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| Four Seasons Hemet Herald | APRIL 2018 | 11 April provides longer lighted hours for reading! That's how I view daylight savings time. I've been reading so many books lately that some of the themes have blended slightly. Perhaps I need to slow down. While in San Diego for a couple of days I attended my friend's book club. An author is assigned weekly and you are expected to try to read one of their books a week. Listening to their discussions I realized I tend to go to the same authors limiting my knowledge of different writers. I brought home their "assignment" sheet and am going to start working on expanding my reading preference. Do you find you tend to go to the same writers when you come up for a new book? Challenge yourself to read someone completely different once a month along with your favorites. Is everyone aware that we have movies on DVDs that can be checked out at the front desk? The front desk has the list of the movies available. The list is huge, so do look through it. We also have audio books on CD to be borrowed. They are stored in the cabinet on the left side of our library. Soon it will be RV time and that's when they are really used. We could use more books on CD. Do you have any that you would donate? We have gone back to displaying three months of magazines. It just didn't seem right to have December/Christmas displaying in March. Please bring down February, March and April 2018 at this time. We will donate older ones to the Hemet library. They provide them free to anyone that visits the Hemet Library. Our paperback books are displayed from 2014 - 2018. We have a few 2013 books that will be removed as needed for newer years. Just think how far we've come with our paperback books. They were actually hidden in the bottom cabinets under the hardbacks. Talk about "hard backs," getting up from picking out your book was back breaking. Our hardbound books are displayed from 2007 and up. Four Seasons residents have donated very current books. If it has been a while since you've been here, come peruse the books and borrow one. Everyone enjoyed one of our resident authors, Lynne Spreen's, talk last year that we are hoping to have another Four Seasons author give a talk about their book and writing. Stay tuned for information in the coming months. Thoughts from Blair; What's the difference between a schoolboy and an angler? One hates his books, the other baits his hooks. Committee member Anita Decker read Mambo in Chinatown by Jean Kwok. First Generation Chinese, Charlie Wong, must reconcile her limited world of New York's Chinatown, her father's distrust of all things Western, the dish washing job in a dank Chinese restaurant, with the expectations of becoming more – a new job in Manhattan, a dancer as her deceased mother in China….. Kwok has woven a passionate story where a young woman finds her true capability among layers of setbacks. Sensual imagery allows you to feel the scalding water as Charlie washes mounds of dishes, her pain when her sister becomes ill, the smell of incense when she shops with the local witch for a "Release of Life" ceremony. You will want all things good for Charlie as she struggles to immerse East and West cultures and reconcile the differences. Library Committee Landscape Committee The landscape renovation at the front entrances and parking lot has been completed. As spring approaches we should start seeing all the blossoms start blooming which will provide us with a beautiful canvas of flowers in many colors. The next project the Landscape Committee will begin working on is to restore World Cup where many trees have been removed because of disease and which are in need of replacement along with additional plants to fill in the bare spots. Spring will soon be in full swing which means that right now is the absolute best time to plant everything. Flowers will begin to pop, our fruit trees will begin producing delicious homegrown fruit and all the deciduous trees are starting to leaf out providing us with our amazing summer shade. Spring is the prime growing season. You should be giving your landscape a boost with fertilizers applicable to the kind of landscape you have. The temperatures are not hot right now but keep in mind it is always a good idea to provide your landscape with some mulch. Adding a few inches of mulch can help keep your soil cool during the warmer summer months and warm during the cooler days. Artistic will be applying mulch throughout our HOA maintained areas after April 15 and through the end of the month. Frost damaged plants can be trimmed as soon as the season of frost conditions are behind us. As mentioned before, should you see any landscape problems please bring it to the attention of our staff at the front desk in the Lodge.