Pecan Grove « Pecan Grove (www.pecan-grove.net)

October 31, 2013

October 2013

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 8:30 pm

All are about their usual at PG this Halloween evening. We’ve enjoyed a wonderful October in many ways.

Jeannette Ford came and stayed at PG for 3 weeks. She adopted to name “Sarge”, and lived up to the name!
6 of the 10 residents were able for Georgetown convention.
Martha Houston came and helped with the residents at GT, then returned with Jeannette to Ohio.
Derald and Nita Steinbrecker came to help out at PG while many of us were away at GT.
Mary Jane’s niece, Dianne Barbour, came and stayed with her while most of us went to GT.
Many other visitors, most heading to or from conventions

Birthdays in October included Naomi (85) and Teresa (93).

Karen Cleveland, a good friend of Jeannette’s and Esther’s, came to visit her uncle Rodger.

When Karen and Jeannette were together years ago… they had an agreement. If they could get along for a month without a squabble they celebrated with chocolate sundaes. So… they celebrated again at PG. Jeannette demonstrated her zipper… but it had a problem… it wasn’t all the way closed!

Mary Jane with Dianne and Patsy and Al Hagen.

Domenic and David passed through on their way to Effie. George and the Batsons visited after GT.

Barry visited after GT, shown here with Jeannette and the residents. Frances McPherson wasn’t present. Also our new sisters, Jennifer and Hannah, visited Jeannette.

Derald and Nita are shown by the camper they set up at PG. Friends and family visited the Valdez’s after GT Spanish. The Milles spent several days at PG and will be with us more in November. Here they’re shown with the Makis.

A lot happened on the farm in October. The saddest thing was the pecan harvest. We did harvest some Pawnee pecans at the end of September. The rest of the crop (4 types of pecans) came ready for harvest just as we were leaving for GT. When we returned they were gone! The crows, blue jays and squirrels had a feast! We had crow cannons (noise makers) going off and squirrel traps set, but that wasn’t sufficient. So we learned a hard lesson… when the harvest is ready it must be given the highest priority! Next year we may need to attend a different convention. The pictures show the empty pecan husks we came back to, a squirrel trap on a tree, Samuel holding 2 of the culprits, and the lake today after 2 days of much needed hard rain. Note that the pier is under water.

pecan husk Squirrel trap Samuel, Squirrel, Crow pier under water

We caught a deer in our hog trap… the hogs are too smart! We started cutting down the old oak along the drive which was dying from the drought. We’re leaving a large section of trunk… hoping to get it carved.

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August 31, 2013

August 2013

Filed under: Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 11:00 am

All are doing reasonably well at PG. We’ve had much to be thankful for in August. Rachel and Jeanette visited and Jack took the following group picture with all the residents. Back row: Roger Cleveland, Mary Jane Pike, Rachel Potter, Jeanette Coker, Betty Lawrence, Jean Hagemeier and Teresa Goff. Front row: Frances McPherson, Bea Jecmenek, Doris Crawford, Naomi Nicholson and Esther Potts.

Kathy and I had the privilege of taking Naomi with us to Milford NH convention. She traveled well and really enjoyed herself. She still glows when she talks about it. The following pictures show her with the workers and riding a golf cart. Craig Dean is driving the cart but I know who is in control! 🙂

Linda Ronhaar took Esther to Yellow Springs OH convention and for a visit with her relatives in OH. Here’s the workers picture with Esther, and Esther with old friends Bill Houston and Duane Hettich at Morrow OH.

Visitors this month included Warren Berger, Shaun and Sandy Schleuter (from Washington state), Sharon and Sara, Emma and Joyce.

Two of our full-time staff, Brisy Valdez and Salena Thorburn are headed back to college this fall. Salena will continue to work one shift on the weekends. We’ve hired two new full-time girls from the local area, Andrea and Jennifer. The picture below shows Andrea and Jennifer with Brisy. The second picture is of Travis, Jamie and Aliyah Bolt. Travis works at PG.

