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

The Winter Freeze post from Feb 17 showed what was happening here due to the freeze.  Several friends jumped in to help replace hot water heaters and fix broken pipes.  Almost everything is repaired now and back to normal.  The Goldners were able to move back to their home.  We sure appreciate the help!  The temperatures are reaching the 70’s and even the low 80’s now.  It’s hard to believe that all happened in the last 2 weeks.

Lois Culver continued down and was admitted to a rehab hospital Tuesday.  When I visited her this afternoon her mind was fairly clear and she had the same sweet spirit, but she doesn’t seem to have improved physically.  Here’s a picture of her taken today.  Also a picture taken with dad today… he continues to do much better than he had been.

Marilynn has some weakness and shortness of breath (not covid), but she was able to get to the meeting today.  The other residents are about their usual.

We had 3 birthdays in February, Patty Maki, Mimi Mille and Pecan Grove!  Bea came to be our first resident 12 years ago today.

Richard and Rosa Smith who knew Ronald and Alice from time in Mexico.  Clarence had several visits with his family, inside and outside.

Kathy and I took a week off last week and relaxed in Mexico.  Dominique and Mimi are taking this week off, visiting friends and family.  Thanks to the vaccinations, we feel safe to travel some, still wearing masks and distancing.

Ken

Several have asked how it’s going here with the snow, ice and cold.  We received 3 to 4 inches of snow while the temperature dropped to 6 deg F (-21 deg C) Monday night.  We’ve been in this area all but 3 years since 1985 and certainly never saw anything like this!  Here’s the residence, ice on the lake by the cabin and our stairs on Tuesday.

The power was off from about 3:00 PM on Monday till 1:00 on Tuesday… 22 hours.  Fortunately we have generators at the residence and at our home, so they remained warm.  But even with the generator, 4 external hot water heaters at the residence froze and busted.  So now, the residents are doing fine, but without hot water.  That doesn’t seem to bother them much… they’ve all lived without hot water before!  3 of the women did go over to Milles for a hot shower today.  We don’t know when we’ll be able to get replacement water heaters.  Almost everything here is closed.  Of course there is no road clearing equipment here, so the roads are treacherous.

The other homes got cold!  Mille’s, Overby’s, Goldner’s and Bass’s.  Milles and Overbys had portable generators for part of the time.  The only damage was to Goldners (the home my parents used to live in).  The water froze, pipes broke and when the water thawed this afternoon water came out of the ceiling.  The Goldners had moved into the residence yesterday… not sure how long before they will be able to go home.  Here’s a picture of Jerry and Betty Goldner in the residence this afternoon.  Also a picture of Overbys peach tree that is in bloom, and our old buggy Monday evening with the first snow.

We’re very fortunate compared to many in this area!  So no complaints.

A different subject, we have a replacement for Vince.  Meet Bella, a silver lab, 10 weeks old.  She’s very popular at the residence, we take her to the morning bible studies.  Soon she’ll be too big to be a lap dog.  Here she is being held by Maven Furrow.  Also a picture of dad… he’s doing better!

Ken

January has been a wonderful month for us at PG.  Many privileges to enjoy, good fellowship, mostly good weather, and no one got sick!  A CVS team came out and vaccinated 27 of us (including all 11 residents) 3 weeks ago, and tomorrow (Feb 1) they’re coming to give the 2nd shot.  3 additional people will be added tomorrow, for a total of 30.  We are hoping we can relax some restrictions soon, once the vaccinations are complete.

The residents are all about about their usual.  Fern fell (slid off the edge of her bed) a few days ago, and has some soreness from that, but is up and around.  Gilbert had a cyst removed from his back, and will have another removed in February.  He never mentions any pain.  Marilynn had a scan that was clear.  She will have 6 weekly treatments for bladder cancer starting this week, but it isn’t chemo, and hopefully won’t be difficult or painful.

Important news first!  Esther made Pavlova for us today.  She says at home in Ireland they had it most every Sunday!  We have a volunteer outdoor cat which sure makes Alice happy.  I asked for a picture and they brought it indoors for the picture!  Elton (103) gets his 1st vaccine shot.

Kenny and Salena put on a fireworks show down by the lake at New Years.  We roasted marshmallows, drank hot chocolate, had an outdoor fire and enjoyed the show.  Several, including Fern in the picture below, shot Roman candles.

Three residents had birthdays in January, Marybelle (95) (though she’s certain she’s 94), Della (88) and Gilbert (97).

We haven’t had a lot of visitors in January because of covid restrictions.  Lyle (shown with Katelyn and Dylan Kelleher) did come for a few days with Brian Jagielski and Rich Raschke who are new to this field.  Tony and Becky Gary (KY) and their daughter Allison Potter had a porch visit with Esther and Lois.  Clarence’s family came for a porch visit, but we didn’t get a picture.

Della’s family came for a visit at our place (Esther visited them also), Mille’s family visited at their place (Esther and Marilynn are with them in this picture), and Shawn’s 2 daughters, Hailey and Eden visited Shawn and Anita at our place.

Our weather varies a lot in the winter.  We’ve had a little snow (very little), several frosts, and a storm that took down part of a tree by our gate.  On Jan 16th the grandchildren swam in our pool short periods, between long periods in the hot tub.

