May the new month bring you all the good things in life.
|
|
In The Kitchen with
Villages of Westcreek
|
|
No-Bake Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie
|
|
Ingredients
- 1 (13 oz.) package chocolate chip cookies (original crunchy, not soft & chewy) ~ I use Chips Ahoy!
- 1 (9 oz.) prepared graham cracker pie crust
- 1 c. milk
- 1 (8 oz.) container Cool Whip
Directions
- Set aside 2 chocolate chip cookies to crumble on top of the pie.
- Place milk in a measuring cup. Dunk 8 cookies, one at a time, in the milk and place in a single layer in the bottom of the graham cracker crust. (Dunk each cookie quickly or it will absorb too much milk and crumble apart on you.) Spread 1/3 of the Cool Whip evenly over the cookies.
- Dip 10 or 11 cookies, one at a time, in the milk and place in a single layer over the Cool Whip layer. Spread 1/3 of the Cool Whip evenly over the cookies. Repeat to create one more layer of cookies and one more layer of Cool Whip.
- Crumble the reserved 2 cookies and sprinkle on top of the pie. Cover and chill for at least 8 hours before serving.
Enjoy!
|
|
From The Community Manager's Desk
|
|
Welcoming the new 2018 Board Members
Richard Gentry - President
Heather Mallia - Vice President
Judi Cannon - Treasurer
John Steele - Secretary
Bradley Cleveland - Assistant Secretary
Congratulations!
Dear VWOA residents,
May is here and we have a lot of things going on in the community. The pools are now finished, and ready to be used. We fixed several leaks and have had new plaster installed along with new tile and coping. The decks and bathroom floors have also received new surfaces, making for a more enjoyable time for your feet when the summer heat hits. We are very happy with the finished results. We hope you like them too!
Pool Hours
Early A.M Swim Hours
(Beginning June 4th)
Monday - Wednesday - Friday
5:00 - 7:00 am
At Community Center Pool Only
Regular Pool Hours
Monday - Sunday
10:00 am - 9:45 pm
Yards
April showers, bring May flowers. However, the spring rains and summer heat will also bring back mowing season. It is important that you make sure to keep your lawns maintained in order to keep the Villages looking good. Please make sure to bag and dispose of your waste properly. Also, if you know someone who is no longer able to maintain their lawns due to a health or physical limitation, please make sure to let the office know, (210) 679-8761.
Dog Park
There are several benefits a dog park has to offer as far as your pet is concerned. It gives it an opportunity to be free of a leash, an opportunity to be able to roam in a large area instead of being confined to a small fenced-in area or enclosure and it also gives it an opportunity to socialize with other dogs, and with other people as well. In addition, as people are getting out more due to the improving weather, I would like to remind all dog owners about the dog park. It has had quite a bit of visitors since we finished it in 2017, and we would love to see it get more use by your fur-babies. The major bonus to the dog park is - No Leashes!! However, we are still having quite a few people visit the Sports Park with their dogs and not utilizing the use of a leash. To avoid confusion, I simply wanted to remind homeowners that you CANNOT take your pet to the Sports Park without a leash, it is a Bexar County ordinance. It is highly important that you remember to grab the leash.
Staying Informed
I want to highly encourage all homeowners to like/follow our page Villages of Westcreek HOA on Facebook. Please also visit our website villagesofwestcreek.com and subscribe to receive our newsletter and other notifications. We want to keep the community updated with all the events and activities we have to offer. We love nothing more than for our homeowners to continue getting and being involved with the community. We are working hard to continue bringing new activities for the children and adults of our community, so don’t miss out.
Prices & Payments
With many homeowners confused and asking, I wanted to go ahead and provide payment options, along with the prices for the office services.
