. until mid-October. We plan to go to Wisconsin for the World Dairy Expo, we have a meeting in Nebraska and then we may head for Oklahoma to check on the cows. We will know more definite plans in the next week or two.
Hope to see you all soon!
We are finally moved in to our apartment after a month of “tomorrows”. It is small, but we expected that. They have done a nice job remodeling it. We have a new bathroom, floors, doors, heaters, walls and paint. The colors they chose are pastel green, orange, and purple. So, it reminds us of Easter! It will suit us fine as we don’t expect to be able to spend much time here after the cows arrive.
On the weekends there is a large open market in town. We go there on Saturday mornings and buy all of our fruit and vegetables. We bought several bags of vegetables for $4. A lot of the vegetables come from local gardens and the old ladies wait to sell you their produce. The market is quite large and has everything you can imagine from cloths to bikes to TV’s. Most of the stuff is from China; so we have our own little Wal-Mart! We of course have a small grocery store and many convenience stores. The very large grocery stores are an hour away in Belgorod.
We believe we are the first Americans to step foot in this town. At least you would think so by the reactions we get! Everybody is very nice and patient with our poor Russian language skills! We are learning new words every day but are very far from carrying on a conversation! Luckily we have a very good interpreter at the farm. But we are on our own in the evenings and weekends.
We have finished chopping corn silage. It was a painfully slow process considering we have three choppers and 16 semi-trucks. The problem is the distance we have to haul and getting people to work more than eight hours per day. But I am pleased with the quality.
We are finishing storing 2500 tons of barley and wheat in Ag-Bags. This has gone very well. We will start harvesting high moisture corn soon. We have 2000 acres to combine. Hopefully the weather cooperates. Sugar beet harvest is in full swing. I have never seen so many beets! At home 40 acres of beets is a lot. Here there are 500 acre fields of sugar beets. There is an endless parade of trucks hauling to the plant. The sunflowers have all been sprayed by a plane to make them dry quicker. They are now all brown and I would guess that they are close to harvest.
The first ship load of 1100 cows is still delayed. With this being the first cows to come to Russia from the U.S. everybody is being extra cautious. They are now in the middle of a second 30 day quarantine in Oklahoma. The last date we heard was an arrival of October 28. The second ship load of 1500 cows will be selected in the next few weeks and then go through their quarantine process. At this point we are hoping that they get delayed too so that we don’t have them all arrive at once.
With no cows to manage, we have decided to make a quick trip back to Michigan while we have time. We will fly home from Moscow on Friday and will be in the U.S. until mid-October. We plan to go to Wisconsin for the World Dairy Expo, we have a meeting in Nebraska and then we may head for Oklahoma to check on the cows. We will know more definite plans in the next week or two.
Hope to see you all soon!
August 23, 2008
Hi everybody,
Just wanted to drop a short note to let you know that we are still alive and well!
We have been here for two weeks and are starting to get adjusted.
We have not had a chance to get everybody's email into our address book, so if you see anybody not listed here; please let them know we are ok.
We do not have internet at the farm yet, so we have found internet at the local library and they are nice enough to let us use it. If you email back I can receive it on my phone and send short messages back. We will probably have time to make it to the library on weekends only.
We are still living in a local hotel. Our apartment should be ready soon. They are remodeling the bathroom. Everytime we ask about when we will move we are told "tomorrow". This has become a running joke with us and the employees at the farm and we now have learned the Russian word for tomorrow. Everything will happen tomorrow.
The cows have been delayed. We are now told they will leave the U.S. on the 28th. It will take them three weeks to get here and then a truck ride to the farm. This delay is not a bad thing for us. It will give us time to get settled and learn more about the new systems at the farm. They are getting us all of the systems manuals in english. This should be very helpful because we are finding that we already know more about these systems than they do. Which is a little unsettling!
We have started chopping corn silage and the plan is to harvest 15,000 tons. That's a lot of corn! We also learned something interesting about the cows that are coming on the ship. For those of you without a farm background, let me explain real quick. Normally cows have a 50/50 chance of having a female or male calf. These heifers are all bred to "sexed semen". Which means that 80-85% of them will have female calves. And ALL of the females will be kept and raised on the farm! Jennifer has figured it out and in February we will have a total of 734 calves drinking milk! Well, at least its not 800!
Other than that we really are having a lot of fun so far. Our interpreters are good and the staff here is really friendly. (All 800 of them!) That is a joke, but it is crazy the jobs they create for the simplest things!
When we get in our apartment and get internet we will send photos and will get our blog started.
Miss you all!
Kevin and Jennifer
Just wanted to drop a short note to let you know that we are still alive and well!
We have been here for two weeks and are starting to get adjusted.
We have not had a chance to get everybody's email into our address book, so if you see anybody not listed here; please let them know we are ok.
We do not have internet at the farm yet, so we have found internet at the local library and they are nice enough to let us use it. If you email back I can receive it on my phone and send short messages back. We will probably have time to make it to the library on weekends only.
We are still living in a local hotel. Our apartment should be ready soon. They are remodeling the bathroom. Everytime we ask about when we will move we are told "tomorrow". This has become a running joke with us and the employees at the farm and we now have learned the Russian word for tomorrow. Everything will happen tomorrow.
The cows have been delayed. We are now told they will leave the U.S. on the 28th. It will take them three weeks to get here and then a truck ride to the farm. This delay is not a bad thing for us. It will give us time to get settled and learn more about the new systems at the farm. They are getting us all of the systems manuals in english. This should be very helpful because we are finding that we already know more about these systems than they do. Which is a little unsettling!
We have started chopping corn silage and the plan is to harvest 15,000 tons. That's a lot of corn! We also learned something interesting about the cows that are coming on the ship. For those of you without a farm background, let me explain real quick. Normally cows have a 50/50 chance of having a female or male calf. These heifers are all bred to "sexed semen". Which means that 80-85% of them will have female calves. And ALL of the females will be kept and raised on the farm! Jennifer has figured it out and in February we will have a total of 734 calves drinking milk! Well, at least its not 800!
Other than that we really are having a lot of fun so far. Our interpreters are good and the staff here is really friendly. (All 800 of them!) That is a joke, but it is crazy the jobs they create for the simplest things!
When we get in our apartment and get internet we will send photos and will get our blog started.
Miss you all!
Kevin and Jennifer
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Countdown to departure
Welcome to our Russian adventure blog! The countdown to departure has begun. We just cancelled our flight for July 31st due to a mistake on Jennifer's visa paperwork and have set our sights on a new departure date, around August 6th.
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