But many days have been warm and sunny, confusing the plants.  Here’s blooms on our lemon tree.  One frosty morning Kathy took this picture of wild hogs from our bedroom window! (I was scrambling to find a gun!).  Usually we only see the hogs (as many as 12) in the game camera pictures (you can see the game camera and a green light box on the left side of the middle tree in the middle picture).

Last Friday morning a game camera alerted me at 2:30 AM and I was able to shoot a 60 lb hog.  I put it in the back of the orchard near the woods, with a game camera watching it.  I hoped to get some pictures of coyotes (which are plentiful here).  What a surprise the next morning!  Dominique says they see these 2 eagles all the time… I hadn’t seen them.  The camera takes lots of pictures… I never realized how much an eagle would use it’s wings while eating to help pull the skin off the pig.

Then, just today, I got pictures of 3 more birds types!  I asked Dawn Overby to help identify them.  She thinks the first may be a juvenile bald eagle, the second a red tailed hawk and the third picture shows 6 turkey vultures.

Ken

Many would feel that the best thing about 2020 is that it’s over!  We really don’t feel that way… it’s been a wonderful year in some ways, but difficult in others.  So far we’re virus free, and are hoping for the vaccine.  Marilynn had some complications after the minor surgery last month which delayed her return till December 17th.  We’re glad she’s back and doing well.  All the other residents are doing well.  Gilbert’s cyst on his back is much better. Lois’s eye problem is somewhat improved after a shot in the eye.  She’s to have 5 more shots.  We have more walkers than we’ve had before.  Esther, Marilynn, Della and Gilbert are all faithful to walk every day the weather permits.  Alice walks with her walker, sometimes outdoors and sometimes indoors.

Maria Hawkins brought Marilynn back (first picture).  Both Ronald and Lois turned 93 in December.  Ronald’s cake says “A reader lives 1,000 lives before he dies.”

Dad continues to go down.  He has TIAs often, sometimes several a day.  Between them he recovers and does better for a while.  We are limited in our visits, but glad we are able to see him sometimes.  Here’s a picture of Karin, Dylan and Katelyn with him, then Kenny and Salena.  Karla and her children were there on a cold day and dad was unable to stay on the porch.

My sister Ronda and husband Mike Rosamond came to visit Dad.  Here they are at a bible study, around a fire pit with Wayne and Dawn Overby.

We had a dozen Maryland crabs while they were here.  If you’ve never had them you don’t know what you’re missing!  Mike returned to Arkansas and later Destiny came and picked up Ronda to take her home.  Both Ronda and Destiny worked at PG some years ago.

Steve Peirson came to visit Fern again.  Kathy’s sister, Pat Johnson, visited us from her Iowa field.  For Christmas dinner Esther cooked lamb!  It was wonderful.  We decided to forgo distancing for the dinner like we did for Thanksgiving.

A few other pictures…

Happy New Year!  Thanks for your care for us here.

Ken

As November ends we are having to “lock down” again at PG because of the virus surge, including a “no visitors” policy.  We’ve been so fortunate that no one has been infected yet.  But we feel we need to be even more careful with this surge.

All are doing as well as can be expected.  Marilynn did have some minor surgery last week in Arlington, which went well.  We hope she’ll be back this week.  Gilbert has an infected cyst on his back which the Overbys and Dominique are looking after… currently redressing twice a day.  It has improved a lot, but still has a ways to go before the cyst can actually be removed.

Marilynn Frye was Rachel Potter’s first co-worker.  Soon after Marilynn arrived they had a gospel meeting together here at PG.  Tanner Shomin, Jerome Frandle and Marjorie Lehman brought Esther Duncan (85) to be our 33rd resident since we opened PG… our 11th current resident.  (For the list of residents see the upper right corner of this blog).  Esther came to the US from Ireland when she was in her twenties, and a year later (1962) she started in the work in Florida.  Now in addition to Canadian, Arkansas, French and Spanish accents, we’ve added an Irish accent!  None of our residents are from Texas!  In fact, only 2 of the 33 residents we’ve had were from Texas (Bea and Betty)!

Current residents:  Gilbert Reese, Clarence Rochelle, Elton Cleveland, Ronald Elliott, Alice Oetken

Della Bolt, Marilynn Frye, Fern Duncan, Esther Duncan, Lois Culver and Marybelle Armstrong

We did have a few other visitors in November.  We were glad when Robert Eberhardt and Don Barber came for a brief visit.  Clarence’s children came often for porch visits.  Otherwise, it’s been fairly quiet… and safe!  Here’s a picture of Robert and Don with those who were present.  Marilynn had her 77th birthday.

For thanksgiving, we had only the 11 residents and 8 staff, so decided to forgo social distancing for one meal.  It was wonderful to all sit at a table and actually pass food around!  That probably won’t happen again for a while.

Someone requested a picture of Gilbert.  I stepped into his room and snapped one… it turned out good so I’ll include it.  Because of Covid, we’re serving breakfast to the residents in their rooms.  The next picture is of dad (Jack) at his assisted living center in Conroe with Katelyn and Dylan (Karin’s kids).

Elton got a hankerin for Cowboy Cookies.  Cheryl gave Kathy the receipt and she made him some.  David was here for a visit with his dad.

There is a Chinese persimmon tree on the farm.  The residence is behind the fountain.  We do get a little fall color!  Beautiful weather to do some work on our roads.

Ken