JOHN DAY — It has been a big week at our senior center. Some maintenance was done, some construction was in the works, planning for events in November and people in and out. The Grant County Jammers played in our building on Wednesday evenings for four or five weeks while waiting to go back to Valley View to play. Valley View had some COVID in the building, so no one was invited in. We got some new furniture for the office and we had to put it together, four of us reading instructions and putting all the parts in the right places. Things will be better with this new furniture. The work in the kitchen hallway will assist our cooks with more space and will be a lot more pleasing to the eye.

Monday, Oct. 23, Dave Pasko and Darlene Nodine were at the desk greeting everyone who came by to check them in for lunch and put their names in the drawings. Vern Pifer led our flag salute. We had 17 in-house diners.

Fifty-five fresh meals and 76 frozen meals were delivered throughout our community and surrounding areas to folks who cannot be out and about and lunch with us. The folks who delivered these meals were Jeff and Jodi Cyphers, Jeanette Julsrud, and George and Susan Sintay.

George Sintay asked the blessing, and we dined on ham and cheese hoagies, tomato-rice soup and orange cake. Everything was so good.

Mark your calendars for Nov. 6 and 9. We are honoring our veterans these two days. Lunch is free for all veterans and their spouses. Our country is safe because of our veterans. They deserve some recognition.

Prayers have been going up for Tim Nodine, who was suddenly struck with a paralyzing illness. He is alive and recovering so far, and thanks goes to our heavenly Father who listened and answered all of our prayers.

The CyberMill in Prairie City has been giving classes to help all seniors with all the new technology we are forced to use these days. So far it has been a great success and no charge to the attendees. They participated in helping seniors get the newest flu and COVID inoculations as well. CyberMill partners, you are doing a great job and are very much appreciated.

Mary Ellen Osborne won the Len’s card, and Deda Porter won the free meal. Congratulations to both of you.

On Thursday, Oct. 26, Sonie Guttu and Judy Thomas were the greeters at the desk to make sure everyone was signed in and got their names in the drawings. Elsie gathered information and did the announcing, and Bobbie Gilmore led our flag salute.

Fifty-one fresh meals were delivered throughout our community and nearby areas by Valeda Grant, Buzz and Bobbie Gilmore, and Frances and Bonnie Kocis.

A big thank-you to all of you drivers for your time and love for others.

Members of the Lutheran Church were our servers for our special Halloween pumpkin meal. Valeda Grant, Buzz and Bobbie Gilmore and their grandson Blaine were the participants. They all did a great job. Buzz asked the blessing before we dived into this pumpkin meal— pumpkin soup, green salad with roasted pumpkin croutons, pumpkin quiche and pumpkin magic cake. Some of this I had never heard of before, and other folks said the same thing. We were all curious about how pumpkin everything would taste. It was just swell. All the curiosity led to everyone paying attention to how all these dishes were tasting. Shay did a great job putting all of this together, and Darla did a great job on that cake. On Monday, Oct. 30, lunch will be beef potato bake. We’ll see you all there. There were 27 in-house diners today.

The Inland Northwest Musicians will be holding a concert at the Canyon City Community Hall at 4 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28. The concert has no admission but donations will be greatly appreciated.

Dec. 1 will be the annual Carrie Young Memorial Dinner and Auction at the Elks Lodge. Most everyone knows what a great event this is and what it does to help people across our county that have needs. Thank you to organizer Lucie Immoos for all you do to make this event a success. You heart is full of love for others, and that has many rewards for you.

The Grant County Library is hiring, so check it out. This is a great place to work.

Blaine Gilmore won the Chester’s card, and Marla won the free meal. Congratulations to both of you.

Psalm 91:11-15 He shall give His angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. He shall call upon me and I will answer Him. I will be with Him in trouble. I will deliver Him, and honor Him.

MONUMENT —

It’s been super cold in the mornings over here in sleepy little Monument. We even went down to the teens in the temperature department. Brrr! It’s the kind of temperature that if you stop moving around, no matter how many warm layers of clothes you have on, that bitter cold will get ya! I think I may want to have a little fire going in our fire pit and roast some marshmallows. Yum. Doesn’t that sound nice? And oh, let’s not forget a nice hot cup of cocoa to go with it!

Our cooks, Terry Cade and Carrie Jewell, made us another new item in their cooking repertoire of food dishes. They made us taco bake, which had cornbread on the bottom, ground beef, cheese and sour cream. We then had all the fixings to top it off. It seemed to be another hit for our cooks. We also had cinnamon rolls for our dessert. We thank and appreciate our awesome cooks!

