You might have a pretty good notion when you walk into your house, with the AC temp. set on 80 degrees & it feels really cool, that it definitely might be pretty hot outside. Though we’ve certainly had our fair share of torrid temperatures so far this summer, our fair Valley of the Pecan has enjoyed some cooler days earlier in the week.

The cool, breezy mornings the past few days were mostly the result of nearly getting some rainfall. The clouds came brooding in showing much promise, spattered a few drops, then scooted on down the way. We even had some close thunder boomers a couple of mornings, but still little rain to measure.

Looks like Daddy’s gauge had about a half of a tenth showing & that was measuring from the top of the curve rather than the bottom of the meniscus, like Charley Cunningham taught us to do in Biology & Chemistry. Anyhow, as long as it keeps trying, we’ll surely get another rain soon.

The County has actually been getting a good bit of rainfall this

spring & 1st part of summer, especially compared to some of our less fortunate neighbors. We’ve even gone two weeks now since our last rain of any significance, & the fields & pastures are starting to brown.

We missed a pretty good chance at a rain this past weekend, but I did notice in the "Angelo Std. Times” that it rained about an inch out a Mertzon. They’re not

used to much precipitation out that way, so I would imagine that Jim Hooten & Gene Weyerts might be dancing a jig. Some of our Pecan producers have turned the pumps back on & the San Saba has slowed it’s flow in the lower reaches of the Valley.

The River still looks pretty strong up at Ellis Crossing & Maxwell Crossing by Byrd’s bottom. There are even some reports of fisherman trapping some nice sized Hellgrammites up on the shoals.

Shaw & this humble scribe have quit running our lines & resorted to trapping Perch and stocking some tanks in the proximity of our fishing holes, as they went

dry last year, but are in good shape now. As near as we can identify, our Perch trappings have included Sun perch, green Sunfish, Bluegill, and Goggle eye, or Warmouth. Some of the Goggle eye were large enough for the frying pan, but we thought they would raise some more bait quicker than the smaller ones.

For those of you that have been around this area long enough, if you are keeping a keen eye around Town this weekend, you might be able to spy a few more Harkeys than normal.

This Saturday & Sunday marks the Family meeting down at the American Legion Hall in the Park at Mill Pond. Harkeys have been gathering the last weekend of July for some twenty-odd years since the Taylor Harkey side of the Family started getting back together back in the mid-to-late eighties out at the Wallace Creek Center.

Reunion Pres., Larry Horn, noted this as the 21st Annual, but guess we’d have to ask one of the Harkey Boys for verification on that. Family & friends will be at the Legion Hall most of the day, Saturday, visiting, playing dominoes, watching kids go in and out, and looking at a lot of old pictures.

Lunch will be on your own, but the Family fish-fry will take place about supper time. Jimmy & Will take care of a good portion of the frying, but Jerry Harkey& G. Horn sort of supervise the activity. Eddie Ragsdale caught all the fish for the event this year and there are usually good portions of hushpuppies, taters, fried Okra and Squash along with some other sides that the ladies usually fix up.

Sunday has about the same amount of visiting, along with some music & games and quite an array of covered dish dinners, many of which come from the Harkey Family Cookbook.

Barbara & Linda still have some copies of the cookbook available if any of you want to stop by & visit & pick up a copy. Any friends & kin are more than welcome to come by & visit and join us at the table as well. We always invite the Harkeyville Mayor to come by & officially welcome all the out of town members, but if he’s not available, we can always count on 1st Alderman, James B. Harkey to stand in. We’ll be keeping an eye out for all yall somewhere out around———Harkeyville!!