JOHN DAY — Labor Day came and went already and the kids are all back in school, at school or homeschooling. Fall is around the corner and the weather is a little cooler, just right for most of us. Winter will be on its way soon. Lots to think about and lots to do to make all of the transitions.

Our senior center was closed on Monday, Sept. 4, in honor of Labor Day so no news is to be told about happenings here on that day.

On Thursday, Sept. 7, a great crowd of 32 people had lunch at our center. Ten meals were picked up by some folks, and 61 meals were delivered to folks who cannot get out to come dine with others. A total of 103 meals went out of our kitchen today. Shay and Darla did a great job getting all these meals prepared, bagged and served and the kitchen left presentable. The folks who delivered the outgoing meals were Cindy Combs, Rayne Lacey, Jody and Jeff, Peggy Molnar, and Jeanette. Most of these folks are members of the First Baptist Church.

Judy Thomas and Sonie Guttu were at the desk greeting everyone, making sure all were signed in and their names in the drawings for today. Scott Myers led the flag salute to start the day.

Pastor Jeff of the First Baptist Church asked the blessing for our lunch. We dined on beef tips with bow tie noodles (so tasty!), a veggie medley, rolls, and birthday cake from Driskill Memorial Chapel, which sponsored this meal. Thank you, Driskill’s, for the meal, and the cake was beautiful and scrumptious.

Marla (I forgot her last name) won the Chester’s card, and Scott Myers won the free meal. Congratulations to both of you.

The delivery people were our servers as well today. It is always great to see all of these folks, and Pastor Jessie as well. One gal today said she had been here enough times she knows where everything is and can get things done quickly because of that. We are so proud to have each one of you serve our center and do cleanup after the meal. Thank you, each one.

Solutions CPAs has been especially helpful the last two weeks. First they provided us with a large amount of pork, on Wednesday they called and had a big amount of beef for us, and today, Thursday, they came with a huge cooler full of beef again. This is so wonderful. We are so grateful.

Thank all of you at Solutions for caring enough to donate all of this meat for our meals. Hundreds of people each week will benefit from all the good meals prepared with these donations.

Linda and Larry Christensen sponsored a meal for us, so we will announce when that meal will be prepared. Thank you, Linda and Larry, for your love donation.

Linda, our librarian, and her friend, Albert, are growing a garden together, so they brought in a large amount of veggies from their garden to share with us. Thank you, Linda and Albert.

Jim Smith also brought in a bunch of veggies from his garden. Thanks, Jim, your produce is very much appreciated.

An anonymous person brought in two boxes of plums. Thank you, whoever you are, for the plums. Many people got some.

Brian Hubbard donated money to help our kitchen purchase some meat. Shay was pleased as punch to be able to get that. He should have enough meat for a month now. Brian owns and operates the Grubsteak and The Ugly Truth restaurants and has a catering food truck that is seen around town in different locations. He is a busy man. Thanks, Brian, for your gracious donation.

2 Corinthians 5:12 If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature; all things are passed away, behold all things are become new.

MONUMENT —

The mornings have been super-cool over here in Monument. One of the mornings at our place went down to 39 degrees Fahrenheit and on another day it was 41 degrees. Yup, I would say that fall is coming on pretty quickly. I just hope we are all ready for it!

Our faithful cooks, Terry Cade and Carrie Jewell, prepared for us some delicious pulled pork sandwiches with barbecue sauce, curly fries, coleslaw, and peach cobbler for our dessert. I like to mix in the coleslaw together in the pulled pork sandwich. It makes it a crunchy delight!

I also asked our cooks for some jalapenos, which they kindly obliged. I poured some of that jalapeno juice on my pulled pork and it made it a spicy sandwich. We sure enjoyed our meal. We thank our chefs for their awesome cooking.

Our greeter at the table was Sue Cavender. She checked in the guests, collected and counted up the money. Judy Harris led us in the flag salute and made the announcements. Yours truly prayed the blessing over the meal.

We had our wonderful friends from Spray join us for lunch, of course.

The Buckaroo Committee is asking for donations of two dozen cookies from different folks to serve for the meal’s dessert at the Buckaroo.

They are also asking for any pies, cakes, and other sweet goodies for the dessert auction.

