Pecan Grove (www.pecan-grove.net)

February 28, 2017

February 2017

Filed under: Senior Residence — knewman @ 6:17 pm

February was a busy month. A brief summary for each one:

Residents

Alice – spent most of the month on special meeting rounds. Towards the end she got the flu, but is doing better now.

John – had surgery on his hand, then went for a few special meetings

Ruth – had problems with high blood pressure. Medication changes made her feel a lot better

Marybelle – also had high blood pressure, was to the doctor today

Jean – had a lot of falls. She started using a wheel chair instead of a walker to avoid falling. But the last few days she’s gone back to the walker.

Raymond and Elton had a good month.

Nursing Homes

Clinton – has improved physically and mentally. He’s able to walk a little, and is in good spirits. he knows that Al died, but is confused about most current things.

Naomi – is in much better spirits since they changed her medication. Physically she’s weaker, but is up in a wheelchair every day.

Teresa – is in good spirits but remains in bed almost all the time now and seems weaker.

Roger – had a bad spell this month until they eliminated one medication. He’s weaker, and more deaf.

Doris – was in hospice, but is now in a nursing home near her sister, Sandra, near Birmingham, Alabama.

There were a lot of workers visiting at special meeting time. These pictures show Craig, John and Marsha, then Clarence, Kathy, Sharon, Laura and Ruth, then Tyler, Lavina and Talus, then the group eating, then Diann, Sarah and Jean, and finally Marybelle, Dale, Elton and Hannah.

Other visitors at special meeting time included Irving and Sandra West from VA and Wynesta and Steve Dale from CA. The first picture is of the 2 couples with Kathy, and the second is of Irving and Sandra with Clinton.

For Roger’s 97th birthday, Elton, Lety and Hannah took a cake to Roger. Two of Elton’s childern, David and Cheryl, were here to visit.

Don and Stacey brought John back from special meetings, enroute to their fields in LA. Rachel brought Alice back today.

Kathy’s cousins, Lori Morgan, Monica Bergh and Faith Braaksma, and aunt Jane Jacobsen came for a visit. The first picture is of the cousins and aunt, the second they’re with some of our kids and Kelleher grandkids.

Here are the Furrow grandkids visiting Teresa, then pictures of Naomi and Raymond.-

Albert, Maja and Danny McSpadden came for a visit. Here they’re petting the Nordic’s wolf, Zeus.

Ken

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January 31, 2017

January 2017

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 1:29 pm

Doris Crawford, who had been at PG almost 8 years, left in January. Her sister, Sandra Wilson, came for a visit with Louise Martin, and decided to take Doris back to Alabama with her. Hopefully she’ll be able to get Doris into a nursing home there. Doris’s care needs were really beyond what we should be doing in an assisted living facility, but the staff loved her so much they didn’t want to see her go! Please contact me if you would like Sandra’s address. We now have 7 residents at PG. We heard that Evelyn Wilson (Sandra’s sister-in-law) who was at PG for a year, passed away in Missouri. The first picture is the group saying goodbye to Doris. The second is of Louise and Marybelle with Ty Nordic’s parents, Sharon and Gary.

A kiwi family (kiwi means from New Zealand), Brent, Ellen, Amanda, Brayden and Evan Roberts, came for a visit. They are shown below at the residence and with the Hoffmans and their goats.

While they were here Marybelle had her 91st birthday, so they fixed Pavlova! Ruth’s sister Martha and husband Hubert visited.

William and Mark visited, shown here with John. Noe and Malena visited Samuel and Conchita.

Lyle and Silas stopped by for a brief visit. Jennifer and Sarah visited and took Alice on special meeting rounds.

Alice’s niece Marian and Roger Fryer are staying near here for a month or so, visiting and escaping the Wisconsin winter. Roger is helping Marybelle improve her chess game.

We have 4 in the nursing homes near PG now. Alice is with Teresa below. Teresa has some bad sores on the back of her head and neck, that the doctors think are cancerous. She doesn’t get out of bed anymore, but she’s happy and peaceful. Roger has gone down a lot recently. Naomi is doing much better with a new medication they’re giving her. She’s weak and her memory is poor but she’s up some every day, happy and thankful. Clinton is stronger, but his mind hasn’t improved.

We’re having beautiful warm weather now, after nearly 5 inches of rain and some freezing nights earlier in January. The grass is turning green and the trees are confused. Here’s a picture of the pecan orchard.

Ken

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December 31, 2016

December 2016

Filed under: Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 7:40 pm

Many in the news are talking about what a terrible year 2016 has been. We disagree… 2016 has been a wonderful year in many ways. We’ve enjoyed so many privileges. December was no exception. Marybelle Armstrong arrived at PG from Redbud Canyon on December 1. Here’s a picture of her arriving and then with her good friend Mona who came for a visit. The other 2 pictures are of Mona playing a game with 4 residents, and then petting a wolf with Amy.

