Who Reads My Blog?

I don't read a lot of blogs. Partly I don't have time and partly my Internet connection is so slow. I read my kid's blogs and my cousin's and one of my former neighbour's who is sort of family and one of my kids' friend's, who has been in Ireland these past two years but just blogged she is going back to Canada, having finished her MA.

And one blog of a "friend I haven't met", that I enjoy, just because it is so well written. Dana Wyzard's LIFE IS GOOD. It is funny. It is heart wrenching. It is beautiful. It is Dana!

But who reads my blog? There is a little map in the upper left corner of my blog which allegedly keeps track of the number of people who read my blog and where they live. It is archived monthly. So today being the last of September, I thought I'd look and see where my readers were. All 409 of them this month.

Some of the red dots I can identify. Kids, relatives and friends. In many places in the world. But there are hits from all over the globe that I can't account for. How did you find me and why do you read it? I am curious. My kids and a few friends are the only ones who comment on even a semi-regular basis.

I know there are programs that search for key words. Someone from Washington who had been here 15 or 20 years ago contacted me when Zhovte Vodi tripped his program trigger. I flushed a couple of foaming-at-the-mouth nutbars a few months ago with an editorial. I expect there are one-hit wonders that stumbled over my blog by accident and never came back.

Please, I would love to hear from my readers from all over.

Birthday Blog

Today was a good day. Every day above ground is a good day at my age.

My kids all emailed so I know they still love me. Tanya cooked up enough food for a large gathering and Andrei, Tanya , Masha and Tanya's mom, Natasha, came over for supper. Tanya said since it was my birthday I didn't have to wash dishes today. They are all neatly stacked by the sink for tomorrow. I get no respect.

Andrei and Tanya gae me a coffe grinder. Natasha gave me an exercise set of hand grips, chest builder, arm builder and a jump rope. Tanya said she could build muscles for me as she has a shovel and 10,000 square feet of garden that needs spading. She said I would use three of items but not the jump rope as elephants can't jump. I get no respect.

Yesterday Zhenia and his son-in-law Oleg were busy widening the gate into his drive way by about 40 cm. Tanya said when they were done they could come over and widen our garage door. I get no respect.

We have a walnut tree across the road from our house. Tanya had been wailing on it with a garden fork to shake the walnuts down. I offered to hit it with the car but she didn't see the humour in that. Since Andrei was here today she asked him to give the tree a shake. He went over and booted it and a whole bunch fell for Masha to pick up. Talk about a kick in the nuts.

Joyce and Judy

My Mom was the oldest of three sisters. Joyce and Judy are the oldest and youngest of Mom’s middle sister, Betty. Joyce is 24 days older than I am which she made the most of when we were kids and will again when we are very old. We were good friends as kids and stayed that way all our lives. Judy was the smart-mouthed trouble-maker little sister. When she was young, she had a friend down the block just like her. The two moms would race to get their kid out the door first to go play at the other house. She is still full of life and fun.

Judy has done some traveling but Joyce never. They came to Ukraine to visit Tanya and me. Talk about feeling loved! That’s a pretty big adventure and not inexpensive to come all this way. Joyce met Tanya last Christmas when we were home but Judy had not and was looking forward to it. We had a great itinerary planned, given we only had nine days plane-in to plane-out.

Of course, fall rains started early. Not a drop for two months and the two days we were in Kyiv, it poured steady (and the next two days as well). We still visited the Pechersk Lavra Monastery and St Sofia’s Cathedral as well as walked the length of Andreivski Uzviz, though the rain had closed 90% of the craft and souvenir stalls.

We didn’t have time to go to Crimea which we would early have loved but instead we made a day trip from our place to Sofivka Park in Uman. The rest of the time we ate Tanya’s great home-cooking, drank coffee and visited up a storm. Catching up on family, getting to know each other again, reviewing all the events of our lives since Joyce and I celebrated our 50th birthdays together.

Our last evening together, we all dressed up and went out to dinner, Judy’s treat, so in a way, it was Joyce’s and my 61st birthday supper.

They arrived home safely and have forgiven us for the 6 hour wait at Boryspil (Kyiv) airport. Joyce was already talking about the next trip when they left so that was a good sign. Thanks so much for coming all this way to see us!! We love you.

Saturday, Captain sober*

Andrei’s Tanya is here with Masha today. Masha will come to see her Babushka as long as Maxim is visiting next door. Maxim brought Tanya another African Violet, a different colour he says. He worships Tanya. Any time an adult asks and takes an 8-year-old’s advice, as Tanya does about flowers, they make a friend for life. Tanya has slipped a geranium for him. He will be thrilled.