Dad (Jack), Karin and Don Waldo all had birthdays in early August. Both our daughters, Karla (mother of the twins) and Karin are expecting! So if all goes well, by May next year we’ll double the number of grandchildren we have from 2 to 4. The second picture below shows Karin and her husband Patrick Kelleher, with Maren (one of Karla and Brendan’s twins). Karin is the assistant manager at the Sr. residence, and Patrick is starting to work at PG also, so we’ll see a lot more of him. Once Patrick starts, if everyone is there, there will be 5 of us working in the barn for 2 different small businesses – Don Waldo, Jason Munckton, Patrick Kelleher, Travis Bolt and myself. We often head down to the Sr. residence for lunch with the residents.

So far the pecans are doing well. There’s still a drought here, with less than half the rain we should have had to date, but Samuel keeps the irrigation systems going and the little rain we have had sure helps. The Pawnee pecans should be ready for harvest by the end of September, with the other 4 types ready later in October. We’ve had a good cutting of hay off of the hay field for the first time, so the farming activity is increasing.

Speaking of Naomi… at bible study this morning we read 1Th 5:26 Greet all the brethren with an holy kiss. She tossed a Hershey’s at me and grinned like a mule eating huckleberry’s in the winter time! I complained that it didn’t have any holes in it. We need to be careful, Roger doesn’t approve of humor during bible study.

Ken

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July 30, 2013

July 2013

Filed under: Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 6:40 pm

All are doing fairly well at PG as July finishes. The weather has been hot, but we’ve had some rain, so the pecans are doing well and everything is green.

Our daughter, Karla Furrow, comes to PG most Tuesdays with the twins, and teaches an exercise class. Her in-laws, Ron and Anna Furrow, and their granddaughter Aubrey were with Karla for one of these visits in July. Karla found out she was expecting again (only 1 this time), so we had everyone sign a long orange poster. The following pictures show the exercise class, Furrows…

I’ve done fairly well in recent posts… not too many pictures of the twins! I’m making up for it with this post!

Dale, Patty and Josh Maki have visited PG to see Patty’s mom, Frances McPherson. Dale and Josh haven’t been well… Josh is doing much better. Dale started treatments today. Jason Munckton joined us in July. He’s working with us in one of the small oilfield businesses we run from PG. He’s shown below programming with Don Waldo.

Kenny and Salena had purchased fireworks for July 4th, and didn’t have a chance to use them, so last week they did a fireworks show for the residents. We were surprised how many stayed up (or got up 🙂 to watch.

Kathy and I are traveling today with Naomi to Milford NH, for the convention starting tomorrow. We haven’t been to Milford since we lived near there, 1980-1985. Naomi is very excited to be going back. Esther is to go back to Yellow Springs, OH, in a few weeks.

Ken

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October 1, 2012

Pecan Harvest

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Pecan Grove — knewman @ 4:53 pm

This post describes the process we use for harvesting pecans. Our pecan orchard is relatively young. Pecan trees don’t produce many pecans until they are 10+ years old. Our oldest trees are now about 14 years old, but many of our trees are younger and still too small to harvest. Last year we had no harvest at all due to the drought.

We have 5 types of paper shell pecans, most named after Indian nations such as Pawnee, Cheyenne, and Choctaw. We have one variety with the name Desirable. The Pawnee’s are harvested in early September. The rest are harvested in early October. This year the harvest is earlier than usual by a few weeks.

When the pecans are about ready, the crows start coming. In 2009 we lost most of our crop to crows. The solution to that problem is “poppers”, like the one shown below. These devices run off of propane. Every few minutes they fire with a sound that is similar to a shot gun. We run 3 of these poppers in the pecan orchard during the day. One night we forgot to turn them off, and the next day we had a lot of complaints from our neighbors! The first challenge for the harvest is to find a crew willing to work! The second picture below shows part of the crew headed out to the orchard.

We catch the pecans from the tree in tarps that are laid on both sides of the tree. Below you can see the tarps being moved to a tree using 2 4 wheelers, then placed around a tree. The tractor is driven onto the tarps, the shaker clamps onto the tree, and the tree is shook.