Payment options
–
- Payments can be made here at the VWOA onsite office during business hours (M-F 9am-6pm & Every 2nd Saturday of the month 9am-1pm)
- Payments may also be mailed to our office, made payable to VWOA, at 12395 Military Dr. West, San Antonio, TX 78253
- You may drop check or money-order in the drop box, located to the right of our front entry doors at the business office. Make sure to include your address on your check/money order
- Cash is accepted in the office
- Credit Card Payments will be accepted only after the homeowner is registered with spectrumam.com
- Pay by Phone 1-877-342-6233 your account number will be needed
Office Service Fee’s
–
- Fax Service- $0.55 per page
- Yard Sale- $16.50
- Replacement Photo I.D. Card-$11.00
- Notary- $7.00 per Notarized Page
- Copies-$0.15 Black and White/ Colored $0.20
Pavilion Parties
With many past issues, we have also decided to now give a free hour before and after pavilion parties to set up and clean afterwards. We came to the conclusion that 30 minutes before, and 30 minutes after was simply not enough time to get everything situated. We do hope that the community will find this change effective. For any questions or concerns, please contact the office.
Best Regards,
Mike Hunsucker
Community Manager-VWOA
|
|
From The Desk of
The Administrative Director
|
|
Pool Season is here!!!!
To ensure that you and your family will be able to enjoy all amenities and events, please make sure your assessments are current and all of the people in your household, 12 years old and older have current stickers on their VWOA ID cards.
Homeowners are allowed to bring 4 guests per ID card but 8 per household.
Along with the normal business hours, the office will be open on
Saturday, May 12, 2018
9am-1pm
|
|
We attempt to keep all of our residents up to date with upcoming events and happenings in our community. If you are not yet receiving our Constant Contact, please take a minute to visit our website, www.villagesofwestcreek.com and add your email to our mailing list. Get Connected!!! Fitness Classes, Swim Lessons, Swim Team, Aqua Fit, Movie in the Park, Painting Party, ETC…
Want an inexpensive, clean and close to home facility to hold your next family function or event? The Community Center, Pavilion and both pools are available for you to rent. We fill up quickly and book parties at the facilities 6 months in advance, so plan ahead and book one of our wonderful facilities now! Please call the office for availability and pricing.
|
|
ACTIVATE YOUR SPECTRUM HOMEOWNER PORTAL
We encourage you to immediately register your online service center account at
www.spectrumam.com
using your account number. If you have any questions, or need your account number, give us a call at 210-679-8761. Homeowners also have the option to chat with Spectrum online using the Live Chat feature or email Spectrum at
contact@spectrumam.com
|
|
CHECK OUT THE EVENTS CALENDAR
WE HAVE NEW CLASSES!!!
|
|
From the Standards Manager
|
|
GETTING YOUR YARD READY FOR SPRING
Just as people speak of "spring cleaning" tasks performed to freshen up a home that has been shuttered up all winter, so lawns and the rest of your landscaping need some TLC at this time of year, to prepare your yard for the growing season. A spring yard cleanup checklist can be divided into five categories of related tasks, one of which truly does involve something of a cleansing: the removal of refuse (natural or otherwise) from your grass and planting beds.
The other types of tasks discussed below involve getting your yard ready for gardening:
·
Pest control
·
Plant care
A thorough spring yard cleanup
readies your lawn
and
landscaping
for summer, but it can accomplish more than just that. In some cases, it will save you from headaches farther down the road.
Spring Yard Cleanup With Rake, Trash Bags, and Scissors
In this first category of spring yard cleanup tasks, you will be picking up after Old Man Winter and any other slovenly bad neighbors you may have to put up with. Roll up your sleeves and start removing:
·
Litter and dog feces
·
Dead grass, leaves, pinecones, etc. on lawns
·
Dead leaves and stalks on perennials
Unfortunately, many neighborhoods contain at least a few thoughtless individuals who insist on being litterbugs. One of the first spring cleanup tasks to tackle is removing the litter they've deposited in the yard over the course of the winter, the sight of which tends to put a damper on even the most pristine April day.
Don some heavy work gloves for this task, as it may involve removing broken glass.
Another unpleasant task in spring yard cleanup is dog waste disposal. It's especially unpleasant when you have to clean up after someone else's dog. There's not much you can do to stop litter, but there is something you can do to help keep other
people's dogs
from defecating on your property: Begin researching
dog repellents
. You don't want to be out there all summer long with a pooper-scooper, do you? And no, don't
compost
dog feces, for the same reason you shouldn't try to compost
cat poop
: Carnivore feces contain pathogens, the removal of which through the composting process is best left to experts.
