Mt. Vernon resident Billie Bullard, who turned 101 on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022, celebrates her (almost) birthday with friends and family at the John Day Senior Center on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.

JOHN DAY — We are starting a new bingo time. It will be the second Friday of every month at 6 p.m. That will be one time each month. At that time, we will discuss if we like Friday evening or another evening of the week, and if we want to keep it at 6 p.m. We always have bingo at 1 p.m. every single Tuesday. We hope to meet you there. We have a lot of fun.

This week at our center Dave Pasko, Darlene Nodine, Sonie Guttu and Judy Thomas were our greeters at the desk. They saw to it that each person was signed in and their names were in drawings for the day. They also kept track of all the donations, and after lunch they recorded everything and made a bank deposit.

Scot Farmer and Elsie Huskey led our flag salutes, and Carol Clair and Elsie asked the blessing.

Thursday the 21st was our Thanksgiving meal. The room was beautiful, and the tables were set very invitingly. Our cooks outdid themselves making the best dinner ever. Shay went all out to have hors d’oeuvres with his special spinach and artichoke dip. It was wonderful. The turkey was very tender, and the gravy was delicious. Tammy made the best sweet potato pie for dessert, and it was wonderful.

Brett Shagle and Becky Jarney, with Margarite Coombs and Cathy M., as well as the Living Word group, and Ken and Sharmayne Boethin, and Peggy Molnar and Cindy Combs delivered 165 meals into the community and the surrounding area. Thanks to each of you for your service of love for others.

We had 42 takeout meals and 65 in-house diners this week and with the 165 delivered meals, we had 272 meals sent out of our kitchen this week. Congratulations to Shay and Tammy and the ladies that help in the kitchen.

Carol Claire of the Living Word, and members of the Methodist Church represented by Delores Belden, Cathy Smith and Becky Karry, were our servers this week. All their kindness and smiles and hard work made our days brighter.

We want to recognize Ari for her hard work to help us in tedious tasks to make our cooks’ time spent easier. Thanks, Ari, for being so special and helping. It is so important to have our volunteers. Each one is special and so needed and we thank all of them, you and me, for doing our part to keep our center functioning smoothly.

Mt. Vernon is having their winter bazaar at the community hall. There will be food, gifts and crafts. It will be a fun time and lots to see and share with others. Have a good time, everyone.

On Christmas day the Palmers will be hosting the Christmas dinner as they do so well. Dinner will be served at noon and is their gift to all of us. Thank you in advance, Palmer family. We know the whole family spends their whole Christmas day doing this meal for our community.

Charlene Farmer, her husband, Tina Young, Stacie and Bob ? and Vern won the drawings for this week. Congratulation to all of you.

Monday the 25th will be the last meal of this month, so come and see what good dishes our kitchen has to share with us.

John 3:16 For God so loved all of us, even before we were born, that He gave His only begotten son to die for us, that we might have life everlasting.

MONUMENT — Apparently there have been some freaky storms around Southern Oregon and parts of Washington. This storm took out power and some people have been without power for a few days. My hubby’s childhood friend lives out somewhere in Kent, Washington, and has been without power for at least five days and is hoping to have it back on sometime in a day or so. Luckily, she has a generator that is helping to give her some power in her house.

Our greeters at the table were Bob Cockrell and Sue Cavender. They checked in all the guests, collected and counted up the money. Bob led us in the flag salute and made the announcements. Yours truly prayed the blessing over the meal. The lucky winner of the free meal ticket was Lonnie Lawrence.

Our cooks, Terry Cade, Carrie Jewell and Christy Howell, made us our wonderfully delicious turkey meal. We were served turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, green bean casserole, dinner rolls, and pumpkin cake for our dessert. It was super quiet while everyone was partaking of the feast! LOL. I guess everyone was really enjoying the yummy food so much that no one was talking for the first half of the lunch! We thank our wonderful cooks for a most excellent meal, and we also thank Diane Harvey for helping back there in the kitchen.