The following link is to a video shows a tree being shaken. It’s amazing that neither the tree or the tractor is damaged!

Shaking tree

After several trees, the tarps are emptied into a trailer. When the trailer has a good load it is taken to the cleaner.

For the first harvest we had gleaners who followed after, picking up dropped pecans. We didn’t continue gleaning though… too much work for too few pecans. It makes one glad for gleaners that don’t count the cost!

The cleaner lifts the pecans up and dumps them through some brushes that help remove the husk and then in front of a large fan. The lighter things like leaves, branches and bad pecans are blown out. What’s left comes out on a conveyor for people to sort out the bad from the good. The good pecans go into bags at the end of the conveyor.

The following is a short video of the cleaner in operation. For many of the pecans the husks have not yet come loose, so they are thrown out. You’ll see the green ones being thrown out in the video.

Cleaner in action

The bags of pecans are taken into the air conditioned/dehumidified “pecan room” and dumped on drying tables. After a few weeks of drying, the pecans are ready to be cleaned. The first step in the cleaning process is the cracker, shown below. It uses air hammers to crack the pecan shells.

The cracked pecans are dumped by the cracker into the separator which thrashes them inside a rotating drum to separate the shell from the meat. Then an elevator raises them up and they are dropped through a blower. Since the shell is lighter than the meat, most of the shell blows out into a trash can, and the meet falls to an elevator which raises them again drops them onto the hopper of a shaker table. At this point the process becomes very manpower intensive. You see 6 people below picking out shell and bad pecans as they vibrate past.

Finally, the pecans are run through a sizing vibration table which separates them into 4 sizes. The first, very small pieces, we throw away because they tend to have little bits of shell. The next 2 sizes we call “pieces” and what falls off the end we call “halves”. We bag and freeze the pieces and halves. The second picture below shows the pecans waiting to be cleaned, from the first day of the second harvest, which is currently in progress. We now have more pecans than can fit on the drying tables… so the best harvest we’ve had to date.

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September 1, 2012

August 2012

Filed under: Pecan Grove,Senior Residence — knewman @ 9:03 am

The residents at PG are doing fairly well. Jean had some bad days in July and hasn’t regained her full strength. She’s decided to give up her car. She’s the only resident that has had a car, though she seldom drove it. Frank continues to loose weight gradually. Now he’s 210 lb fully dressed. His confusion and short term memory continue to get worse. When his mind was clearer he insisted on one shower a week (whether he needed it or not 🙂 ). Now he’s not sure what day it is, so he takes a shower every day! In spite of the confusion, he keeps a wonderful spirit, and a sense of humor.

We had lots of visitors in August but didn’t do well at getting pictures. Here are 2 pictures of a visit with Selna and Diane Thorburn and Diane’s sister Doris Kopitke.

Clarice Berry came to visit with her brother and his wife, Carroll and Cindy Smith. The second picture is of Kathleen Stancliff (one of the 4 full-time staff at the residence) on her birthday surrounded by Serenity, Hailee and Dixie-Rose Chandler.

Three birthdays close together in August are Karin (our daughter who works part-time at PG), my dad, Jack, and my sister, Ronda (the manager at PG). Here’s pictures of Karin and Jack.

Here’s a picture of all 3 together at Brent’s house. The second picture is of Esther and Bea visiting on a bench down by the lake. Both are nearly blind, but each evening they walk together down to the lake. Esther insists that this little 7 acre lake is a river :).

The pecan trees are loaded with pecans! Some are so loaded that the limbs are breaking from the weight. The first picture below shows a tree that looks like it has been destroyed by the weight of the pecans. The second is of a doe and fawn in the hay field. These 2 deer are often seen by the residents around the building.

I wrote July’s post from Israel and included 2 pictures from there. After Israel Kathy and I went to Montenegro (to see the McSpadden’s) and then to France for the convention. We lived near Paris from ’90 – ’93, and love to go back about every 2 years. This shows the workers there, and then our good friends Andre and Julia Bilbao and their daughter Ainoha, who live in Shanghai but were at the convention in France. Andre (who’s French) lived with us for one school year here in Texas in ’95.