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

April was a beautiful month at PG.  All of the residents are doing well.  Barbara got new hearing aids, and now thinks PG is a noisy place!  She had become discouraged, thinking she would have to accept being deaf and blind.  Now she hears everything!  Unfortunately there isn’t any help available for her vision.  Bea struggles with a bad tooth that, so far, the dentists can’t fix and refuse to pull.  Jean has been released from the very strict diet she was on… now can eat anything, and she is sure enjoying food!

Fe Gatan, Louise Martin, Lynn & Vernell LaPrarie came to visit.  Fe and Louise had been companions with Barbara, Doris and Evelyn, so all were glad for the visit.

Linda Ronhaar came for a visit.  She was the manager at PG for the first 2 years… retired in January 2011.  We were really glad for her visit.  Here she is down by the lake with Doris, and then on a 4 wheeler with Brandon.

Wayne and Dawn Overby came one day and washed the windows in the residence!  They visit sometimes and play games with the residents.

Other visitors included Jacob and Deland Bragg pictured with Evelyn below, and Don (my cousin’s son), Jenny and Ava Waldo with David Lund (Jenny’s dad).  Don and Jenny are moving here from Oregon.

Geoff Murray visited from New Zealand.  He and his family lived here for 3 years in the late 90’s.  Also Dominique and Mireille Mille who currently live in New Calidonia which is a set of French islands north of New Zealand.  Dominique and Mireille now have 4 grandchildren in Texas, so we hope to see them more often!

Other visitors included Ruth Gooding (with mom and Ronda), and Shirley Waters and her big son (with Bea).

The wild flowers were amazing this spring.  We’ve had good rain so far this year, unlike last year, so maybe the draught from last year caused them to be special this year?

My birthday was one of many beautiful days in April.  I decided to take some time off and take Doris fishing (she loves to fish).  So I called Cindy at the residence and asked to her tell Doris, so she would be ready when I arrived (she often isn’t dressed till noon).  When I arrived… there were 5 residents waiting to go fishing!  They can’t fish for bass because of the effort and strength required, so small perch it was. I recruited Brandon and Mike.  We baited hooks and used bobbers.  They caught perch much faster than we could take them off the hook and put on fresh bait.  While waiting on us to remove fish and bait hooks, they kidded me about spending my birthday helping old ladies fish!  It was a hoot!

Here’s my birthday picture, with Karin, Kathy and Karla.  Karla is expecting identical twin girls in May, so Kathy and I will be grandparents!  Corey Stephens, who works part time at PG, had a birthday in April also.

We do have bass in the lakes, as Mike shows below.  From his grimace, you’d think it was a big bass, like the ones we catch in Lake Conroe!

The pecan trees are sure looking good this year.  We have nearly 1,000 pecan trees, and didn’t get 1 good pecan last year due to the draught.  Hopefully this year will be better.  The second picture is the small pond beside the cabin reflecting the trees on the other side.

For some reason we’ve seen a bunch of snakes recently.  A chicken snake strangled (first picture) and then ate (second picture) a squirrel in Mike and Ronda’s yard at PG.  Mike killed it and held it up to show its length.

A cotton mouth was swimming in one of the streams, and a coral snake swam across the pond at the cabin.  A coral snake (venemous) looks a lot like a scarlet king snake (non-venemous).  There’s a saying to help tell the difference: “Red on black…friend of Jack…Red on yellow, kill a fellow.”  As the picture shows, this one is red on yellow… so it is a coral snake.  Fortunately, they are easily frightened and so are seldom seen.

Ken