We had some new neighbors join us for our lunch, Mike and Kristi. They are now part of our community. We hope they enjoy our little town.

We celebrated Ms. Sylvia Cockrell’s birthday (Nov. 21) and sang the birthday song for her. I won’t reveal her age as Mr. Bob did for all the readers, but she looks wonderful and she looks decades younger than her real age!

Monument bingo night will be Saturday, Nov. 30. The time will be 5 p.m. They play 10 games, share a potluck dinner, then play 10 more games. Each card to play is 25 cents per game.

It’s been super dark and gloomy over here in Monument. Mud season has commenced also. I thank the Lord for the moisture and the rain. I’m just holding my breath for the snow.

My mama goats are now with different billygoats. It was way easier to move them around since they are tame and friendly and were bottle fed. I will just keep them with the boys for a couple of months and move them around again. I have a bunch of babies that were born in the spring. I still need to sell half of them. They are still pretty tiny and cute.

God is good all the time. I went out to put fresh straw in the goat shed and thought to myself, “Wow, it is not as dark in here as usual.” Well, that was because there were some loose metal sheets flapping when the wind blew! Yes, the metal roof was flapping in the wind and letting in some light in the back of the shed. Well, we had to fix that in a hurry before it completely blew off. I just praise the Lord all the day long for His direction!

Psalms 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Thy loving kindness. According unto the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

PRAIRIE CITY — And a happy Thanksgiving to you. We enjoyed our traditional annual special meal today and our fabulous cooks, Pam and Pam, went all out. They prepared turkey and everything else that goes with this meal. You name it, we probably had it!

Yes, we had turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, green salad, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, applesauce, and pumpkin and apple pies with whipped topping. We also had juice, milk, water, and coffee, along with hot water for tea. The juice today was orange/kiwi. It runs a close second to mango for tastiness.

Ginger did the announcements, Ron led the flag salute, and Tom gave us 10 seconds of silence for us to count our blessings before he asked the blessing. The winner of the free meal was Jean Kline. Our volunteers included Mary, Sharon, Gwynne, Teresa, Natalie, Janet, Tom and Misty and another helper in the kitchen. We appreciate the addition of new volunteers … and new faces among the in-house diners! Thank you for coming, and come again!

We also celebrated assistant cook Pam’s birthday with a candle in a slice of pumpkin pie!

Remember, there will be no meal on the 27th. Our next meal will be Dec. 4.

Did you know that the Blue Mountain Eagle is the only small paper in Northeast Oregon that still publishes a senior citizen column? That got me to thinking about the olden days of the “community news,” where the items were all about who visited whom during the week.

And the names of the ladies were never given — it was Mrs. Tom, Dick or Harry Jones who visited, never Mary, Susan or Betty Jones. And if they went out of the county, that was BIG news.

And now there is no society page with the news of bridal and baby showers, weddings, births, church activities, club doings, school functions, etc. It’s all on your phone. “Beam me up, Scotty.” And if you don’t have a smart phone, you are out of the loop. And I don’t mind that at all! If you need me to know something, I’m in the book.

Well, I didn’t find the snow shovel before the deluge. So I just waited until Saturday to clear the sidewalks. Called son No. 2, who was in Portland, and reported that I had 6 inches of snow and the power was off. He just laughed! Bear Valley had twice as much! It has all gone into the ground now, so the next batch can come with no problem, right? That should help improve our drought situation.

I have received the first garden seed catalog for 2025. Whoa! That’s kinda rushing things, isn’t it? Maybe not for those who get to plant by April. Did you know that there are over 50 varieties of tomatoes?! That’s a cornucopia!

Gen. 1:11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation. … Prov. 15:17 Better a meal of vegetables where there is love than a fattened calf with hatred. Job 37:6 He says to the snow, “Fall on the earth.” … Isa. 55:10. The rain and snow come down from heaven (making the earth bud and flourish). … Dan. 7:9 … the Ancient of Days took His seat. His clothing was as white as snow.