As I write, Tanya and Tanya (Is that Double Tanya or Tanya Squared?) are out picking apples again. Andrei’s Tanya is 180 cm tall and 50 kg so she can safely climb the fully extended ladder and reach the next level of apples. I have no idea where they are putting them as we filled all the boxes yesterday. I helped at first but it is pretty boring and I thought we had enough apples anyhow.

Our neighbour Zhenia brought home his new car. I guess he changed his mind about the Chevy Aveo. He bought a (Renault) Dacia Logan 4-door sedan. Reminds me a bit of the Chevy Biscayne of my youth that traded at about $1200. This is a stripped down, plain-Jane no frills car; 1.4 litre engine, standard, no air, no radio, no power windows or locks. $11,000 USD. He is swinging into his yard and just clipped the left front quarter panel on the gate, scraping the paint. He was upset!! Tanya was over looking at it when it happened and came home immediately so she could laugh. Now I don’t feel so bad, having done the same thing, turning into our garage with our new car.

*Captain’s log entry for Friday: First mate drunk on duty. The blog title was the Mate’s log entry for the next day. Excellent spin. He could have worked on an election campaign.

James, hold the ladder steady*

Joyce and Judy left on the plane from Kyiv this morning at 7:00 am. Tanya and I put them on the train in Dnipropetrovsk last night at 5:00. We'd had a great visit (more on that in a bit) and all four of us were tired out, I think. We drove home and were in bed by 9:00. They got to the airport at midnight and had a five-hour wait to check in time.

Today we picked apples. About 300 kgs or twenty 20-litre buckets worth. Of course, that pails in comparison to the amount left on the trees that we can't reach. Anything over 4 meters up remains unpicked. Tanya did the climbing and picking as she doesn't think the ladder will hold me. My job was to steady the ladder and haul buckets of apples to the passageway room where we will sort them into eating apples and juice apples. Lucia has an apple press which we will borrow to make juice. Steadying the ladder was no simple task as the ground is all soft and muddy. Tanya only needed me once when the ladder started to tip and I had to rush to the rescue. (I'm trying to work something in here about ladder reign but think I'll leave it).

Tanya can get Bobik to eat an apple if she bites it and gives the bite to him. Volk wants no part of it. Lucia was over picking windfalls which she takes to a neighbour lady in trade for milk. The neighbour's cow quite likes apples and she won't let her milk down now until she gets her apple treat at milking time. Cows learn quickly what works.

* Obscure reference. Who recorded it first and in what year for 50 poinjts and entry into the BIG draw? Bonus points if you don't have to use Google.

Plov

Plov is an Uzbek dish according to Tanya and according to an Uzbek lady at the Samarkand Restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. Today I paid attention while Tanya was cooking it and this is as close to a recipe as I can come up with:
1 kg pork cut into 2-3 cm cubes (can use chicken and likely beef too though we have not)
3 good sized onions chopped up
3 good sized carrots shredded
Brown the meat in a large deep casserole dish in about 50 to 70 mls of oil for 15 minutes or so.
Add onions and carrots after about 5 minutes.
To 1 1/2 -2 cups of rice add boiling water and soak for 20 minutes, drain and rinse with cold water.
Spread the rinsed rice over top of the meat, carrots and onions in the same dish they were browned in.
Add water to cover plus about 2-3 cm
Salt, peppercorns and bayleaves are all Tanya adds though i think one could use one's imagination and make any flavour one wanted.
Cover and simmer slowly for 20 minutes or until the rice is cooked and the water is gone.
You will likely need to experiment with the rice/water ratios until you find what works in your casserole as Tanya has used this cast aluminum one for years for Plov and has it down to an art. She also uses short grain rice which has very different cooking characteristics from long grain as she likes sticky rice.

God didn’t make little green apples

Fruit trees are nice in spring when they blossom. Then I wish they would go away until next spring. They litter the ground with fallen fruit. Yes, I enjoyed the cherries (about 10% of production) and the apricots (about 0.5%), don’t get me wrong. But the ground is covered with fruit we can’t pick or don’t need.

Then there are the apple trees. Twenty years ago, fresh from Siberia, Tanya planted this vast orchard, with only a half vast notion of what would happen. There are ten apple trees. From the time apples first start forming the ground is littered with little green apples. They aren’t ready to pick until mid-late September so we endure the windfalls, rake them up and haul them by the wheelbarrow load to our compost heap. We picked two pails full yesterday of the ripest ones from two small trees. The third tree, which is 50 feet tall and covered with apples, we will harvest later and the rest can fall off in their own time.