If it’s the same to you, I’d rather start off this week with something but the weather. I know many a scribe that pens columns such as this that suffer from similar maladies, but seem to continue on the vein. Anyhow, here goes, even though I might have to bring it up on down the sheet. I would remind you that in speaking of sheets, I’m referring as to those that come on a Big Chief tablet. By the time you are reading this, we’ll be ‘bout half-way through the 1st month of the New Year.

We would have to say that the past couple of weeks have whizzed by about twice the speed of the previous 2 weeks what with the Christmas & New Year’s holidays, that each seemed to last a week.

Another factor that seems to drag those days out is that of having lots of “company” during those periods. Most everyone is glad to welcome friends & family to their doorstep,but just as equally pleased to see their taillights leaving the front gate.

We visited some last week at the tailing off of this season’s Pecan harvest, marketing, etc. We are still seeing some of the pickers stirring up dust devils down in the Pecan bottoms, but most of that is some scrapping due to a good number of the nuts not letting go earlier in the season.

The market price out of the orchard usually drops off somewhat after the Holidays, as most of the retail outlets are trying to wind down, but the regular market at the collectors & shellers might stay fairly constant. However, this has been anything but a normal year, so who knows. Though I’ve had my fair share of formal Ag. Marketing education & experience, we have learned one good principle off the loading docks; when you take your commodity to Town & sell it to the highest bidder, that is a pretty good indicator of the market on that given day.

Well, here we go; talking of the weather, I mean. It’s surely a set thing that I could pen an entire column without briefly touching upon the subject.

Actually, a couple of things sort of spurred my attention to this area, earlier in the week. I was perusing one of Jerry Lackey’s, “Windmill Country” articles in the S.A. Standard Times, which touched on several aspects & reports of the severity of the drought around our Hill Country part of the Edward’s Plateau, as well as some of the extremely cold days we have to look forward for the week. Lackey, an ol’ citizen of the Copperas, across the N. Llano from Buck Hollow, up toward Roosevelt, is pretty well known to lots of west Texas Rancho-Americans. Now if you have no idea, as to where this is, then you are not a very confirmed citizen of the Hill Country. You can ask Billie Gauny & she can tell you exactly where it is.

He alludes to a lot of history on droughts in our fair part of the State, and relates as to how this past year ranks along with some of the most dry periods of the Fifties.

Shaw said last week that ol’ “Baldy” Spencer down at KXAN ranked this one as the driest year since ’54. Lackey quoted some as saying the past 5 months are about the lowest rainfall received in measurable times. Daddy & Jr. have been hauling water up to the cows up above Algerita on the Gaddy place the past 4 months, & that defines “dry”!

I was somewhat amused at Lackey writing an entire article on drought, past & present, without mentioning mentor, Elmer Kelton. I’m one of Kelton’s most ardent fans, having read all but a couple of his novels, but I’d have to say that The Time it Never Rained was absolutely the most distressing book I’ve ever read. Let’s surely hope this dry spell doesn’t last 7 years.

The weather man is also forecasting an Arctic front for our area starting about the middle of the week. We’ve already had some cold mornings, but it might get colder. I would wonder what Al Gore & some of his “Chicken Little” friends think of the weather in Minot or Buffalo this winter.

Actually, I have no idea what most folks think might have caused this winter weather. If you care to realize the real reason, Heck, this is the week of the San Saba Stock Show. So, go figure with the Mayor & me out around——————Harkeyville!!!!!