<p>Rose Coombs</p>

JOHN DAY — Our chef, Shay, has been surprised several times lately by donations from the fire camp kitchens that close to have another kitchen take their place. These kitchens do a great service to our state in nourishing our firefighters so they can do a good job to help secure our safety. Thank you, many times over, for all the donations to our center. Shay was delighted the other day when a load came in and all the goodies they brought.

Chocolate milk in individual cartons was one of the items, and our seniors were commenting on how special it was to have chocolate milk, and it was very tasty. The individual items are great for our delivered meals.

Joe Phippen brought in several zucchinis of different sizes. These were appreciated by many, also, as there were none left when I exited the building on Thursday.

We are getting some improvements done in our building to make it appear more inviting.

The Best Western Motel donated some fruit and eggs the other day. Shay was pleased about that also.

The American Legion brought us their leftover hamburger buns from their fair booth. We really do appreciate receiving all these goods that help with our expenses in preparing meals.

Our center delivers approximately 200 meals to residents in the community each week. All these donations help us with this expense.

On Oct. 3, there will be an update on Pacific Source Insurance at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., before and after lunch at our center. For all meeting attendees, lunch will be paid for by Pacific Source.

The Grant County Jammers play and sing at our center every Monday morning from 10 till noon. Some people come in to sit and listen and sometimes someone will dance. We appreciate this good music so much we cannot express it.

All the people who delivered meals this week were: Pati Davis, Becky Reinhart, Barb Comer, Chet and Jeanie Day, Peggy Molnar and Cindy Combs. Thank you, each one, for your service of love for others.

The Methodist Church was represented by Delores Belden and Stephanie DeAngelo and the St. Elizabeth Catholic Church was represented by Barb Comer, Alison, Graham, Marshall and Cora McCosker as servers this week. Thank you all for serving our seniors. Marshall and Graham blessed us with some tunes they have learned, and smiles abounded in the audience. Thanks, boys, for blessing us with your talents.

Our center operates by volunteers. Without volunteers, we could not operate at all. Thanks to each one that has had a hand in even one detail of our center’s operations. Even asking the blessing or leading us in the American flag salute or serving coffee or cleaning a table, and there are so many other duties that are performed by volunteers.

We always love to have Father Christie bless us with a song before he asks the blessing for our meals. He always has a smile and is eager to volunteer for us. A big thanks to you, Father Christie.

Dave Pasko won the Len’s card this week, and Mya won the Chester’s card. Judy Thomas and Gregg Starr won free meals, and Scott Myers won the 50/50 drawing.

A total of 166 meals were delivered to residents of the county, 20 meals were takeouts, and 60 meals were in-house diners. All total, there were 246 meals that went out of our kitchen this week.

Monday, Aug. 19, lunch will be fish tacos with slaw, sweet potato fries, fruit and cobbler. Thursday the 22nd, we will dine on baked chicken, rice, veggies, mixed fruit and pudding. All this talk of food sure makes me hungry.

Psalms 31:3 For Thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore, for thy name’s sake, lead me and guide me.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.

MONUMENT — We’re almost back to “normal” here in Monument. We still have crews that are “mopping up” after the fires. There were crews that felled trees that were dead and dangerous and now there are crews that are going around people’s properties to “smooth” down those dozer lines. My hubby and I are just grateful for all their help. We are thankful for our local heroes as well and when all the dust settles down, we want to thank our locals personally.

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

Our cooks, Carrie Jewell and Christy Howell, cooked us up some chicken alfredo, garlic toast, a fresh green salad, and peach cobbler for our dessert. We thank our wonderful cooks for our awesome meal.

We are praying for our cook, Terry Cade, for her hip surgery. She had been suffering from lots of pain and limited mobility for a long time. We pray that all went well and that her recovery will be quick and very minimal pain. Our God is the great healer! May she have a new lease on life when all is healed!

We want to thank Jan Ensign for generously donating a riding mower to the Monument Senior/Community Center! It was much-needed equipment, for Bob Cockrell had been mowing the lawn with a push mower. We also want to thank Bob Cockrell and Brian Woodell for building a lean-to shed to store the riding lawnmower. We are so blessed to have such handy men around here! LOL.

