Ramona s hen house tea something to cackle about
By JESSICA GILBERT
Ramona correspondent
(785) 965-2621
All of the 74 guests at the annual May tea in Ramona were asked to bring a joke to share with their table and then tell the best one.
"What kind of car did the rooster drive?" A coup of course! How do you keep a rooster from crowing on Sunday? Eat him on Saturday!
County commissioners Dan Holub and Randy Dallke, who came dressed for elegant or casual wearing coveralls and tuxedo shirts, were commissioned to select the best joke.
Dan and Randy stood out in front of the parish hall as the women arrived on Saturday. "I'm the hat inspector," joked Dallke as he eyed every woman's head as they walked in the door. Dan was the first to welcome everyone.
Later in the afternoon the commissioners had to declare the winners in three categories: most elegant hat, won by Wilma Gilmer of Marion, whose hat had a bird nest on top complete with blue bird; most creative hat was Erna Mae Yeagley of Marion, and funniest was worn by Deb Hall of Herington.
"Oh Deb is so creative," said Dee Duggan, Deb's mother, who invited her daughter to the tea. "She called the day of the tea and said 'Mom, I can make you a real funky hat for the tea,' and I told her that I already had my outfit and she should wear it."
Indeed, Deb's creation was funky and funny. She got an 18-egg flat and attached it to a hat and then proceeded to put everything found in a barnyard on that egg flat — we joked and said Deb's hat had everything but cow patties on it!
A Mother's Day corsage was presented to the oldest person at the tea, which was won by Martha Melcher, 91 of Tampa, who came wearing an old-fashioned sunbonnet. And another corsage was presented to the youngest mother, Melissa Brunner and her seven-month-old daughter, Leah Rose from Herington.
The guests were asked to guess how many eggs were used in preparing the menu for the tea (three tea sandwiches, eggplant caviar on crostini, deviled eggs, scones, lemon curd, custard brulee, cheesecake, pound cake, butter cake, chocolate checkerboard cake). The correct answer was 151 eggs. Alice Bell of Herington guessed 150, and Georgia Lehman of Lawrence guessed 152. All these women and others were awarded prizes by Ramona businesses.
One tea guest has been to all of the Ramona teas (this was the sixth) — Lenore Smith of Marion, and she received one of Pat's hand-painted chicken greeting cards.
A delightful finale to the annual tea was the Routh Sisters of Augusta, who play multiple stringed instruments and sing. Playing fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer, banjo, they added a spicy country flavor that got the women clapping on a couple of occasions.
We finished drying the last dish and scrubbing the parish hall floor around 9 p.m. Saturday. Tooltime Tim was with us from setting up tables to making sandwiches to hauling everything back to the appropriate house or office. We also were lucky to have the help of two other men who bring their wives to the tea — our cousin Ed Lehman of Lawrence and David Judd, who has roots in Ramona because his mother, Eldina, was raised in this area.