With the less wholesome aspects of spring cleanup out of the way, let's move on to
lawn care
. If you
raked leaves
thoroughly in the fall, you've aided your chances of avoiding the fungal disease known as "
snow mold
." But, inevitably, there will still be some stray leaves to rake come March. That's all right because even without leaves you would want to break out the rake as part of your spring cleaning work on the lawn. Why? Because a deep raking will also help control
thatch
build-up.
While you're raking
the lawn
, you'll also want to remove pine cones or any other instances of "nature's refuse." Pine cones don't break down particularly easy in a
compost bin
unless they are first shredded. Some people use pine cones in craft projects, such as
making kissing balls
, but, for the rest of us, they're just a nuisance.
Spring cleanup in the perennial bed begins with removing any dead leaves and stalks from perennials and
ornamental grasses
that you didn't remove in fall.
Scissors often work better than pruners for this task (you can get into tight spaces easier with them). For more on spring cleanup in perennial beds, see below.
Spring cleaning outdoors can be tackled in a much more joyous state of mind if you dangle a carrot in front of your nose the whole time. By "carrot" we are talking here about the reward with which tidying up outside culminates: planting and
transplanting
. But first things first. Let's take a look at preparing beds, before getting to planting and prevention issues.
Preparing Planting Beds and Fertilizing
In established perennial beds that performed well the prior year, working in some additional compost around your plants to fertilize them is the best thing you can do (beyond the tasks already discussed). Also remove
weed plants
as you encounter them (plus old, dead growth you didn't remove in the fall) -- no sense in letting them get ahead of you.
While on the subject of compost, note that it's not just for planting beds. Most all of your plants (including the grass in your lawn and your trees and shrubs) will enjoy a feeding of compost in the spring (later in the year, too, for that matter). The
great thing about using compost
as a fertilizer is that you never have to worry about burning plants with it. Compost is nature's slow-release fertilizer.
If you must use chemical fertilizers, always be careful to follow the application directions, because chemical fertilizers will burn plants when used in excess. The one chemical fertilizer that really is convenient (at least in theory) is the "weed and feed" type that contains a preemergent herbicide to prevent crabgrass.
To open up brand new planting beds, you have a few options, including:
·
Using a
tiller
to break new ground.
·
Killing grass
using a smothering method, to convert lawn space into a planting bed.
If you've just opened up a planting bed by breaking new ground, you can be sure that weeds will find it quickly. That's why, in some situations, it's smart to lay a
landscape fabric
over the ground and cover it with a layer of
mulch
(the mulch protects the landscape fabric from harmful UV rays). Many don't like landscape fabric in vegetable planting beds, where gardeners like to be able to reach down, scoop up a handful of soil, and admire its fertility up-close and personal; go with just a straight mulching here (straw is a favorite), if you feel the same way. But in a shrub planting bed, these weed barriers are a great ally in helping you achieve a
low-maintenance yard
.
Planting in Your Prepared Flower Beds
Early spring is a good time to install trees and shrubs and to plant perennial
flower borders
, as long as they're hardy perennials. For annuals and tender perennials, wait till the
last frost date
has passed for your region.
However, if you will be applying a preemergent herbicide in spring to control crabgrass in an existing lawn, it may be better to overseed in the fall.
Prevention: Crabgrass, Garden Pests
Sometimes it's easier to fight weeds before they even emerge, rather than waiting till they rear their ugly heads. The use of landscape fabric and mulch was mentioned above in the context of garden beds, but you can't use either of those on a lawn. That's where preemergent herbicides come into play, particularly for crabgrass control. Spring is the time to use a
pre-emergent herbicide on crabgrass
, and timing is of the essence. Crabgrass seed germinates when the soil temperature reaches 55 to 60 F. You need to apply the preemergent herbicide prior to this juncture. But who wants to keep sticking a thermometer in the ground to see if it's time yet, right? There's a more convenient method, used by the old-timers, and it involves keeping tabs on the flowering shrubs in your area. According to this method, just apply the preemergent herbicide sometime between the time the
forsythias
stop blooming and the
lilacs
begin blooming.
When Is the Best Time to Prune Shrubs?
