Pecan Grove (www.pecan-grove.net) Pecan Orchard and Senior Residence

October has been an amazing month.  A short summary:

• John Culver’s funeral on October 1  Funeral of John Culver in Willis Texas – Notes
• Elton Cleveland’s 103rd birthday, October 10
• Abigail Hoffman’s birthday, October 13
• PG Special meeting, October 15
• Anita Bass’s birthday, October 25
• Georgetown and Mountain Peak special meetings
• Marilynn Frye came to PG Oct 26th as the 32nd resident (since opening in 2009), 10th current resident
• Pecan harvest

Karen Cleveland and Alicia Weaver came for Elton’s birthday.  All 3 like to take pictures, so we have lots!  Here are several… I won’t try to describe them all!  Sorry, some of these pictures aren’t working right.  Click on the picture if you want to see it correctly.

Birthdays for Abigail Hoffman (22) and Anita (53) (with husband Shawn):

We told Lyle we didn’t think it possible to transport the residents to the 1 day special meeting at Georgetown.   He suggested we have 1 day at PG between Georgetown and Mountain Peak, which we had on October 15th.  The 3rd meeting was tested and Shawn Bass (shown above with his wife Anita) professed.  Again, a group of pictures… the workers that day, the room set up for social distancing, Titus and Domenic, Betty and Jack Poage with Domenic, Alice and Ruth, Tom Davis with Gilbert, Titus helping with crows (the day before).

Marilynn came after Mountain Peak.  Ruth and Emma brought her.  We’re so glad for her influence at the residence.

Other visitors in this difficult time included Jim and Sue Roachell visited his father Clarence, Marlee Freesmann and her mother Mavis Morgan, visiting with Gilbert, and Dan and Bev Oaks with Marilynn, Ronald and Alice.

We farmed less than half of the pecans this year.  At the end, the crows and squirrels got more than we did.  But we have enough to be satisfied.  Here are a few pictures from the outdoor process, Wayne shaking the tree, Dominique picking up the pecans (plus leaves, sticks, stones…) with the harvester, then Wayne, Dawn, Dominique and Kathy using the cleaner to separate pecans from the rest.

The indoor process is long, starting with drying tables.  Once dry the pecans are run through a cracker, separator (which separates shell from meat), air separator (which blows the shell away, similar to winnowing, with Ronald’s cane), and then to the hopper of the vibration table.

After that the process becomes fairly manual, sorting out bad pecans, stones, shell… on the vibration table, then running through the sizing table to separate out small pieces (which are discarded because of small shell bits), larger pieces and “halves”.   Finally the pecans are weighed and put in bags.  Here are pictures of Kathy, Dawn, Wayne, Ronald and Joyce working at the vibration table (the slowest and most labor intensive part of the process), then Dawn and Kathy at the sizing table.

Thanks for your interest in us here!

Ken

Clinton Goff passed away September 4th at the nursing home near here that he’s been in since 2016.  We hadn’t been able to visit him since the end of June due to the virus.  Rachel and Brenda were able to have a brief visit with him a week before he died using Facetime.  Here’s a link to notes from his memorial service which was held in Virginia.

Clintons Memorial Service

John Culver was taken to the hospital September 2nd because of congestive heart failure.  He improved and was moved to a rehab hospital, but then went down quickly with pneumonia, was moved to an hospice wing of another hospital and passed away Sept 25th.  His funeral is tomorrow (October 1) here in Willis.  There will be another funeral and burial in Owensboro, KY on Saturday.  Here is a picture of John in the bible study the day before he went to the hospital (at right across from Fern).  He was very weak but did try to have a part.  Then a picture of him in the rehab hospital with Lois and myself.

Here’s a link to the folder for John’s funeral tomorrow:  Service Folder

Otherwise, all here are doing ok.  Dad fell and was in the hospital for stiches in his head, but seemed clearer afterward!  We’re all getting older!

Karen Cleveland was still here for several days at the beginning of the month, visiting Elton.  On her 50th anniversary of being in the work we had a sing and she told us some of her story.  Here’s a picture from the sing and the workers that were that were there.

Here’s another picture of the workers, Brenda Townsend, Rachel Potter, Ana Laura Olivar, Alice Oetken and Karen Cleveland.  Another picture of the sisters “talking” to each other!

Here’s Clarence with his son Wayne and Mary, visiting and playing dominos outside on the porch.  Marybelle likes to “walk” back to the residence from meeting (it’s downhill).  Dominique helps her.

We’re getting near harvest time and the varmints are sure making a mess.  Crows, squirrels and pigs eat pecans and make a mess.  We’ve managed to get rid of some, but not enough!  Deer aren’t a problem for the pecans, but they eat the bait we use for the hogs.  We don’t try to get rid of the deer… sometimes we have to save them from the hog trap.  Hopefully there will be some pecans left for us.

Ken

In the June post I told of the 1 hour seizure Dad had.  It may not have been clear… since November 2019 he was living at The Wellington in Conroe.  The picture of him in the June blog is through the window at the Wellington, where he was when this seizure happened.  He was hospitalized, and for a while we didn’t think he would pull through.  But he did improve, and with the help of my sister Ronda, was able to come back to Pecan Grove (on hospice) for several days.  Then he had to go back to The Wellington where he is still on hospice.  One of his caregivers at The Wellington is Tinnette, who came to visit him at PG (1st picture).  Most of the family was able to spend some time with him… Karla and her 4 children (2nd picture), Karin, her 2 children, Kenny, Salena, Kathy and myself (3rd).  Mimi gave him a much needed haircut (4th).  He was able to be in a few morning bible studies, at a family dinner, and in 2 meetings.  The 5th is a meal with distancing while Dad and Ronda were at PG.  Then Ronda, Brent, Ann, Kathy and I took him back to The Wellington (6th).  Tinnette and the other caregivers take good care of him there and make sure he can hear the gospel meetings by phone.  Since he’s on hospice, they allow us to visit him once in a while through an open doorway in his room.

The residents at PG are all doing about the same, frustrated by not being able to get out or to have visitors, but glad for the fellowship and meetings we do have.

July was a difficult month for the Milles.  Dominique had a hip replacement, which went very well, but requires time to heal.  Then Mimi’s brother in France was killed in an accident… and they can’t travel.  Then Mimi fell and hurt her back… so she’s healing also.  They’re both improving nicely.

The workers switched around July 1.  Lyle and Dale left this north Houston field and Rachel and Brenda came.  The residents liked Salena’s July 4th costume.

Our 2 fig trees produced a nice crop of figs in July (1st pic).  John doesn’t use his golf cart much anymore, except when the figs are in… he makes sure we don’t get them all!  We’re working with about half the pecan trees this year as a hobby.  The high humidity we have here causes a fungus called scab.  The scab on the leaves doesn’t really hurt anything, but the scab on the pecan husks keeps them from fully developing.  The 2nd picture shows pecans with scab and the 3rd picture shows some without scab.  We’ve sprayed fungicide 5 times already and will need to spray a few more times before the September/October harvest, and hopefully we’ll have some good pecans.

Ken