It looks like we’ve gotten the Easter Holiday weekend behind us & it usually splits some of the Spring Break off-weeks for surrounding schools. I would imagine that most of the parents were ready for their kids to get back to class, however we are not so sure as to the attitude of the instructors. I don’t know if anyone registered an official freeze for the usual Easter spell, but there was some frost on the windshields and in low-lying areas. Our thermometer showed about 39 degrees at sun-up that morning, but someone said they saw 32. I’d suppose we’d have to check with A.Spence or Jean Sowers for the official on that. Harlan Barker & Douglas Rainbolt are pretty good at weather watching as well.

There has been a substantial increase of activity around the yard & gardens in and out of town the past several days. We are seeing a number of well tilled gardens that still have only Onions showing in the rows. Pretty smart, I’d say. Anyhow, if you have to go ahead & “jump the gun” in setting tender plants out such as tomato & peppers, Abby’s, Ivy’s, and the grocery stores gardening section are really going to be proud to sell some more plants. Of course, if you happen to know how to protect them if we get a freeze warning, you can go ahead & set them in soil. Tennessee B. has put out a few plants in big buckets that came volunteer, so not much loss if they freeze. He can also cover them quite easily if we have a frost warning. I remember watching a couple of competitive gardeners out on the Harper Rd., Kerrville, a few years back that were always trying to out-do the other with Tomatoes. Anyhow, Tex took care to get his plants in early, taking a lot of care & trouble to keep them from freezing. Judge Brown, on the other hand, was a bit more non-chalant and hap-hazard with his Tomato culture. Later in the season as I queried Mr. Hood of their competitive result, he indicated that they all started bearing fruit about the same time, anyway. Probably has something to do with “day-light hours.”

We got to visit with Mr. Draper of Tahoka down at the Do-nut shop earlier in the week. He and the Missus were down looking around our pretty country for a few days. He related as to having sold his farming equipment and tools and was pretty well set upon taking some time off. Draper has been visiting with us for several years on his trips down this way & even stopping in some times as he was ferrying cotton trailers to & from Corpus during the harvest season. He also had some pretty good stories to tell of Ms. Ruby Lee Walker and the ol’ Algerita Store when he’d come down and go fishing on the San Saba with Soap Hardman.

Speaking of the coffee shops and visitors, we got to see Gary Briggs a few times this week as he was down from Oregon visiting with his Mother, Rita. We were visiting about his part of the world and how much water is up in the Northwest and he mentioned their having a wetter than normal winter. I related that even the Angelo Standard Times reported this March as the 2nd wettest on record at somewhere around 4 inches for the total. Four inches might constitute a morning shower in Portland.

David Behrens was in the tree planting business this past Sat., as he’d inherited some surplus trees from the Edmondson Pecan Co. of Harkeyville. They were pretty nice size seedlings and were all of the Pawnee variety. The Pawnee is an early variety with a good size nut of good quality kernels. It is the favorite of Daddy’s as we have one back in the garden that I top-worked for Momma back in ’84. Dr. Tommy Thompson, Pecan Research Geneticist, Texas A&M Plantation, will back Daddy up on his choice as well. J. Byrd and Olan Tisdale are trying to get all their scion wood rounded up for the coming grafting season as well as planting some young trees in the skips. I think the County Agent is planning a Pecan Propagation workshop for some later date in April, but we’re not quite sure of the designated date at this writing.

Now that we’ve gotten past Easter, there are plenty of folks around our parts that usually enjoy the 1st day of April and that occasion of festive foolery. Seems like we’d go a long way to play a joke on someone when we were kids, but have somehow lost a little of the joy of that with advancing age. I do know that Ben Blossman has always been extremely aware of the importance of April Fool’s on the 1st day of that month.

Ms. Lillian had all her crew in and around the Adams house for the Holiday weekend. I stopped by to visit with her a bit and got to see Peter Lee, David, Elaine, Pat and all their crew of kids and so on. All in all, a pretty good gathering for the Mayor & me out around——————Harkeyville.!!!!!!