Ūkyje

My last weekend I got to spend on a family farm. The weekend included trimming apple trees, repairing the roof of a greenhouse, and going to the town where my grandpa Jonaitis lived. Before I went though, I snuck in a local basketball game where the hometown was playing in the Baltic tourney.


Dancers with cow mascot




This is what awaited me when I came to the farm... bandukės, but they were not the normal bacon-filled rolls I am used to but were sweet and had either apples or a cheesy type filling.
Local hard honey
This is one of the greenhouses they have where they are starting all their seedlings or other plants. Here you can see onions and something else I cannot remember on the right.
Here's some more tomatoes.
Potatoes, a main staple here.
The wood stove that heated water pipes that ran throughout the greenhouse to keep the place warm at night. Loading the stove at night was another job I helped with.
Some farm equipment
Here you can see most of the farm. The farm with many of its structures was actually purchased a few years back by another company or cooperation of some sort. The farm house is on the right with the red roof.
The cross in front of the old house on the farm where my grandpa's sister lived. The house you see in the background is similar, but is actually the neighbor's house, not the sister's house.
It was pretty muddy
They had chickens and...
these creatures. I already made tacos with them, and it turned out great. Apparently people just die for the meat of these guys.
There's still reserves to last the rest of spring. On the top shelf, there are some jars that look like they have olives. They are actually some berries that grow on a bush on the farm that taste a lot like kiwis. They are in the jar as a juice concentrate.
This is the church where my grandpa grew up. In fact, this is where he was captured along with many others by the Germans on a Sunday while attending mass when the Germans were retreating from Russia.

There were no palms used during mass, just evergreen branchs and pussy willows.

One of the day's excitement included shooting the air rifle, something I had not done in quite some time. We had a competition among us 4 who would do the best. Well my first shot hit the bulls eye and the second was just next to it. I was just happy to know that I had hit the target.
The recent addition to the town, a metal sculpture of a fox that sits along the lake, which unfortunately is very polluted and is said to have a parasitic worm that is only found in 4 or so more lakes in the world.
The golden archer in town. Hopefully I will get this right. The town first came to be during a battle that was occurring in this area. The golden archer shot his arrow and where it landed is the current site of the town.
I am not really a cat person, but I think it is a loose belief that cats have healing powers. Strangely enough, the house cats I have met all like to rest on people, including me. Here it stopped directly over my heart.


Finally the weekend also included seeing some pictures that I have already seen of my grandpa and grandma Jonaitis when they were in the US. Here's my grandpa and grandma. My grandpa has just recently arrived to MI. He weighs only 55kg!