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

June 2, 2010

Welcome Jean!

Filed under: Senior Residence — knewman @ 4:11 pm

Jean Haggemeire moved into PG on Memorial Day, as our 8th resident. We’re glad to have her with us!

In April I forgot to mention that our good friends, Dominique and Mireille Mille were here in Texas for 5 weeks. They lived in Vietnam for 12 years before moving to New Caledonia in January. NC is a French island in the Pacific ocean near New Zealand and Australia. The following is a picture of them with their son Pierre who lives south of Houston. The second picture is Frank with Andrew Newman who lives in Atlanta Georgia.

We took the residents to a state park not far from PG again for a picnic in May. Unfortunately that will probably be the last picnic for awhile… it’s getting too hot!

Several birthday celebrations in May – Kathy, Jon Nelson (shown with Doris), Mike Rosamond.

Other visitors included the Gartins and Schneiders (Kathy’s sister and family).

We’re adding a small, 3 bedroom, “bunk house” for the staff to sleep in when the residence gets full. It should be completed in a few weeks. The second picture was taken at Kenny’s graduation from high school.

Destiny’s horse Dude needs more exercise. Here Brandon is riding him and then several are feeding him.

Ken

Comments Off

April 30, 2010

Welcome Frank!

Filed under: Senior Residence — knewman @ 10:17 am

Frank Porter joined us from Flordia in early April. The following picture shows Frank and Destiny’s paint horse Dude. Frank is the one on the right! Also Phil Farris (who brought Frank over), Ray and Frank.

Evelyn Williamson spent the month of April with us. We hope she comes back to stay! Here she is with Jean Haggemeire who is coming to stay in June. We’ve had beautiful spring weather for sitting on the porch!

Keith and Gail Ramsden and their boys visited for several days, and I turned a year older.

Lounell’s dad, John visits fairly often, and we have many large meals!

Fishing has been good again this Spring in Lake Conroe. Here’s Bea with a fish she caught, and some of the spring flowers.

Ken

Comments Off

December 29, 2009

Year End – 2009

Filed under: Senior Residence — knewman @ 1:19 pm

It’s hard to believe 2009 is nearly finished. It has been a wonderful year in many ways. We now have six residents shown below in the following order, Doris Crawford, Frances McPherson, Evelyn Kuck,Teresa Goff, Betty Lawrence, Bea Jecmenek.

Our manager, Linda Ronhaar, had ankle surgery, and now rides around in a wheel chair. Her two employees, Lounell and Cindy don’t seem to mind.

We’ve had a cold December, including snow! Very unusual for this area. But we’ve had plenty of warm friendship. We’re glad for lots of visitors… I don’t have pictures of all of them. Too much to eat!

Kathy’s sister, Pat Johnson, who labors in Utah, is here visiting… returning to SLC tomorrow. She helped Kathy a few days at PG, but the only pictures I have of her are at home. Here she is with our little boy Kenny, and then our family picture.

Happy New Year!

Ken

Comments Off

October 28, 2009

October – Lots of Rain

Filed under: Pecan Farming,Senior Residence — knewman @ 4:21 pm

Evelyn Kuck joined the residents at Pecan Grove on October 13th. Carol Wagie and Dorthy Lehman brought her down from Ohio, and stayed a few days. She’s adjusting to the new lifestyle. We’re sure glad to have her with us. The pictures below show Evelyn with Crystal and Carol, and with Doris.

We’ve had a lot of volunteer help this month, allowing the regular staff to get to conventions. We’re sure glad for all the help. Things are just getting back to normal with the staff schedule and we’re looking forward to having the workers return.

The pecan harvest hasn’t gone well. A drought in the summer ruined part of the crop. Then we had hundreds of crows who proved to be a lot smarter than we are. They cleaned out the first type of pecans (called Pawnees) to come in. After that loss we got “poppers” which use propane to make a sound like a shotgun at regular intervals. These seem to have kept the crows away. But the squirrels and deer ignore them. There are some more pecans to be harvested, mainly “Desirables”. We hope to harvest them on Saturday. Even then, we’ll have far less pecans than last year, which was a disaster because of hurricane Ike! Oh well… we didn’t buy the farm for pecans anyway!

The pictures below show a “popper” and some pecans with their husks just coming off, ready for harvest.

These pictures show the pecan orchard and the tractor being used to shake a pecan tree. We have a machine that will pick pecans up off the ground (which would avoid using the tarp) but the orchard is so wet it just gets full of mud.

Finally, for those with a mechanical background, when a shaft key goes missing on a pecan cleaner, persons of a certain neck color can find a solution!

Ken

Comments Off

September 26, 2009

September’s Almost Over

Filed under: Ponds,Senior Residence — knewman @ 5:25 pm

We’ve had some wonderful privileges since the last post. Frances McPherson joined us at Pecan Grove. Her daughter Patty Maki, and her husband Dale, have moved to this area and are buying a home. Joyce and Andrea had a wonderful mission and 5 made their choice here. One was baptized in the lake at PG. We have a new resident coming in October, Evelyn Kuck. She knows most of the residents here already, and they’re excited to hear she’s coming.

It finally started to rain! The pecans are just about ready to harvest but the deer, squirrels and crows are taking a lot. We’re not sure what we’ll have left. The Tilapia have grown to a good size in the lake. Now the challenge is catching them.

The following shows Dale and Patty Maki and Patty’s mom Frances McPherson.

Doris and I with our fish catch

Kathy and I were in Moscow recently and met up with a group of the friends traveling together. Glenn and Shirley Spunagle from Redbud Canyon were with them.

Fishing wasn’t any good this morning but it sure was a beautiful morning. Here’s the Sr Residence seen from across the lake.

We also tried fishing in the small pond. Here’s the small pond with reflections of the trees on the other side. There’s a fishing float somewhere in the small pond picture, but my eyes aren’t good enough to see it!