Our greeters at the table were Sue Cavender and Linda Abraham. They checked in all the guests, collected and counted up the money. Ellie Lucas led us in the flag salute and made the announcements. Yours truly prayed the blessing over the meal.

We want to thank Judi Bustardo for her very generous donation of $1,000 to the Monument Senior Center. We thank her immensely for her support of our facility and its operation.

Will and Meg Jewell’s baby shower will be on Sunday, Oct. 29, at the Monument Senior Center at 11 a.m.

The cooks would like to request that if anyone wants to order takeouts for their lunch on Tuesdays, please call no later than 10:30 that morning.

The annual Monument Christmas Bazaar will be happening on Dec. 9 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. If you would like to have a table to sell your goods and items, the cost is $15. The setup time for your table will be at 8 a.m. For more information and to reserve a seller’s table, please give Jeannie Strange or Judy Harris a call. Our EMTs will be selling and serving lunch. The Monument Senior Center will be selling maple bars.

There is a Christmas gift basket raffle going on. Tickets are $1 for one ticket or $5 for six tickets. The lucky winner will be drawn at the Christmas bazaar. You need not be present to win this item.

Mac Mckenna was the lucky winner of the free meal ticket.

We have lost a couple of our goats to a cougar running around here. He has discovered that there is a very easy meal at our place. He killed Kidd, but since Kidd was over 70 pounds, he could not get the body over the horse fencing. The other goat was Paintbrush. She was an adolescent that only weighed about 30-35 pounds. We got the government trapper to come out, and he and his hounds found her, or what was left of her. My son-in-law and daughter saw that cat run across the road from our place to the neighbor’s in September. To be continued …

Proverbs 16:3 Commit thy works unto the LORD and thy thoughts shall be established.

PRAIRIE CITY —

Hm. Guess lots of people took one look outside at all the lazy snowflakes falling and decided to stay home by the fire today. But it cleared off into a beautiful day! And we had a wonderful meal of a chicken burger, tater tots, all kinds of fresh fruits and veggies along with a Halloween-decorated birthday cake sponsored by Driskill Memorial Chapel. It is too bad that we don’t get to see the birthday cake before it is cut up into serving portions. This one was quite the scene! The entree sponsor was Ginger in memory of her late husband, Blaine Kendall.

The flag salute was led by veteran Jim Howard. We did get to give away the $10 in trade gift certificate donated by Huffman’s Market. It went to Joy Caffey. Theresa asked the blessing and proceeded to the trivia. Today was National I Care About You Day along with it being Greasy Food Day. Do those two go together? Pablo Picasso and Minnie Pearl were born on this date. Did you know that candy corn was originally called “chicken feed”? Can see why they changed the name, can’t you? I don’t know who counted it, but the candy company produces 9 billion pieces each year. That comes to 35 million pounds. So if you eat 1 pound at Halloween, you have joined 35 million others in ingesting colored sugar. On the other end of the spectrum, Elon Musk made $25 billion in one day in 2021. You can look up how …

Our faithful volunteers for this day included Ginger, Sharon, Mary, Delores, Theresa and Teresa. Of course, Pam is doing her duty at the registration desk.

And everybody did a little volunteering by bringing their chair to be placed on the stage so we could mop the floor after dinner. That helped a heap! ’Tis nice to have a floor that can be mopped easily. We extend thanks to the state of Oregon for the grant to have the new flooring installed. That makes two out of the three projects we applied for finished. Next year the building will get a new metal roof and gutters.

Wheee! We have already identified some more items that need to be addressed and will be applying for grants for those, too. So when you see the phrase “your tax dollars at work,” think of our center … and not some government boondoggle, OK?

In the hundred years that the Prairie City Grange and Prairie City senior citizens have been using this building, it has been the custom to allow others use of the building for a nominal fee to cover utilities. Sometimes there was even no charge for certain funeral dinners and such. The building has a permit for 114 people in the dining hall for such events. The insurance companies take a dim view of such activities, and are very close to requiring us to ask you to purchase event insurance for any activity held in the building. So this is a word to the wise: You may have to not only pay for the utilities, but also provide your own event insurance. Such is the way of the present world. It is not the building owners in the country who are going to require this extra expense. But they are caught between a rock and a hard place with the insurance companies. We have to comply with all the rules and regulations, so we are letting you know what’s coming down the pike. (My, there are a lot of old adages in that paragraph!) We are sorry, but there’s not a whole lot we can do about it.

Zech/ 9: 9, 10 Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation. … He will proclaim peace to the nations. His rule will extend from sea to sea … to the ends of the earth.