Clinton did okay for several weeks, then went downhill quickly. He had 3 falls in 2 days, maybe from a TIA. We took him to the emergency room, he was admitted to the hospital for 8 days, then went to a nursing home in Conroe. Here he’s playing a game of chess with Marybelle. She had a lot of patience! Clinton is somewhat better, but certainly needs to be in a nursing home. Marybelle (and Alice) love to pet Bambi, and all the dogs and cats. Marybelle tried to pet the Hoffman’s Great Pyrenees goat guard dogs through the electric fence, got shocked, jumped and screamed… now she can’t get the (usually very friendly) dogs to come close to her! Too bad we don’t have a picture!

Raymond (91) and Ruth (86) had birthdays in December.

The Spunagle family stopped in briefly on their way to Galveston for a cruise. The second picture is of Glenn and myself. Glenn (who owns Redbud Canyon) was a big help when I was getting PG started.

The Bolts and Nordics visited, as did Chris Burden visiting his aunt Doris.

Tom Davis made a fire pit for us, and delivered it. We’re glad he had time for lunch with some of his old friends.

The Birkhofers came for a visit. The Westerburs came to see John.

Finally… our grandson Dylan Kelleher is wearing a helmet to reshape his head. Sorry, this picture isn’t relevant to the residence, but it was too cute to pass up.

Happy New Year!

Ken

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November 30, 2016

November 2016

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 5:40 pm

Ray brought Clinton Goff from Virginia to be our 8th resident in November. Clinton is in worse condition than our other residents… but is slowly adjusting to PG. Clinton’s cousin, Don Lewis, who lives near here came to visit with Clarence. Don said Clinton has several strikes against him, physical, mental and being a Goff! Takes one to know one. The cousins are visiting on the couch in the picture below.

Tomorrow Marybelle Armstrong is to join us from Redbud Canyon. I’ll include that in the December blog.

Other visitors (that we have pictures of) included Jim Stipp, Delbert and Penny Lewis, Robert and Linda Klepzig, and then Marie and Joyce. Mike Callaway and Dave Larson are here visiting today.

There were about 30 here for Thanksgiving, most shown in the 2 pictures below.

Patrick Kelleher (our son-in-law who works here at PG) had a birthday. His little son Dylan got a helmet to help straighten his misshapen head.

Here’s Naomi and Roger in the nursing home. Naomi seems to be gradually improving… we see her up more, and her attitude is good. Roger is basically completely deaf now… we have to write notes to him, but his spirits are good. Teresa Goff is in bed more, but is in good spirits. She’s aware her brother-in-law Clinton is here, but we haven’t been able to take him in to see her yet.

Kathy and I made our yearly trip to Aberdeen Scotland. A few pictures of our friends there for those who may know them.

Ty has a longhorn cow and a young bull (not related) that will be a longhorn eventually. The bull follows the cow around like it’s scared. Bambi (who is growing horns, so is a he) is now sporting a red collar. Hopefully that will be enough for hunters to notice, now that it’s deer hunting season. He’s free to roam, but stays close.

Ken

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October 31, 2016

October 2016

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Senior Residence — knewman @ 5:10 pm

October has been a busy, wonderful month. The pecan harvest keeps us busy, and the conventions were wonderful. All 7 residents were at Georgetown full-time. John, Alice, and Dad were at Mountain Peak.

One big event was Elton’s 99th birthday. We brought Roger from the nursing home. Elton’s daughters Karen and Cheryl were able to join us by Skype.

Elton’s son, David, came for a visit and took Elton to Georgetown. Sandra Wilson (Doris’s sister) and Carol Bush came for a visit. We only got a picture of Sandra petting Bambi.

Alda and Ann Blakemore came to visit. Ann was a coworker with Doris. Here they are with Ruth and Doris, adn then with John, Dominique and Mimi.

Bobby Sylvia was at Georgetown (below visiting with Doris). He came back to PG with us. Then Glenn Sparks came by and picked him up… they were headed to Effie. Bobby was in our home a lot when when I was a kid.

The Howdens are now living in Willis. Deniese spent a day helping out at PG. Here she’s with Salena and myself. Jim Stipp is here visiting today. He knew Samuel in Monteray when Samuel was a kid.

We’re having a reasonable pecan harvest this year, which is nice after having no harvest last year. Last year the wet spring caused scab, then the crows and squirrels ate all that was left! This year, we had a wet spring again but we sprayed for scab 5 times. We had almost no squirrels or crows. And so we have pecans! For the first time we’ve identified the types of pecans, and are keeping them separate. The Pawnees (red on the map below) came in in late September, followed by the Cheyenes (green), then the Chocataws (orange) and finally the Desirables (yellow). We have about 7 native (N) pecan trees, and have planted a lot of Kiowas (pink), but they aren’t big enough to bear yet. There are 4 trees (blue) that we aren’t sure what they are, but they have huge pecans like the one shown below.

The pecan harvesting involves shaking the tree, picking them up off the ground with the harvester and running them through the cleaner which uses a big air blower to seperate out the leaves, limbs, etc. The pecans come out on a conveyor belt and people have to pick out the stones and bad pecans. Below Amy, Ty, Dad and John are heloing Samuel clean the pecans. John has found a new use for his golf cart! After this the pecans are put on drying racks to dry, then sometimes they have to be run through the cleaner again to blow out the empty pecans.