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

In July it’s gone from too wet to too hot and dry.  All at Pecan Grove are doing reasonably well.  Ruth had shots in her back for disc problems, which seem to have helped.  Then she was a passenger when a fender bender happened on the farm and her airbag deployed… she’s doing ok from that also.  She had lots of visitors this month, includeing her sister and husband, Martha and Hubert Dawley, George Lee and Cecil Wise.

George went with us, Karin and kids, and Karla and kids to the nursing home to see Naomi, Roger and Teresa.  All 3 love to see kids!  Naomi was up and dressed… first time I’ve seen her like that since she went into the nursing home!  Roger loves to tell us we all need to be childlike.  The last picture is of George with all 5 kids.  We didn’t get a picture with Teresa… she was in bed but still appreciated the visit.

Elton is having work done on his teeth… almost 99 years old, lives on sugar… lots of energy… amazing guy!  He’s our official photographer, so often isn’t in pictures.  He asked for the following picture with Kathy and the grandkids… to make sure he got included in the blog!  The second picture is of dad (Jack) with his 9th great-grandchild… Dylan Kelleher.

Conchita had a birthday.  Here she is with Samuel, then the 2 of them with Dylan.

Samuel’s cousins and others from Mexico visited Samuel and Conchita, and Raymond.  Sorry, I didn’t spend much time with them and can’t tell you all the names.

Jennifer and Rachel took Alice to Happy for preps and convention.  Carol and Mike Martin and their granddaughter Kayden visited PG. Carol is Alice’s niece… but Alice was at Happy.  That’s the way the timing worked out… glad for their visit.

Dub and Cindy Johnson came to visit Naomi, and stopped at PG for a visit.  Herbie and Paty Barnette came to visit with Justin Anderson… shown here with dad.

Dominique’s cousin from Paris, Cathy, visited.  Here shes with the group at Clarences on Sunday morning, and then with Elisa (Mille) Herd and Elisa’s 3rd son Eli.  Kathy and I are in France now for some vacation and then for the convention at Chaintreauville which starts August 6th.  We hope to see Cathy, possibly at Chaintreauville and later in Paris.  Kathy and I return home August 11th.

After we left for France, Gerry and Margaret Gunderson visited Elton at PG.  Sorry we missed them!  The second picture is on a tour with dad, Sandy and Samuel.

Dave and Nancy Schmertman came for a visit with Howard and Mary Ann Colson.  They’re in the same North Houston field… but so far away… were glad for the visit.  Bambi still drinks goats milk from a bottle, and makes a mess when she does.  Here Sandy is licking milk off of Bambi.  How old does a fawn have to be to be weaned from goats milk?  The pecan trees are looking good in spite of way too much rain followed by draught!

Ken

Leah Bolt left in March to return home to PA.  We certainly miss her and hope she comes back next winter!  So we’re down to 6 residents.  The first picture below is of David (Leah’s son), Leah and Dominique.  The other pictures below are of the Swensons with Alice and the Hinckleys who brought the Paulsons for a visit.

The Larsons came to visit John. While they were here they celebrated John’s 90th… we weren’t allowed to but they could! The staff made a cake with a fish on it.

Speaking of John and fish, he’d been saving up the fish he caught until he had enough for a fish fry.  One day for lunch he fried them up… we really enjoyed them.  The Vissers came to see John, shown here with Mireille and Dominique.  Calvin and Nedda Pinland also visited John.

Lyle and Barbara Davies came to see Alice (Barbara is Alice’s niece).  They were with us for a special evening at Samuel and Conchita’s, with the Makis and the Milles.

Monte and Gail Townsend visited, and the Jagielskis visited with Rachel, Jennifer and Joyce.

Samuel turned 53.  Elton, Lety and Hannah visited Roger and Teresa in the nursing home.  Naomi is in another nursing home, and is not doing well at all.

Blanca and the Rodriguez family visited Raymond.  Also the Davila family.

We had 7″ of rain which caused some flooding problems.  Samuel and I learned how to graft pecan trees, and the wisteria bloomed.

For those interested, I’ll tell more about the grafting… All of our pecan trees are grafted.. a paper shell pecan grafted onto a native (wild) pecan root.  The native pecans have much better roots than the paper shell… the paper shell have much better fruit.  Every year some trees are damaged for some reason, and are cut off, so only the native root is left.  It quickly sends up branches which would form a native pecan tree.  We cut those branches off (there are 2 from the same root in the picture above), and graft in a short piece of pecan wood which was cut in December and refrigerated till the trees bud in March.  In this case the graft wood came from a Kiowa paper shell pecan tree, so if the grafts take, this tree will be a Kiowa.  The little piece of Kiowa was sharpened with a knife and inserted between the wood and the bark of the native pecan.  It’s critical that the green cambium layers between the bark and the wood, be in contact with each other…. that’s where the life is.  Tape is used to hold the graft together, and a plastic bag is taped over the graft to prevent it from drying out.   In a few weeks, if the graft is successful, the buds on the graft wood will turn green and produce a new branch.  We grafted 2 on most trees just because we expect about a 60% success rate, so hopefully 1 of the 2 will take.  If they both take, one will be cut off at the ground, so there is only 1 tree trunk.