There are different reasons to remove wood from shrubs. If we're talking about old,
dead wood
or wood recently damaged by winterkill, then the question is quite different in nature from when we're discussing healthy wood.
Yes, trees and shrubs can often profit from a bit of spring cleaning, too. Dead limbs and winter kill on branches should be pruned off. This is the easy part of pruning: Remember, you can't go wrong pruning off something that's already dead. And life and death are "color-coded" on trees and shrubs, just beneath their bark, with brown signaling death, green life. The key is
determining where the brown ends and the green begins
.
When is the best time to prune shrubs, in terms of healthy wood? Here, the question is different, because you can go wrong with your timing. And while dead branches should always be removed, the necessity of pruning off live branches is often determined by one's eye for beauty on a small shrub (to give it a more aesthetically pleasing shape).
The question of the
best time to prune flowering shrubs
is the one that causes people more trepidation every spring since improper pruning will result in the loss of the blossoming displays to which we so look forward all winter long. To simplify, think of it this way:
1.
Shrubs that bloom in spring have to have their buds already in place, on old wood (last year's growth), so that they're ready to kick into action when the warm weather comes; if you prune these branches off, you lose the flowers.
2.
But shrubs that bloom later in the year don't need that head start, blooming instead on new wood (growth produced in the current season).
Group 1 above includes flowering shrubs such as:
·
Forsythia
Wait to prune such shrubs until after they have finished blooming.
Group 2 above includes flowering shrubs such as:
You can go ahead and prune such shrubs in late winter or early spring, if you wish, without fear of losing blooms.
Plant Care in Spring: What About the Mulch Covering Perennials?
Regarding any deep layer of mulch, you may have had covering your perennials during the winter, it is a good idea to monitor the situation to determine when to pull it away so that the perennials can come through unhindered. An exact date cannot be provided for when to remove the mulch protecting your perennials
:
You have to play it by ear, and when exactly you remove such mulch will, obviously, vary according to where you live. But if you've applied a deep layer of mulch, it will eventually need to be scraped away from the ground immediately under which your perennials lie, as otherwise, it may smother the perennials. The best approach, once the ground is starting to thaw, is to begin checking, in late winter or early spring, to see whether your perennials are pushing up. If they are, remove the mulch when it's warm out but replace it when the cold returns (until the cold stops returning altogether).
Plant Care in Spring: Dividing Perennials
Finally, some perennials can profit at times from being divided. Most perennials can be divided in spring, but there are some noteworthy exceptions.
|
|
How Community Activities Benefit Families
A break from school and work means it's time to get out and enjoy all that your community has to offer. Next time you spend an afternoon staying busy with community activities, such as reading programs at the library and youth sports tournaments, think about how much they truly affect your friends, neighbors, and children. Then consider getting involved as a volunteer to make sure these events continue!
Socializing Children
For many little ones, school and community activities are the only places they interact with children their own age. This exposure helps children develop emotionally and mentally within their own peer group. If your child plays in a T-ball league or attends a basketball camp, ask if the hosting organization needs volunteer coaches to round out the rosters.
Keeping Teens Busy
Not all community activities are geared toward young children. Community center lock-ins and teen dances focus on keeping teenagers busy in a safe, constructive atmosphere. If your son or daughter plans to attend one of these events, offer to bring a snack for the teens to enjoy during the event, which helps the agency sponsoring the event offset the cost of hosting.
Bringing Families Together
In some communities, weekend activities bring families together. For example, fundraising spaghetti dinners and pancake breakfasts often become a meeting place for aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents to unite with their families. If one of these events is coming up on your calendar, see if you and your family can help serve dinner or clean up after the festivities.
|
|
Report any suspicious activities or persons to
Bexar County Sheriff's office
at
210-335-6000
.
If you see graffiti or vandalism in the Villages of Westcreek, please report it to the office at
210-679-8761
.
|
|
BUSINESS CALENDAR
May 2018
|
|
"A mother's love for her child is like nothing else in the world. It knows no law, no pity, it dares all things and crushes down remorselessly all that stands in its path." - Agatha Christie
HAPPY MOTHERS DAY TO ALL THE HARDWORKING, DEDICATED, AMAZING MOTHERS!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