There are pie plates that are available on the tables by the front window for anyone who needs a pie plate to use for the dessert auction. There is also a call for anyone who can come on Thursday morning, Sept. 21, to help set up the canopies and tables. Any help would be much appreciated.

There will be about 70-80 gift baskets for the silent auction.

There are about 25 items for the live auction. There will be door prizes. You must be present to win these door prizes, and there will be a special man’s and woman’s door prize.

The Monument 4-H Club will be serving lunch while you can enjoy participating in the various activities going on, such as games, live music, face and rock painting, before the Buckaroo salmon and elk dinner. The dinner will be served from 4:30 to 6 p.m.

The auction items may be paid for with cash, check, debit or credit card. The dinner must be paid for in cash or check only. So you might want to bring a few extra bucks for that special treasure you never knew you wanted and had to have! LOL.

Please look for the flyers all around Grant County for more information. Hope to see y’all there!

While all the busyness of the Buckaroo is going on, my little farm has been busy, too. Remember my Korean melons that I have been excitedly waiting to ripen?

Well, one of them had been dangling on the side of a planter pot. I could not find it one day while watering.

So I was looking around and found the remnant of it. Some pullets of mine had pecked and eaten almost all of it except the small piece at the stem. Darn those silly chickens! Grrr.

Psalms 97:9 For Thou, O LORD, Art high anove all the earth. Thou Art exalted far above all gods.

PRAIRIE CITY —

Did you see the planes go over after dinner today? They were traveling really slow and really low for the size of plane that they were. Even waggled their wings as they flew over downtown Prairie City. Quite a sight!

Lots of other noteworthy things happened on this day in history, too. In 1522, the first circumnavigation of the earth was completed by Magellan’s crew. In 1666, the great fire of London began. In 1839 the Cherokee “Trail of Tears” happened. And in 1997 was the funeral for Princess Diana. Birthdays included Jane Curtin and Jeff Foxworthy. Emily Dickinson commented: “A No. 2 pencil and a dream can take you anywhere.” Dr. Seuss adds: “Sometimes you will never know the value of an event until it becomes a memory.” Amen. So what do you call a male ladybug?

Theresa rang the dinner bell, Ginger led the flag salute, and Theresa asked the blessing. The winner of the $5 gift card donated by Len’s Pharmacy was Lynette Sullens. Our volunteers included Mary, Carla, Gwynne, Sharon, Theresa, Teresa, Tom and Pam. Many thanks to you all. Remember, if you want a jigsaw puzzle, get it before Oct. 1.

The trivia question for first in line was this: What is the rate of occurrence of complete color blindness in the U.S. population? One in 30,000. So remember that when you are looking at all the colors in our beautiful county. And there shouldn’t be any in Grant County since we only have a population of 7,000 or so … ahem. Our fabulous cooks, Pam and Pam, fixed pork chops and dressing, steamed broccoli, applesauce and a huge chocolate macaroon cookie for dessert. Yummy, yummy in the tummy.

Took an excursion to see Son No. 1 over Labor Day weekend. Rode the People Mover to Bend and he had to pick me up there at their fancy new bus depot. I thought I was in a big city when they announced over the PA that “Bus No. 2 is now boarding for South Highway 97.” My, my. I could have caught another bus to Portland … the next morning. No, thanks.

We went to a couple of historic sites in Oregon City. One was the Rose Farm, just east of their home. Found out that a meeting was held at this location to petition the U.S. Congress to declare the area a territory and request that Abraham Lincoln be the governor of said Oregon Territory. They even have the letter to prove that. Mr. Lincoln declined.

Then we journeyed down the hill to the John McLoughlin House, where a man told the story of Dr. McLoughlin in character. He was tall with wild white hair and a beard just like the photos of Dr. McLoughlin. The biography is 480 pages long and he did a good job of telling the story in 30 minutes! Very well done.

A most interesting part was how the house was moved from down on the Willamette River to where it is now up the hill by one horse. Finally found out that the movers had made a specially geared machine to enable the house to move so many inches when the horse had made a circuit around the machine. And somebody figured out how to do that without a computer in 1909!

And the house was built in the 1850s. One room that they did not build in those days was a kitchen. Hmmm. The park guide did not elaborate on that. So I urge you to go see these places. And you will appreciate Grant County!

Zeph. 3:20 … at that time I will bring you home.

II Peter 3: 13 … we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness.