Cup of Chicory and Sunflowers and a Reservoir…

This morning I was sipping that cup of chicory. While I was enjoying that cup of chicory I was doing some thinking’s. I was thinking about sunflowers and a reservoir that Sveta, Boza and I stumbled upon yesterday…Lets start with the reservoir. In Russia you do not have signs everywhere telling you what is here and what is there as you drive. You either get a premonition or just are plain lucky to find things that are really cool…

We took a trip yesterday to refuel the car with propane and get groceries. On the way back we pulled off the main byway on a farm road. Normally a farm road has about 30 feet of asphalt then becomes dirt. But as we let Boza run and play and Sveta was taking  pictures. I was staring at a asphalt road that disappeared into the distance. It just seemed strange to me that this road was asphalt as far as I could see. Granted it was old and looked like it had been mined with bombs at one time and they all had been set off. But it was definitely a road to something important. I then studied a pothole and saw the tale tale signs of a concrete base under the layer of asphalt. I knew then that this was a Soviet era road covered over. I have discovered that the Soviets were happy to build roads out of prefab concrete slabs that are laid like cobble stone but much much bigger… (Russians still make roads that way sometimes.)

When Sveta and Boza wandered back to the car. That is when I said lets go and see what is at the end of this road. Being a good camper and adventurer Sveta said okay… 🙂 (Boza always wants to go!)

Within a couple of kilometers we saw water. and that water grew into a huge lake in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by huge fields. I knew immediately what it was. It was a man made reservoir to water the fields…

We found a man who was using the waterfall at the outlet as a shower and he told us that it was an old irrigation lake for the fields. It was a beautiful isolated lake that humanity in general has forgotten about. That makes it a perfect place for Sveta, Boza and I. We are going back to swim this week before we leave. The water is warm and inviting…

Now on to sunflowers. This year there are wheat fields but I have to say in our area there is more sunflowers growing. There is kilometers and kilometers of sunflowers everywhere. Wheat definitely took a backseat this year to sunflowers. At least in our area…

Knowing farmers the way I do they planted what they can make money at. What with the games played last year over wheat by the Russian government. I do not blame them. You have to make money to stay alive. I find it interesting that we have an abundance of wheat this year and yet I see hundreds of kilometers of sunflowers instead of wheat. Interesting…

That was what was interesting yesterday and today we have to get back to work. We have 50 more meters of fence to do and we are done this time with fence. We still have about 60 meters left after today, but we will wait until we get different fencing in Moscow. We are going to replace 60 meters with a new fence completely and that will be a new project all together…

Have a nice day…

Kyle and Sveta
Windows to Russia!

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