Adios, Surazh.

                We are on our third farm here in Russia. We moved right before our vacation from our farm by Surazh to a farm near the town of Klitnya. We got there on Friday and left for our vacation on Tuesday. It was barely enough time to get everything clean and get some laundry done. We got back to the Farm on Friday and found out on Sunday that we were moving to a farm in the Trubchevsk district. The next day. So, we were on our new new farm on Monday.

                I was excited when we moved to the farm near Klitnya because we were going to be closer to other Americans and I liked the layout of the house better. There were a couple funky things about that house but it wasn’t too bad. There weren’t any forks or pans but there were 7 spoons. The windows didn’t have screens but there was a decorative butter dish and a floral dessert plate set. The floors were really cool and looked like they were made out of a distressed wood but even after two moppings AJ still had dirty knees and hands from crawling. And then there was a funky smell that came out of the pipes. I would have been able to deal with it, but I’m really glad I didn’t have to.

                Since our truck was broken down our friends Matt and Cari came to help us move. Luckily they have a trailer so we were able to throw everything in the back and hit the road. It was not one of my best packing jobs, but pretty much everything made it, except the eggs. It was a good thing Matt was driving because the roads were really bumpy and I kept on thinking, “I wonder why we aren’t going faster?” only to realize that it was to keep all of our possessions in one piece.

                Our new neighbors met us at the new place with dinner and a couple beers. That night AJ slept through the whole night. It was a wonderful treat and kind of a teaser really because she is still recovering from jet lag and has yet to repeat that. So, we have been in this house about a week, and as I am still recovering from AJ’s jet lag too, I have yet to get really settled in.  I like this house, it kind of has a vacation cabin feel to it and I’m really pleased with it.

                This house has spoons and dishes and one thing neither of the other houses had: a dog. Her name is Puddy Anne and she likes to bark. A lot.  The funny thing is though is she really only barks at the Russians. I think she might be having an identity crisis and I tried to explain to her that she was Russian and barking at other Russians was just rude, but my logic failed to convince her so she does her doggy duty and protects the house from Russians. Unfortunately, the entrance to the farm is beyond our house so there are lots and lots of Russians for her to protect us from during the day.  The last couple days there have been workers cutting weeds along the driveway and she has been following them and barking. They are very nonchalant about it and ignore her. I don’t think it has affected her self-confidence, she still lets them know they are not welcome. Pretty rude.

                The other awesome thing about this house is that it came with a planted flower bed, and luckily it has been raining a lot so it is going to be very hard for me to kill them! I bought a started lily plant from a lady on the side of the road on Friday, but since it has been raining pretty hard every day since I bought it I have yet to get it planted. When I told Dave I bought it he said, “Oh, good. That is exactly what I was hoping for.” Given my track record with flowers I think he was joking.

                The Russian farm manager lives next door and he is a pretty friendly fellow. After Dave’s first day at work he stopped by in the evening with a little vodka. He speaks a few words of English and Dave and I know a few words in Russian so we were able to cover the really important topics like the sounds animals make in Russian and in English. Sheep baa wherever they are, but chickens say something really weird. A couple nights later the farm mechanic came over with the manager and brought a gigantic jar of raw honey with strict instructions that we should give lots of it to the baby to make her grow strong. We were also supposed to dip raw cucumbers in there and take huge bites of them directly after a big drink of vodka. Not my favorite thing ever, to say the least. Dave went over to the manager’s house for “Choo Choo” vodka. Choo Choo means a little, and Dave might have had choo choo by Russian standards, but it was a little more than choo choo by our standards. He washed it down with pork fat and sauerkraut. I’m really glad that AJ was sleeping, because I got to stay home. Not that I don’t like to try new things, it is just hard to give an excuse why you don’t want that third shot of vodka when there is a huge language barrier keeping you from polite excuses.