The Monument rummage sale is accepting all donations except big items like beds at this time. You may donate gently used clothing, cookware, toys, blankets, sheets, and such items.

Loni Lawrence has a letter drawn up to send to our state representatives asking for officials to assist Monument getting a cell tower in. When the firefighters came out, they were pretty surprised that they could not use their cellphones out here to make calls, or anything else for that matter.

Ellie Asher had announcements concerning the Buckaroo. Raffle tickets will be sold from the present until the Buckaroo in September. The four items are a chicken quilt donated by Judy Harris, a DeWalt battery-operated pole saw, reciprocating saw, and a $500 credit toward a firearm from Nydam’s Ace Hardware in John Day. The tickets are $1 each or $5 for six tickets. The winners need not be present to win. Good luck!

Well, the previous week, I decided to move my bottle babies and my bottle baby mamas back up near the house. There were a few wild ones with their groups but it was pretty easy moving them since I could get them to follow me with a bucket of grain. That is the beauty of having bottle babies who are tame. I knew there were a couple of them that I did not get, but I thought I would get them the next day.

So my son and I went to get the other two wild goats and my son found one in an igloo and not looking so good. We managed to pull her out and noticed she was missing her lower jaw. There was a big flap of her mouth sticking out to the side and she just looked miserable. She could not get up to walk either and we figured she had a broken leg. Then, my son looked around and found drag marks all over the pen near the gate to the pasture. She had gotten away from the cougar with her life. She could not eat or drink so we had to put her down. I got over to the house and called our state trapper notifying him of another cougar attack. To be continued …

1 Peter 5:6-7 Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time. Casting all your cares upon Him, for He cares for you.

PRAIRIE CITY — Well, I found out how to combat the grasshopper infestation without using harmful pesticides. Ducks! Neighbor Ruth has a few ducks and they LOVE grasshoppers. And her hollyhocks are gorgeous!! One of her lady ducks is sitting on a nest, so maybe there will be some more little bug eaters next year … and I could borrow some? Hmmm??

It was my privilege to lead the flag salute today. The free meal gift certificate went to faithful volunteer Gwynne. Sharon Thissel asked the blessing. We had a bunch of different kinds of squash to give away courtesy of Kent and Sarah Alexander. Thanks so much! (Isn’t it amazing how many different colors, lengths, sizes, etc. of squash there are?!)

Our volunteers included Mary, Sharon, Gwynne, Tom, Teresa and Pam, and Carla helped out in the kitchen early when Pam W. had to be gone. But she was back in time to dish out the chili for our chili dogs. Pam G. gave us our plates and we headed for the other food table to pick up the rest of our meal.

There was cheese and onions for the entree, then a cuke/tomato salad, peaches, grapes, chips and cottage cheese. For dessert you had your choice of a cupcake or cinnamon roll. I guess you could have both if you wanted! But one was enough for me with everything else! Whew and wow!

What a great meal. You should come and check us out. Today was our dear friend Del Lake’s 89th birthday. So Tom got a cupcake and put a lit birthday candle on it for him and we all sang “Happy Birthday.” And to top it off, his daughter Debra’s birthday is tomorrow! That sequence doesn’t happen very often.

Ginger announced that the school has free eggs! You know, the hens keep laying even though school is not in session and the cafeteria is not being used. So find a school employee and see if you can help free up some storage space.

Next week is our board meeting, and I was copying the financial reports and minutes for that meeting. Everything was working just fine between the computer and the printer until … it didn’t. I told it to do a print job and it just sat there. I am so glad that we have a computer expert in the building! She was done with her home delivery route so she came in and tried to figure out what I did wrong. (Ahem.) Finally, just turned it off and started over. And it acted like it had not caused any distress!!

Which is why I am so thankful for all my acoustical musical instruments. Don’t have to have electricity to play them! I can relate that to the old story about the old cars: They could be fixed with baling wire, a screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Nowdays? Ho, ho and ha, ha.

Prov. 19:25 … the simple will learn prudence; 21:11  … the simple will gain wisdom; Ps. 116:6-7 The LORD protects the simplehearted. … Be at rest … my soul.