Agro 2011 - Location

If I don't do my own blog before I start on the backlog of other people's that need reading, I will be another day without anything posted.

The  Agro 2011 show that Tanya and I attended last week was held in a new exhibition park in Kyiv.  It was just off the Metro so easy to reach by public transport but there were still cars parked everywhere for blocks around.  Kyiv now has three exhibition parks, one older one and two new ones.  The old one, which is quite far from public transportation, is where the show was last time I attended about three years ago.  That exhibition park is rumoured to now belong to the son of President Yanukovich, which is quite possible.

For many years, even in Soviet times, the show was held about 30 km from Kyiv by the village of Alexandrivka near Boryspil.  I attended twice at that location.  Not the best as after heavy rains it was 6" deep in water in many places.  However several years back, the location suddenly had new owners who wanted exorbitant fees for allowing the fair to continue there.

It was moved to Kyiv to the old exhibition grounds.  All the investment that many companies had put into the old location in terms of permanent structures were simply lost. The Kyiv location was better for machinery and worse for cattle.  Cattle numbers dropped considerably at the show. This year it was moved again to this new place - three huge halls plus outdoor space.  Again great for machinery bad for livestock but easy to get to for city dwellers.

With this picture and the one below, you can get an idea of the facility

Click on this to enlarge

Inside one of the halls.  The others were crowded so it was easier to take a panorama picture here.

Agro 2011

Tanya and I are sitting in Friday's just finished supper.  I had a Jack Daniels Sirloin RARE.  It was heaven.
We are in Kyiv for three days to see the Ag Machinery and Livestock show that is held here every early June.  It is 90% farm machinery and 10% livestock or maybe 85:15.  I have pictures which I will blog once we get home (Saturday night our time).  We met with a potential client, and just missed another but will connect next week.  Ran into several old friends.

Today I looked at the machinery and Tanya toured the market stalls set up on the outskirts, for more flowers. Tomorrow we go back so she can buy what she saw, just before we go to the train so the plants suffer less from the heat. She only bought bulbs today.

We are staying in a nicely furnished private flat on Vinograd street (Grapevine). I had actually stayed in that building several years back as it is quite close to the former STEP office and I know the area well.  Tonight we walked down Lipska street to Institutska and then down Institutska to Khreshchatik.  A 45 minute leisurely stroll.  Khreshchatick on a warm summer weekend evening is a wonderful street to stroll along.  All the buskers are out - break dancers, musicians, singers, bag ladies with their dogs and cats.

And of course the micro-skirts, barely there tops and 4" heels are all over the place.  Though I no longer care if I miss seeing any of them.  I have to smile at North American response to them - They look like they are hookers.  No, they look like hookers look like in North America.  Here it is standard dress up to go out wear.  Girl watchers paradise. I have no pictures, sorry boys.

Groaners

My thanks to Walt Dunn for these.  They truly are terrible abuse of the mother tongue.

Back in the 1800's the Tate's Watch Company of Massachusetts wanted to produce other products, and since they already made the cases for watches, they used them to produce compasses. The new  compasses were so bad that people often ended up in Canada or Mexico rather than California . This, of course, is the origin of the expression -- "He who has a Tate's  is lost!"

An Indian chief was feeling very sick, so he summoned the medicine man. After a brief examination, the medicine man took out a long, thin strip of elk rawhide and gave it to the chief, telling him to bite off, chew, and swallow one inch of the  leather every day. After a month, the medicine man returned  to see how the chief was feeling. The chief shrugged and said, "The thong is ended, but the malady lingers on."

Evidence has been found that William Tell and his family were avid bowlers.  Unfortunately, all the Swiss league records were destroyed in a fire, ...and so we'll never know for whom the Tells bowled.

King Ozymandias of Assyria was running low on cash after years of war with the Hittites. His last great possession was the Star of the Euphrates, the most valuable diamond in the ancient world. Desperate, he went to Croesus, the pawnbroker, to ask for a loan. Croesus said, "I'll give you 100,000 dinars for it." "But I paid a million dinars for it," the King protested. "Don't you know who I am? I am the king!" Croesus replied, "When you wish to pawn a Star, makes no difference who you are."