We have the choice of grafting (this is the first time we’ve tried it) or purchasing a new tree (already grafted) from a nursery.  Grafting ourselves has two advantages… it’s cheap… and it takes advantage of roots that are already established.  A grafted tree will grow much more quickly than a new tree, because it doesn’t need to grow new roots.

Ken

November was a wonderful month… with much to be thankful for.  Here’s a picture of our current residents and dad taken yesterday.  In front, Jean, Naomi, Esther, Teresa and Doris.  Behind, Elton, John, Raymond and Jack.

We’re enjoying having John with us.  He’s been doing a lot of fishing.  The large bass below is 19″ long – it broke his pole.  He uses an iPad docking station to hold his bible in the morning studies… so now his bible has a keyboard!  We’re trying to tell him he can’t add to or take away…  Another pecan farmer brought pecans to clean with our equipment – John, Samuel and Jack helped.  Finally John with another (much smaller) bass.

The Newman clan made Thanksgiving dinner for the residents without mom’s help this year.  We brought Roger from the nursing home for lunch.  The second picture is of Elton, Roger, (Katelyn behind) Esther and Naomi.

Here’s the Newmans that were here for thanksgiving, our workers Jennifer and Rachel yesterday, and Elton holding Hannah.

Lots of visitors in November.  Jean’s brother Paul and Lois Opel visited a few times with their kids and grandkids.  This picture is with their son and his family.  We didn’t get a picture of the daughter and her family.  The second picture is of our good friends Wynesta and Steve from California.

Hazel Peterson came to see her first companion, Esther, with her niece and husband from Idaho.  Larry and Barbara Gough visited Naomi from Maine.

Kolita came for a visit, shown here with Raymond.  The McSpaddens came with Marie-Claude (a French lady we met in the late 90’s), and their dog Mikky.  Here they’re with Dominique, Kathy and Samuel and Samuel’s dog Milley.

Here’s a picture of Dominique and Mireille (she goes by Mimi now) with Jean.  Mimi’s mom passed away in France… so multiple trips to France… difficult days for them.  Dominique and Mimi purchased some of the woods behind PG, named it Mille’s Woods, and built a home there.  This summer the dominos fell… they moved from the cabin into their new home, Kathy and I moved into the cabin, and Karin and Patrick sold their home in Conroe and moved into our house on Lake Conroe.  Here are some pictures of the Mille home in Mille’s Woods.

Doris and some dog I don’t recognize… the diaper does look a little large…  anyway it sure made Doris happy.  Plus some fall color… ok, this isn’t New England, but we do get some color.

Sorry, this isn’t related to PG… each November for 21 years now we’ve gone to Aberdeen Scotland for an oilfield conference, and to see our good friends there, especially Alex and Betty Main.  This year we arrived on Saturday and were at their home Sunday morning for the meeting.  Betty had been fighting cancer for a few years…  she was upstairs unable for the meeting… we were glad for a brief visit with her.  Betty passed away Thursday morning, while we were still there.  The first picture shows Betty with Alex last November (2014).  The second is of the meeting Sunday morning, and the third is of Alex, Mary Phimister and Kathy on Friday after Betty died.

Barry told us that young folks have to make the most important decisions in life before they have the wisdom to choose, and old folks have to make the biggest adjustments in life, when adjustments are the hardest to make.  We think of Alex now, adjusting to life without Betty.  She will surely be missed.

Ken

October has been a wonderful month with conventions, and several visitors associated with conventions.  John Culver came home from Mountain Peak with us to become our latest resident at PG (so the Current Residents page has been updated).  Here’s a picture of John with Jack, Elton and Raymond taken today.  Also today, Patty Dale and Josh Maki visited with Samuel’s niece from Mexico, Marisol.  Dale is recovering from chemo.  Sure glad he felt up to a visit. The final picture taken today… we have a new family working with us – Marcos and Lety Valdez, and their daughter Hannah.  Marcos works at the barn with David and Travis Bolt, and Lety works part-time at the senior residence.

Teresa and Naomi had birthdays in October.  Naomi’s nephew Ed Lloyd came for her birthday.

Elton had his 98th birthday.  Karen was able to join us by Skype from Columbia.  Margaret Gunderson came from Connecticut.  We went for a boat ride on Lake Conroe.  Elton is holding our granddaughter Katelyn Kelleher.

Other visitors included Barry, shown with Elton and Roger and then with Loren, George with Esther, LeRoy and his niece Virgie, David with his dad Elton, and Shari with her niece Michelle.

My cousin Gailen and her husband Roy Miles visited from Virginia.  Gailen taught us something…  we were aware of a “pride” of lions or a “gaggle” of geese or a “flock” of sheep, but we hadn’t heard of a “murder” of crows.  This month we found out where that comes from!  We lost our entire pecan crop.  To be fair, much of it was lost earlier in the summer due to  scab from the very wet spring.  But in September we still had some crop left.  Then the crows and squirrels moved in, in large numbers.  The propane device shown is a crow cannon.  They fire loudly about once every 30 seconds, sounding like a shot gun.   We use 4 of these to try to chase off the crows, so the pecan orchard sounds like a war zone.  Even with the cannons and our hunting efforts, they got the rest of the pecans.  The pecan husks shown were emptied by crows.  There are a lot of deer this year also, but they don’t bother the pecans too much.

Ken