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

April is always a beautiful month here  in Texas. This year has been no exception! Here are some photos of the early morning sunrise here at PG.

The residents have been adding to the beauty also by growing a garden! Kenny and Ken made an elevated garden for those who are interested, and the reception has been great! Here is the transition of the garden to how it is now.

Happy gardeners! This has really been a group effort, with Elsie, Esther, Marie, Marilynn, and Della all taking part to give these herbs a happy home.

All of the residents are doing well this month, you will notice that Marilynn is pictured standing without her walker. We are glad she has made a full recovery! Gilbert is doing well also, he has been getting out to meetings regularly with the help of Gary and Susan Peter. Here he is posing with Clarence Mounce, Gary, and Ken at the Opel’s on Sunday!

Jack Newman has been having his good days and bad days. Here are a few pictures with him and the grandkids, as well as when Della and Salena went for a visit. The far right picture is of him with his hospice nurse recovering from one of his seizures.

April has many birthdays, and several of them are staff members! Kenny turned 30 on the 7th, while Shawn turned 48 on the 22nd. Here they are enjoying their cakes!

Alice turned 93 on the 24th! We had several visitors to commemorate the occasion, not to mention her family came into town a few days later and we celebrated all over again! Here she is on her birthday with a long table of well wishers!

Here she is again while her family came to visit. Second, is a group photo with all of our visitors: Lyle and Barbara Davies, she is Alice’s niece (on left), and Chris and Joellen Hertz (right).

We had several surprise visits as well. On the left is Della with her nephew and his wife Charles and Angela Strong; the middle is Salena’s family that came to visit after a cruise: Les, Janice, Doris, and Diane. We had a few workers stop in and say hello: Stacey Seidlitz, Thelma Galbraith, Richard Gasser, and Joanna Bishop.

Below is a photo of two close friends of Marilynn’s who came for a visit and the bible study on Wednesday: Cindy Muller and Iris Schraw.

Lastly, Kenny and Salena have been dog sitting while Ken and Kathy are away; and Bella has not always been a good dog! She ran off on the second night of them being away, and was not returned until the next day; after many hours of searching and worry! We are glad to have her back. Here she is not knowing how much of a fright she caused!

Thank you all for your interest and love for Pecan Grove, we appreciate it so much.

Kenny

As many of you may know, Lois Culver passed away this month. She suffered a head injury a few weeks ago from a bad fall, which was the beginning of the end. She was very dear to all of us and we will miss her, but we are glad she is finally at rest. Here’s a picture of her on valentines day.

If you’ll recall, Marilynn had a fall last month and fractured her kneecap.  She is quite the trooper and has been doing her physical therapy along with a lot of walking to get back to her old self. Here she is riding high on the walker!

We had a few special birthdays this month. Salena turned 29 in the beginning of the month! Here she is with a scrumptious crepe cake made for her by Abigail.

Also, Esther Duncan turned 88 this month. Here she is with her shamrock cake. We just have to love the Irish! On the right is her new walking get up. She looks like Iron Man now!

She likes to celebrate her heritage; here she is with her Saint Patrick’s day spirited socks! On the right is Elton getting in on the action by showing off his favorite green towel.

We had many special visitors this month. Fern had a nice visit with Lynden and Nadine Laird along with his brother Earl. Here they are with Fern in her room.

Gerry and Margaret Gunderson came to see their life long friend, Elton. He even got them to pose for a few pictures! Here they are lounging in his room, and laughing in the kitchen.

Marie’s niece came to visit with her husband and daughter Melissa, Shay, and Lacey Bassett. Everyone always enjoys it when family comes to town!

Ronald had several friends visit at different times. On the left is the Skilbred family: Scott, Marylynn, Braydon, Kyle, Connor, and Devon. He also enjoyed another visit from Jeff and Patricia Oliver, shown right.

We are over joyed to permanently welcome Louis and Elsie Schroeder to Pecan Grove! Here they are with their daughter, Carol Aarestad, and her two daughters, Sarah and Amelia. This is one of the few times someone needed a U-Haul to move here!  Here’s their grand-daughter Candice Sandon with her daughter, Brynna.  Their son Don and Becky have been here twice but we don’t have a picture.

As always, thank you for your interest in us here at Pecan Grove.

Kenny and Ken

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