It’s difficult to know what to say! We’ve had many wonderful visits since opening the Pecan Grove senior residence at the end of February. Crystal Lewsader arrived March 16th, and is doing well. 6 pages of the guest book are full of names already. Sunday morning meeting was in the residence this morning. Here are a few pictures. We enjoy having visitors… please come!
Ken
Finally, we moved into the Senior Residence Saturday February 28th! Bea Jecmenek is our first full time resident. Ed and Leah Bolt are also here for the month of March. 30 to 40 of the friends came and helped with the move in. Here are the pictures from the move in Saturday and a pot luck Sunday evening. Place your mouse over a picture to see the title. Click on it to enlarge it.
There’s still plenty of work going on outside with landscaping, building bridges and decks, installing a fountain, etc. We need rain now to fill the lake since it has been reworked!
We’ve had visitors every day so far, and hope that continues! Please come and see us!
Ken
The builders finally notified us they weren’t going to have the building ready by January 31, as they had promised at the beginning of December. That was becoming obvious as we watched the progress. Now they’re saying it will be the last week in February. A lot of things are happening and it’s easier to see what the end product will look like. The following pictures show some of the interior work.
The stonework at the driveway entry is now complete. The sewage system passed inspection on Friday and has been covered in since this picture was taken.
The lakeside porch roof had some “issues” and is being fixed. This picture of the fishing pier out into the drained lake is a week or so old. The pier is now complete, with a set of stairs going down into the lake at a special sandy swimming area.
Three bridges are being built around the lake so a walking track can be built. The track will be about 1/2 mile long. This is the foundation of one of the 2 small bridges. The third 90 ft long bridge should be started this week. Dredging of the lake and rebuilding of the dam is now complete. The drain pipe that was keeping the lake drained has been plugged. So now the lake can fill again. We’ll need some serious rain to fill it up.
We can always find work to do. Mike has been pruning the pecan trees. It takes a lot of time to prune over 900 trees! He’s less than half way done so far. We bought a shredder, and yesterday a group of use shredded pecan branches into mulch. We could probably sell more mulch than we did pecans, but Kathy’s planning on using it for gardening.
Ken
The Pecan Grove sign at the entrance from the road has been installed. It isn’t complete yet… but here it is without the stone pillars on the sides. It’s somewhat hard to see the words Pecan Grove around the Texas star due to the trees in the background. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, the words are easier to see.
The senior residence is progressing. Now they are spraying on texture and starting to paint the interior. The following pictures show the texture spraying, and both the street side with the eagle on top of the cupola and the solar panels for hot water. There is still a lot of dirt, but the cement curbs are in place that define where the driveway will be. The sewage system is currently being installed (not shown).
Dredging of the lake is complete, but the piping that will be used to control the level of the water in the lake hasn’t been installed yet. Once it is installed, the pipe through the dam will be plugged and the lake will be allowed to fill. Fishing is still good in the lake that is left! One of the pictures below shows the senior residence from the lake side. Another picture shows the small “spring house” being built down next to the lake with the pallets of stone around it that will be used on the walls. This spring house will house the electric irrigation pumps which water the pecan orchard, and the control system for the fountain in the middle of the lake. A large propane tank and generator are in place. This will allow us to be self sufficient in case of another hurricane like Ike! The propane is also used for heat, cooking, clothes drying and additional hot water (if the solar hot water is not sufficient) in the residence.
It’s winter now on the farm. The following 2 pictures were taken of the same bird house, one yesterday (when it was 80 deg) in the “winter”, the other back in the spring. Today the temperature dropped to the 50’s… a lot cooler.
Terry and Kim Hoffman invited a bunch of folks for a pot luck yesterday evening at the farm. These pictures were taken at that time. It’s been awhile since pictures of the barn and farm house (where the Hoffman family lives) have appeared in this blog.
Dad and Mom moved to the house beside the farm a few weeks ago. In a previous post there were pictures of their house before they moved in . Here are a few pictures in the house yesterday.
Ken
Progress on the residence continues. The contractor still claims it will be complete January 31, and that seems realistic. The first resident says she’ll be moving in February 7th. Here are some photos taken yesterday, showing the nearly completed outside and the sheetrock in the building.
Work on dredging the lake has progressed. Fortunately the weather has been fairly dry, allowing this work to be done. The first 3 photos below were taken from the same place standing on the dam looking over the drained lake, left to right, showing Dad and Mom’s new place, the residence and then the pecan orchard. The last shows the back side of the dam which was covered with trees. It will filled in so it has a 4 to 1 slope, allowing it to be mowed.
Jack Nelson began working at the pecan grove a few months ago. The following shows Jack with his wife May. Vincent Occhipinti happened to be visiting at the same time.
Just to keep up the red neck tradition… here’s Ronda’s dog Alex showing how he rides in her car, in front of Jack Nelson’s 5th wheel trailer.
Ken
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