JOHN DAY – Spring has officially sprung! Though, the dusting of snow on Saturday night/Sunday morning wasn’t very promising. But you can still see the little tulips and daffodils working their way up! I wonder how much longer until we have tons of sunshine… hmmmm.

Some news for April 1: meals will be going up $1 seniors and under so lunch will now be $5 and $6. Bingo will also be starting at 1:30 p.m. from then on.

On March 18 our greeters were Everett and Gregg. There were 38 regular and 36 frozen meals delivered by David and Rodney who we appreciate so, so much. This week our meal was served by some volunteers from the First Christian Church; thank you all for being so kind and generous. The meal was BBQ chicken pizza, salad, cheese-filled breadsticks, honeydew melon, and pineapple cherry drop cake.

I don’t recall who won the gift card from Len’s Drug so I am sorry for not mentioning them! The free meals were won by Jean Willy and the sundae dessert donated by DQ was won by Carol Rowe.

Are you guys getting ready for Easter? I love seeing how festive the stores get with all the decorations and such. Hopefully the weather will be glorious for Easter service and all the little ones hunting Easter eggs. I think I’ll start planting in May this year… mid to late? Maybe. It’s hard to plan such things with the weather being as silly as it has been. All I know is I’m itching to get outside and spend time in a garden.

On March 21 our greeters were Everett King and Jeanette Julsrud. There were a total of 48 meals delivered by David and Rodney, and Dennis and Linda Dickinson. Randy Persinger won the Chester’s Thriftway gift card, Joe Phippen won the free meals donated by Valley View Assisted Living and Balbina won the sundae dessert donated by DQ. Our delicious meal was Polish sausage with onions and sauerkraut, mashed potatoes with country gravy, bread and ice cream for dessert.

Shay sends out a big thank you for the help when he was out of town to Linda, Veanne and Jean! Linda would like to thank Jan Ellison for donating items for the silent auction. And I would like to thank all our wonderful volunteers, greeters, workers and attendees for being the best of the best!

Hebrews 12:14 “Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”

MONUMENT – Our cooks, Terry Cade and Carrie Jewell, have been getting pretty creative; they prepared for our lunch on March 19 something new again. We got served Philly style sandwiches, French fries, pasta salad and pudding with whipped cream for our dessert. We had a bunch of happy people who enjoyed the lunch, thanks to our great cooks.

We had Jimmy Cole, Linda Blakeslee, Kristi Guimont and Bodean Andersen greeting everyone at the table. Bodean led us in the flag salute, made the announcements, and prayed the blessing over our meal, Jimmy and Linda collected and counted the money and Kristi helped to check in the guests.

We had a total of 50 guests on the books and ten takeouts. The winners of the free meal tickets were Bill Nichols and Dorothy Jordan and Bob Blakeslee won the gift card to Chester’s Thriftway. Donny Lippert’s aunt and uncle joined us for lunch from John Day.

We had the K-6th graders come and give us a little preview with some songs and actions of the upcoming Spring Concert. Their music teacher, Janessa Pogue, did a great job with the kids. The Monument School Spring Concert will be held on May 22. I will have to get back to you as to the time, for I do not know at this moment.

We had something else exciting that happened at the Monument School. Our girls from Monument School won 1st place for the SKILS program when they presented their project In Portland. They will be heading on over to Nashville! Congratulations to those hardworking girls; we are very proud of them.

There will be bingo for this last Saturday of the month of March. Bingo starts at 6 p.m. with the first set of 10 games, then everyone breaks for a potluck dinner and then will finish the next ten rounds. Come try your luck.

So, I took a better look at Tigger and realized that the big tooth mark on the side of his face was not, and couldn’t possibly have been, Smokey. It was like a fang mark and the size was not Smokey’s at all. Also, I saw Smokey and she didn’t look like she got into a tizzy fight with anybody. She would have had clumps of fur missing or another torn and bloody ear, but no such thing on her. I think Tigger must have been in a death fight with a larger animal. I decided to put some Bag Balm on him.

I think the Bag Balm healed him up pretty well; that is, until he decided to (and this time I believe he was being a big booger and messed with Smokey) get in Smokey’s space again. I’ve caught him eating up all his food and then sneaking over to eat the rest of Smokey’s food. He is kind of on the chunky side so I find it quite amazing that Tigger is able to catch birds! I found some feathers of a poor unfortunate bird the other day.

Proverbs 15:8 “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the LORD: But the prayer of the upright is His delight.”

PRAIRIE CITY – We did it! We survived winter. Spring began at 2:58 p.m., DST March 20. Now, if we can get rid of the Darn Silly Time… we will all feel better!

In our lost and found department is a nice gray/tan sweater vest; it appeared after the reception dinner for Vera Clark. So, if you have any information on whose sweater this is, let us know. We would be happy to return it to its rightful owner.

Tom is still celebrating St. Patrick’s Day, so the centerpieces on the tables were still green clovers. The first table to line up at the serving table had a blue hand in among the clover sprigs. Why? Because once you are in God’s Hand you can’t be ‘plucked’ out, OK?

Our meal was delicious spaghetti and meatballs, a green salad, French bread and a choice of plain red Jell-O or orange with fruit Jell-O for dessert. Thanks to Amber and Barbara for a great-tasting meal. The March birthday recognition meal will be pork chops. Oh boy, oh boy.

Carlos and Jay took care of the home deliveries, Juan led the flag salute and Jack asked the blessing. We registered 46 diners in all!

The winner of the gift certificate donated by Chuck’s Little Diner was Cathy Lewis.

Don’t forget that there are activities before and after the meal in the old hall: Pinochle at 10 a.m. and Tai Chi around 1 p.m. If neither of those interests you, you can always settle down in the library with your choice of books: mysteries, romance, non-fiction, historical, etc. There are still lots of cookbooks to give away, too. If you are still hard up to find something to do, visit the Senior Sales corner back by the piano. New things arrive every week!

Lorna and Krystin brought Marilyn Randall, Gordon Sindt and Lois Wacken from the Blue Mountain Care Center.

We do want to let you know that the board meetings have been moved to Tuesday morning at 11 a.m. to make it easier for all concerned to attend and hear; still on the third Tuesday of the month, though.

Another Prairie City announcement: there will not be a combined church Easter service at the school this year. It was decided that after 25 years, it was time for something different. So if you were planning on attending that service you can do something different, too. There will be lots of different services throughout the county, so you needn’t stay home. Get out and enjoy one or more!

Rom. 12:6 “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us.” I Cor. 4:7 “For who makes you different from anyone else?” I Cor. 12:4-6 “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.”