A skeptical anthropologist was cataloguing South American folk remedies with the assistance of a tribal elder who indicated that the leaves of a particular fern were a sure cure for any case of constipation. When the anthropologist expressed his doubts, the elder looked him in the eye and said, "Let me tell you, with fronds like these, you don't need enemas."

Flowers

Tanya said I should post this picture for MayB to show her the colours of this flower that she has in her garden.  They are actually floating in a dish of water but look like they are painted on a plate.

Little Albert and the Lion

Stanley Holloway (1890-1982) was a British actor and humorist, a "one-man walking comedy show" who made famous Little Albert Ramsbottom.  He first introduced the monologue in 1932.  I remember listening to it on the radio when I was young and never tired of it.  Today I found it again on YouTube.  Enjoy.



For those of you concerned about Little Albert, rest assured he was coughed up in the very next monologue, just as pa was collecting his life insurance and went on to star in 14 more, including many during the war.  You can find them all on YouTube

The Hard Facts of Life

A big reddish yellow female dog had been hanging around our place for about a week.  I never saw her but Tanya said whenever anyone went outside she would run away through the back garden.  She was sleeping in our yard.  Two days ago, our neighbour from whom we buy milk, Victor, had all his ducks killed and eaten, he assumed by this dog.  He wondered if we had a rifle.

Tanya locked the dog out of the yard.  She dug out the hard path under the gate until she could squeeze herself back into the yard.  Last night, Tanya and Roman found the reason.  Nine little puppies in a nest in our garden shed lean-to. Good sized, healthy little black or brown puppies with their eyes still shut.

No wonder Victor's ducks were eaten and one of our neighbour's rabbits this morning.  She was ravenous trying to feed nine puppies.  And they were still little.  There was no way she could scavenge enough to feed them as they grew and they would simply starve, one by one.Roman would have taken them all home.  Lena would have left him if he had. So he moved them to another spot and put them on a blanket while we debated what to do.  We already knew the answer, we just didn't know how. 

The veterinarian in Zhovti Vody does not euthanize unwanted animals.  There was no way I was going to drown them, or put them in a sack and leave them in the brush to die.  I wished I had a .22 rifle.  We talked about trying to find homes for them.  Yeah, right nine homes?  And it is no use waiting until they are older to put them down. We left it for the night.

This morning Tanya went out to check on things and the mother dog had moved the puppies back to the nest in the corner of the garden shed.  Tanya didn't touch them or speak to the dog.  She started phoning people.  She remembered our neighbour Valerie had a rifle and called him.  He said he would come over in about two hours.

When he arrived, he and Tanya went to where the puppies were.  They were gone.  The mother dog must have felt something was wrong and did everything in her power to keep her babies safe. She is a good mother and is doing her best as she sees it.

It doesn't solve the bigger problem - can she feed them?  Will they starve?  Will there just be  more homeless dogs roaming the country?  Dogs and cats are not neutered in Ukraine.  It is considered unnatural.  And since there is no way to dispose of unwanted pets unless you do it yourself, most people just abandon them. 

People always treat and respect animals just slightly worse than they themselves are treated and respected by society.  it is a hard life.  For man and beast.

Home and Garden

The Blogging Muse seems to be still on holidays as he/she/it is no help at all in dropping ideas into my head.  Time to post some pictures, I guess, of Tanya's hard work paying off in beautiful flower beds well on their way to where she wants them to be in a couple of years.
When we got home, the fruit trees were all done blooming and are loaded with cherries and apples.  Our young trees, sour cherry and apricot are doing great and I will have to take some pictures of them come harvest.  The big old apricot tree we cut down because it was interfering with the gas line (above ground in Ukraine) has started regrowing and the branches have fruit this year.

Anyhow, here is the flower garden as of yesterday.

Front flower garden; yellow blaze is solid yellow iris bed

Climatus (sp?) third year

Blooms in the morning, petals fall off by noon, blooms again next morning

Tanya has several colour combinations, all pastels

Looking down from the balcony

Looking down from the balcony

Neighbourhood garden across the road from our house looking South

Neighbourhood garden across the road from us, looking North

Iris bouquet; no flash

Iris bouquet with flash.  This is what they actually look like.