Winton VFW Aux

Today was the Winton VFW Auxiliary's annual brunch. The men serve the champagne and the food. Here is a picture of Judge Brown at our table, serving Joan. Mary on the right.

Many of the women were eligible for service pins. My sister Carolyn as one of the charter members, got her 45 year pin today.

We all bought raffle tickets. Here Carolyn won a four-pack of Bartel and Jaymes wine. She later traded it with her neighbor, Joan for a small tool set. Just perfect for the lady-of-the-house.
The brunch was nice and I got to have some peach champagne.

Lunch at Jack's House

Yesterday Carole D. and I had lunch at Jack's house. Here is a picture of him slaving over the kitchen stove, cooking spaghetti for us.

Charley hasn't fixed the brakes on his pickup yet, so he arrived for lunch on his tractor. Actually he can go pretty fast on it. Good thing. I think it's about 4 miles between his house and Jack's.
Charley is researching a story for the Winton Historical Society's newsletter, so I was anxious to hear about that.
I don't think I'm going to get it anytime soon.
I need to get stories/articles from people by March 15 for the newsletter. I have a couple of very small coupons that will expire by the end of March.
Next Thursday, February 28, the Thursday morning Bible Study group at the Atwater Methodist Church will begin studying Adam Hamilton's new book, "The Way" Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus. We will have the video to go along with the book, so it's going to be very interesting. Adam Hamilton had the video made on one of his trips to the Holy Land.

Annual Winter Tea

Today was the Methodist Women's annual Winter Tea at the Atwater Church.
This year all the ladies brought snacks, the women who hosted a table had much more to do, decorate their table, bring their fancy dishes, brew the tea, etc, etc.
We had the Filipino dancers for entertainment this year. In the picture above, the two kids are doing the Tinikling dance, also called the bamboo stick dance. It's very popular in the Philippines.
Click here to see the 24 pictures at flickr. It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

Time To Prune

Here is one of my fruit trees that John Esau pruned for me last Saturday. This is Fantasia, a delicious yellow-fleshed Nectarine. If we don't have a hail storm like last year, I should get a decent crop this summer of all the fruits.
Still need to fertilize them, hopefully, Monday.
Still have the rose bushes to prune. Usually I do that in January, but I had a cold, so the roses had to wait.
I bought one more rose bush in Merced the other day. I can't believe I'm buying such old varities. "Montezuma" is at least 50 years old. My mother-in-law had that one in Le Grand. It was always a good one though. Guess I forgot to mention I bought a new rose in Turlock, "Drop Dead Red" the picture is very pretty.
So, that's all the room I have for roses. I never found the 4 varities of roses that I was looking for. Those were 4 of my favorites that I had in Merced. I should have taken cuttings of them the winter before "the move." I didn't plan that far ahead. Thought seriously about it in June and the house sold the next day.

Pruned two of the Butterfly Bushes today. It filled up the large green garbage can and most of the other can. I don't know how long I can keep the green can; the park only has a few of them and we have to share. Not many of us have a lot of pruning that we do ourselves. So we seem to get by with the few cans that we have.
Tomorrow afternoon is the Methodist women's annual Winter Tea. I had good intentions to bake the "Three Part Cookie" but decided that was too ambitious. Went to Save Mart and bought some Pepperidge Farm cookies. I hope someone besides me likes them. I hope I'm not the only one that brings something store-bought.

Our Thursday morning Bible Study group is going to read "The Way" by Adam Hamilton. We're almost through with our other book, "Growing Older and Wiser." I think "The Way" will be very interesting. It was written to read during Lent. I guess you don't have to read it then. But it's very appropriate to read before Easter. Following in the Footsteps of Jesus. Six chapters, 6 weeks to Easter.
Our little Thursday morning group is also a social group, so it may take us a little longer.
btw: All Adam Hamilton's books/materials are 40% off, plus free shipping until February 15 from Cokesbury. See the January 19 post for the link to Cokesbury. Don't forget to type in the Code AD13 to get the free shipping.

Fruit Trees are Pruned

Here's my Maggie, going to take a little nap. She is more spoiled than ever.
Today my favorite orchard man came over and pruned my fruit trees. They didn't need a lot of pruning, just kind of shaping them up. I was glad to hear that it's o.k. to plant flowers around the trees. I thought they would use too much of the fertilizer.
So, now I am excited about pruning the roses and deciding what I'm going to plant in the yard. I can't tell yet what will survive the low temperatures we had this winter.
I bought a new container of Round-Up the other day. This one is "extended" Round-Up. The saleman said it would kill the seeds as well as the weeds. I'll have to be careful where I use it. Definitely around the roses. I'm not going to plant anything else around the roses this year so I can get rid of the weeds!!!
Finally finished the January/February newsletter for the Winton Historical Society. They will go out Tuesday. Some of the members will meet late morning to fold them for mailing. Now it's time to start thinking about the next one. I hate to panic at the last minute. I'm hoping the people who said they are going to write a story will come through with it. If everyone sends in their story, it should almost fill the next issue.
Wouldn't that be wonderful. . . .