Last Day of 2012

My grandson Tom was 20 years old on December 28. Hard to believe he is that old already!! He came down with his parents and they took me with them to Nagame's in Merced to celebrate his birthday. It was Tom's choice of where to go for dinner. His favorite restaurant is also mine. I enjoyed the visit and the dinner.

On Sunday, December 23rd, Kathryn and Jack invited family to a potluck at Castle Vista's clubhouse. It was their annual Christmas potluck for the Richards family. It's always good to see everyone. See more pictures of that day here.

Ernie and Diane invited Aunt Ernestine and I to dinner on Friday the 14th. The above gingerbread house was the centerpiece. Every year they make a gingerbread house from scratch and each time it's different. I took several pictures of it from front to back. You can see them by clicking on the link for the potluck pictures.
On Christmas Day, my sister's granddaughter invited me to join them for dinner. I wanted to take some pictures, but my little camera didn't cooperate for some reason. Too bad. I wanted to get a picture of little Richy with his new guitar. He just turned six years old earlier this month. He is quite a gentleman and a wonderful host at his tender age. My sister and I were quite amused and very surprised at how grown-up he is.
It's been a busy fun Christmas Season.
I hope everyone has a good year ahead of them.

Poinsettia Farm in Hughson

Today Frances took Ernestine, Helen and I to the Poinsettia Farm in Hughson. The plants were so beautiful. I still prefer the red ones, but they had a few other colors left. Originally they had 60,000 plants for sale but today they were down to 3,000.

Aunt Ernestine is looking over the plants to see which ones she wanted to buy.

Frances is helping Ernestine decide which ones would be the best to purchase.

Here is a double-decker wagon load of poinsettias going out the door. Aunt Ernestine said some of the churches buy their poinsettias here.

Here Helen, Ernestine and Frances are relaxing with a cup of hot Apple Cider before taking our plants to the counter to make the sale.
I'm not very good with keeping Poinsettias alive, so I picked out a dwarf lemon tree to grow in a large pot. Frances said the Meyer Lemon is very good, so I took her advice and picked out an Improved Meyer with lots of blossoms on it. It sure smells good.
Only thing I'm worried about; on the tag it says it needs protection when temperatures fall below 40 degrees. Might have to find something at the store to put around it.
From the Poinsettia Farm, we went to the Fruit Vineyard for lunch. It was a fun day. Aunt Ernestine said let's do it again next year.

WHS December meeting

Tuesday, December 4, the Winton Historical Society had their Christmas potluck during their December meeting. It was a smaller crowd than last year, but it was fun.
In the picture above is Rosalie, Ida Mae and Agnes.

Next around the table was Carole, Don, Avanell and Ivaleine. The picture is a little out-of-focus. I don't know what happened here. I must have focused on the flag, which is cropped out of the picture.

Next is Wilene, Marilyn, Hank, Helen and Carolyn. We had lots of good food. Enough for twice as many people. I tried to take a little from each bowl, but then couldn't eat it all. I was really stuffed!!
A few of us got there in the morning to fold the newsletters and get them ready to mail. They went out that afternoon.
It's always a big relief to finally get them mailed out. I'm hoping to have stories earlier next time and be a little more on schedule. The next newsletter will be the January/February issue. We have 29 members who have not paid their dues and they were not sent a newsletter. I had to drop 29 members last year also for not being current with their dues. I'm sure some of these will renew their membership in the society like they did last year. We always get new members during the year and so the membership increases little by little each year. We currently have 210 paid up memberships (households). We're happy to have that many.
A lot of them are out-of-state.

This Saturday, some of the members of the society will be at the Christmas Bazaar at the Winton Community Hall to sell the "Winton Centennial" recipe books ($15.00) and the Souvenir Mugs.
Pictured above is Carole with the festive packages to put in the mugs. In each package is instant chocolate mix, tied with a Christmasy red bell. Very pretty and will make nice little Christmas gifts. Carole did a beautiful job.
So, come out to the Winton Community Hall this Saturday, December 8 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Other people will be there to sell their wares.

Fall Colors

The leaves on my little fruit trees turned yellow. They were so pretty, I had to take their picture. Good thing. Because the next day, Joe and Keith were here mowing lawns.

This was going to be the last mowing of the season, so first Keith blew the yellow leaves off the trees before they were picked up by the mower. Most of the leaves on the cherry trees are still green so he left those alone.
I learned something new the other day. I asked John Esau when I should fertilize the little fruit trees. He said after all the leaves fall off. Otherwise the leaves suck up the fertilizer and and then they fall off and there goes your fertilizer.
He uses the "Tree and Vine" fertilizer that he buys in Ballico. I still have a lot of 16-16-16 that I bought in Merced, so I will use that up before buying the "Tree and Vine." John puts a gallon of that fertilizer around his full-grown trees, but he said to put about a pint around my small trees. So, that's the plan. He will come prune my little trees again this January to be sure they get off to a good start. They need to be shaped properly.

Here is a pretty flower I found at The Greenery in Turlock. It's a Echnacea, commonly known as a Coneflower. This red one is named "Sombrero Salsa Red." It reminds me of a Poinsettia. So much prettier than the more common purple Coneflower. I replanted it in a larger pot. Someday when I get rid of all the Burmuda grass I will plant it in the ground.
Another thing I'll have to do is dig up the flower plants around the fruit trees. Think of how much fertilizer they suck up. I like having flowers around the trees, but I guess they'll have to go.

Fall Time

This is what my Fuyu Persimmon tree looked like in Merced. Every year it was loaded with fruit. I miss that tree. Not to mention the cherry trees and the peach trees and the nectarine. I have the same varieties planted here in Atwater, but the trees are still small.
My sister and I got some persimmons the other day and we were very happy to get them. Carolyn made a Fuyu Bundt Cake today and she said it was really delicious. I'll have to try it too sometime. You can find the recipe here.Carolyn said it's easy to make.
She also made some cookies from the soft (Hachiyas)persimmons.

We enjoyed the fund raiser at the Winton Mennonite School last Saturday. We thought about bidding on items in the auction, but everything went too high for us. We did enjoy our lunch and some candy. It got really cold before the auction was over, so we left a little early. Very interesting afternoon. I did take a few pictures, you can see them at flickr.

Winton Mennonite School

Fund Raiser for the Winton Mennonite School on Central Avenue in Winton.
This Saturday, November 10, 2012. Several Food Booths will be set up where you can choose what you want to eat. Starts at 1:00 p.m. The auction starts at 3:00 p.m.
Come out and support the local Mennonite School in Winton.

Dorothy's Dolls

This is Dorothy, she attends the Atwater United Methodist Church and has donated hand-made dolls for the church bazaar every year since she moved to Atwater. I asked her to pose with the cute clown doll that I bought at the bazaar.
Dorothy celebrated her 103rd birthday this year. She was born in Ohio to Frank and Maude Brown on September 20, 1909. In 1929, she married Fred Buckingham. From Ohio, they moved to Porterville, CA where Dorothy worked in the State Mental Hospital for 17 years.
After retirement, Dorothy and her husband moved to Hawaii. They lived there for 12 years. Fred died in Hawaii in 1981. A couple years after that Dorothy moved to Sacramento to be near her daughter. She lived there for 20 years. The daughter moved to Texas later to be near her daughter and that's when Dorothy moved to Atwater to be near her son.
Both Dorothy's son and daughter were born in Ohio. Dorothy has sewn all her life, making her own clothes and sewed for others. She doesn't do that anymore. Dorothy has been in Atwater for 3 1/2 years. This was her last year of sewing dolls for the church bazaar. She is going to retire. I am so happy to have one of her dolls.